Posts Made By: Fred Lusk

My state (CA) has been VERY pro-active, assembling the key political leadership decades before this recession was even dreamed about. We now have the entire Keystone Cops crew on hand to manage the crisis, aided by the Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, and other illuminaries. That's the advantage of having Hollywierd within our borders. 8) :C > 8O :S

She just mad that Bill got a date (two actually).

Lee…

I've eaten gator. Tastes like chicken, just chewier.

Fred

1973 Mazda RX-2 4-door with 4-speed manual transmission. I bought it from my dad in 1976 when he got a pickup.

At the time this little rotary rocket was the second quickest car coming out of Japan after the Datsun 240Z, then 3rd when the RX-4 came out. Zero to 60 was about 9.8 seconds, which actually makes it the slowest of the cars I have owned (1987 Buick Century with 3.8L, 1998 Jeep Cherokee with 4.0L, and 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee with 4.8L). However, it FELT quicker, probably because it was so light and had a manual transmission. There's nothing like revving a rotary up to 7000 rpm, it just screams. This is also the car in which I set my personal speed record: 115 mph. I don't endorse this type of behavior any more.

Gas mileage wasn't so good (13-15 around town and 18-22 on the freeway), but it sure was fun to drive. Also, I could make it backfire on command.

Impressive. Lots of detail.

Are you sure that's not actually a canteloupe???

Fred

Obviously one smart girl, who outsmarted all the "smart dudes" at Warner.

Robert…

One way to find out what your AC powered equipment actually draws is to get a "Kill A Watt" meter by P# International. There are several, and Amazon carries them. I have the $34 version.

Your AC adaptor is rated higher than your laptop actually draws, so you should be able to get more than operating time. How much, I can't tell.

Fred

Here is our site at Courtright from the weekend of July 16/17.

These next four are Milky Way shots, all with the 50 mm at f/5.6. First is Cygnus for a duration of 43 minutes. I should have let it got a bit longer to brighten the North America Nebula. I have learned that Fuji Provia and Kodak EliteChrome have better reciprocity characteristics than some older films, and going another 15 minutes would have helped.

This is a true story that I wrote up for our club newsletter....but without the referenced photo.
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THE NIGHT CVA SAW TWO BARES ON HALF DOME

By Fred Lusk

KIDS, COVER YOUR EYES :-)

First the moral to the story:

If you plan to get naked to celebrate your accomplishment of hiking to the top of Half Dome, please don't do it on a Friday or Saturday evening. That's when the Glacier Point Star Party series occurs (has been every summer weekend since 1973). Before it gets dark the amateur astronomers use their telescopes to show the tourists the sights, and that includes the top of Half Dome. Also, if you're built like Barney Fife, don't do body builder poses.

One final point. You may be 2.5 miles from Glacier Point and think nobody can see you. However, at 75x it's as if you're 176 feet away, and at 200x it's more like 66 feet. Our eyepieces easily give us these magnifications.

Here's what happened:

We started setting up telescopes at the Glacier Point Amphitheater around 6:15 p.m., which was more than 2 hours before sunset. There was a wedding just getting started at the bottom of the amphitheater. Actually, by the looks of the couple's little girl, the wedding should have happened about 3 years ago, but I digress.

After I set up my telescope, I showed various tourists such things as the top of Nevada Fall, some climbers on the face of Half Dome, hikers on top of Half Dome, hikers on North Dome, Cathedral Peaks, Mount Hoffman, etc. Other CVA members were doing the same thing. During breaks in the tourist traffic, I attached my Olympus E-1 DSLR and took photos of many of the same things.

Right after I took the last photo, I removed the camera and reinstalled my 27 mm Panoptic eyepiece. The camera gives me 81x and this eyepiece gives me 75x, so the views are almost identical except that the image is much clearer through the eyepiece than through the camera's focusing screen.

You will notice in the photo two people, a gal near the edge (left) and a guy further inland (right). I estimate these two hiking partners are in their early to mid 20s.

Just as I put my eye to the eyepiece I saw the girl pull off her shirt and drop her shorts. Her male hiking partner was just a moment behind. I couldn't believe it, so I called Dale over. His reaction was “Oh my God, there are nudists on top of Half Dome.” A couple of the other scopes were already on the same scene, but Dale and I were first to react. Now, of course, the rest of the scopes focused away from the climbers and on to the exhibitionists. The tourists got a big kick out this, and we all kept their kids away from the scopes. This will certainly be their most memorable star party ever.

One of my fellow CVA'ers jokingly suggested I get a photo, but I declined. Even though it might have made a striking cover for our annual wall calendar, that's not the look I was after.

----Grandpa Fred