Hodgson Observatory

*On May 24 2008* the SEAC began the raising of the astronomy education building at the Hodgson Observatory. The weather was quite blustery with high winds coming from the East between 20 and 30 MPH. The morning began quite cool and warmed into the mid 60′s by noon. Due to the winds and very soggy soil conditions from rains the night before, we were only able to frame three walls. The walls were left laying on the concrete pad as the winds were quite high at quiting time. Good progress was achieved though on the first day.

*May 25 2008* and the second day of the build commenced. Weather was very humid and windy again. Things moved well though with a wall going up about every hour and a half. We broke for lunch after all four walls were up and staked. After lunch we started sheathing the west wall. We shut down construction around 3:30pm as most were tired from the last two days of hard labor. All agreed that it was a job well done. After checking square on the diagonal part of the builbing we found that it was within 1/8″ of square! Excellent! We were all very pleased with our work.

*May 30 7:30 am*. I just returned from a site inspection after heavy rain and high winds in excess of 60 mph last night. I am glad to report that I could find no damage to any of the buildings on site. The new construction held up to the high winds, however the heavy rain has made the site to muddy to continue with the sheathing. We will have to cancel the construction planed for Sat May 31 2008. The dirt work around the slab is just to soaked to walk on. Also the road coming in from the North is impassible. The alternate route from the East and South are marginal at best.

*Saturday June 7 2008*. The weather was co-operating with us and we had a good start to the day. Our plan was to finish sheathing the frame work and cut out and install the doors. We also wanted to get the trusses in side the framed building and ready for flipping and installing. We also got some mowing done around the main house. Work went smoothly and all goals were achieved by 3:30 pm.

Link to Part 2: "http://www.hodgsonobservatory.org/?p=286

Jim, Anita, Paul, Jo, John and myself started framing the New Astronomy Educational Building. Saturday was cold with high winds, Sunday was a mugging day in the morning but nice and sunny in the afternoon. I just uploaded new pictures to the gallery.

From the Menu Click Gallery to see the latest picture of our progress..

Adverse weather this month again hindered our observing efforts with a mid-month snowstorm and frequent clouds and high winds. The New Moon Saturday gathering met for a pot luck supper and we had a number of good discussions about equipment and observing. Unfortunately, the winds and clouds again prevented our observing.

 Solar disk observations made with the 203mm (8-inch) reflector on April 7 and 26 showed no sunspots visible. A few spots have been reported, but are gone when we can look. April was both a cloudy and windy month!

There were only two extended night-time observing sessions in the month. On April 13/14, JJ (John Johnson) came down from Sioux Falls with Joe Brown bringing JJ’s 508mm (20-inch) Obsession telescope. JJ observed a gibbous Moon in the sky along with Mars, Saturn, and the brighter globular clusters. Two impressive planetary nebulae that he saw, in spite of moonlight, were NGC 3203, “the Ghost of Jupiter” in Hydra and NGC 6542, “the Cat’s Eye” in Draco, whose central star dazzled like a diamond. Dick also viewed brighter globular clusters: M3 in Cannes Venatici, M53 in Coma Berenices, and M13 in Hercules.

On April 19 (CDT date) Dick, observing alone, spent over two hours viewing the Saturn system in detail, seeing classic satellites Enceladus out through Titan, all in spite of a very bright full Moon. It was good to have temperatures above freezing!