What Do You Do If There is a House Blocking Polaris?

Worst of all, it is your house? Getting a telescope mount lined up true North which is within a degree of Polaris is very important.

I am using my Losmandy GM8 mount at the moment while waiting for an 8 pound counterweight to properly balance the G811G goto mount.

The GM8 is not goto. This is a very solid older mount. The solution:

1. Align to North as accurately as Google Maps allows.

2. Pick an object in the sky with a known Right Ascension and Declination. Google "Jupiter RA and DEC right now". 

3. Center the telescope on it and see how far from that DEC the declination setting circle is. In thus case, it should be +22 degrees. Move the polar axis in whatever direction seems most likely to correct it to the correct DEC. On the GM8, there is a azimuth adjustment screw good for several degrees either direction. 

4. Keep moving polar axis until recentering Jupiter, in thus case, gets it at +22 degrees. You are aligned with the universe's coordinate system. You chi is probably adjusted now as well as a besutiful aura.

5. The RA axis circle is only lightly bound to the polar axis. Turn it until the RA there matches the RA of the object.

6. Whatever you want to see, turn declination axis to that DEC and polar axis to that RA. You are done. As long as you do not move that driven RA setting circle and keep the clock drive running, you are set for the night!

AI

 As I continue to grade papers, I see troubling items. Sometimes not AI. From a comment on a paper:

No page numbers or headers are often signs that a student copied and pasted from an AI program. There are enough grammar errors and clumsy sentences that I doubt you used AI, unless it was developmentally delayed AI.

Another paper with AI fingerprints all over it.  Some of these, even if not provably AI, are so bad that many AI programs need to go to college. Vague, general, shallow obvious statements with references to unnamed documents. Has anyone figured out where we go after AI? Assuming colleges and universities still have a use.

I Do Not Generally Repost Memes, But This Was Too Good

The Voting Dead

 No, not a sequel to The Walking Dead. 4/29/26 Fox News:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections identified approximately 34,000 dead people on the state's voter rolls following a comprehensive data comparison with a federal database.

Earlier this month, the NCSBE submitted over 7.3 million voter records to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database as part of an initiative to strengthen the accuracy and integrity of the state's voter registration list. The NCSBE clarified that the identification of deceased individuals on the state's voter rolls does not necessarily indicate illegal votes were cast.

"While we expected to find some cases, this is higher than we anticipated," Sam Hayes, the executive director of the State Board of Elections, said in a press release. 

Hence, why Blue states are resisting DOJ efforts to remove the dead from rolls. It is too tempting to cast mail in ballots for the dead.

A Nice Surprise: Taiwan Not PRC

It was time to start the sprinklers and nothing happens.  The pump does not sound happy. While waiting to get someone to look at it, I ordered an oscillating sprinkler to keep the lawn from dying 

One of the Few California Imports That Does Not Inflate House Prices

If you do not recognize those orange-yellow flowers, they are California poppies.

King Charles' Speech to Congress

Astonishing speech. Emphasizing the special relationship and that Christianity is the underlying base of both governments. Funny in places. Something I did not know: when the monarch speaks to Parliament they take a member of the House of Commons hostage. The problem is that they often are treated so well that they do not want to leave. He wondered if the same was true here.

He of course emphasized the shared security interests of our nations and mentioned Ukraine. He also emphasized in an indirect way that the Iranian people need to be recognized as victims of oppression. 

Of course, global warming indirectly mentioned. It appears the Joint Chiefs and Supreme Court were there. Trump was not for the same reason that VP and President never travel on the same plane.