Ayatollah Khamenei Dead

It was apparently a pretty effective decapitation strike. Some are speculating that IRGC officers may have betrayed the leadership. 

I wish I could hope that whoever is still in charge will put the interests of the Iranian people ahead of their pursuit of power but the 30K+ killed by the government last month give me little hope for that.

I Have Had Questions About the Email Sending Problem

Thunderbird was not the problem. There are vendors of IP blacklists for either users or ISPs with systems that spam, or are infected. Somehow, Sparklight ended up blacklisted. This should surprise no one. Lots of people spam for a living; I know one person who did for a couple years before his conscience got in the way. My mail host relies on the blacklist services. They whitelisted my IP. The problem persisted.

Somewhere within their SMTP server, my now legitimate emails were getting stored in the Sent folder and then quietly, without warning, discarded. I do not why, but they fixed it.

Handling Something Scary

 One of the reasons that I do not pull my Televue-85 out and use it as often as I would like is that it is a very expensive telescope.  To put it on the mount requires holding the tube with one hand while putting it in the dovetail while using the other hand to tighten the clamping screw.

As I( was putting it on the mount last night I realized that I have a solution staring at me. This is the 3" Televue clamshell ring:

This ring both simplifies positioning it on a mount and attaching various finder attachments. Those are 10-32 screw holes. After a long useful chat with SuperGrok attempting to find a furniture handle with the right dimensions, I realized the solution is to buy a 4" x 2" x1/8" wall rectangular aluminum tube. Cut a .625" slice, then drill through holes 1.25" apart in one side. Sand everything smooth run it over the polishing wheel, and use some stainless steel socket head screws to lock it down. The hole will fit my hand comfortably and I will be far less afraid to mount it with a really solid grip on it.

I can convert the rest of that 12" tube into 15 more handles for sale. There is almost no labor involved. Cut the slice, mill to .65" wide. Put in mill and drill two holes in one side, sand with 320 grit, then polish. I suspect that I will find vuyers.

One of My Favorite Jefferson quotes concerning the English Class System

 And of course, slavery as well: The peasants are not subhuman, just a lesser class of humans whose natural function is to work so that we may do important things that they barely understand. See Jefferson's description of this: "the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god."

In Case You Missed It, the Haggling With the Rug Merchants is Over

We have been at war with Iran since 1979. During that time, they have murdered Americans, executed rspe victims and homosexuals while America's leftists have made excuses or rewarded them with pallets of cash. 

Whatever his failures on breaking the Deep State, he is doing what no President has had the courage to do: attack a self-admiited enemy of the United States.

Pray for flight crews of America and Israel and the suffering Iranians who need to destroy what little will remain of the mullahocracy when this is over.

And note carefully: no ground troops. If the Iranian people cannot defeat their own oppressors, it is not our job.

Public Astronomy

I assisted Boise Astronomical Society with a star party at Future Public School in Garden City. The name sounds like someone had a planning map for a subdivision and wrote Future Public School in a box and someone assumed that was the name not a projection.

This was in late afternoon so we were limited to the Sun and the Moon. The Sun has a pretty decent sunspot right now that is very big, many Earth diameters and a few freckles right at the limb.

Lots of polite kids very excited to look. There is a future for America. A couple adults curious to know about solar cycles and Earth climate.

I took my Televue-85 sitting on an EQ1 mount. This is really a bit more scope than this meant was meant to carry. It clearly was unhappy. I am inclined to buy a Vixen AP-SM mount. They are about 3x as expensive as the Chinese mounts of comparable capacity and features. The CFC mount project started because i thought the Vixens were no longer available in the U.S.

The Vixen mount is fairly light for its capacity, about 14 pounds plus counterweights.  Something i can pick up and carry seperate from the scope. (A Televue-85 is pricy enough that you do not want to trip while carrying it.)

I expect a substantial inheritance soon and I may buy it when that comes into my account. The EQ1 mount is appropriate for the 3" f/4.5 reflector i built some years ago.

My Outgoing Email is Again Working

If you emailed a question and never heard back that is probably why.  It was a silent failure to send