Mike MATTEI #211
Letters to the Editor
from
Mike MATTEI
in CMO #211
@ . . . . Seasons best, may you have a Happy New Year.
Thank you for continuing to send the CMO. Awhile back I said I would send some payment to cover the cost of postage, this I will do within a week from now. It is great that you continue to produce this information at no cost to the receiver, this is why I would like to send something to help. You all have been good to me by sending CMO all these years.
Last night. Dec 29 we got our first snow, about 1". We are now experiencing the coldest temperatures yet, 2 deg above zero f, with a chill factor of -30 deg f. There is no way anyone is going out to observe in this weather. Only a few days ago we had temperatures of 60 deg f. My CCD camera is not working. It fell over one night after I forgot to remove a cable. I repaired it, it worked and I got a very good image of Jupiter, but there was dirt on the camera window which had to be removed. So I removed the front end, cleaned the window, replaced everything and went out to do some imaging only to have the window fog up. I had to start over to remove the fog and when I started up the camera it did not work. Most of the damage was to the plug on the preamp board, so, I made a new one, fired it up last night, and again it did not work. Back to the repair shop. I will have to find the electrical problem soon because I want to image Mars.
Since we were thrust into winter this is a good time to work inside.
(30 Dec 1998 email)
Mike MATTEI (NY, USA) : mmattei@ma.ultranet.com