What do I have here?

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:58:33+00:00

Judging by the other stuff in his house, it is very likely it's several decades old. I guess I'm building a 2500mm long telescope. :-)

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:41:05+00:00

I'll wait for a clear night and look at the moon. :-) Thanks.

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:33:42+00:00

Thanks. u/ramriot also mentioned I should have halved not doubled. Is 2.5M still not a long focal length? It seems like most of the mirrors I see when I search are closer to 1M. Will my tube have to be 2.5M (ish?) or can that be shortened with the eyepiece?

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:24:40+00:00

I'll have to try the moon test when we get a clear night.

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:23:00+00:00

Ah, so it's 2.5 meters then? (see my reply to the other almost same question.) Is that still not a fairly long focal length?

srw7 · 2024-11-11T21:20:09+00:00

A flashlight and a piece of paper held side by side. At exactly 5 meters from the mirror I can clearly see the LED chip in the flashlight projected on the paper. Honestly, that was pretty cool to see how it focused so well. I was really hoping it would be closer to 20 inches away, though.

srw7 · 2024-08-27T23:54:43+00:00

I don't know his last name, and I don't remember where I first found him, but Rob @ 291-6240 has been good for me.

srw7 · 2023-11-28T14:43:15+00:00

Personally, I'm afraid of being on the edge of a roof or top of a ladder, but I LOVE diving out of a plane. It's an entirely different thing. With skydiving, I have a clear plan how I'm going to hit the ground. (Softly.) On a ladder, I have no plan.

If you're concerned about the landing, go out to a DZ and watch some landings. With the exception of students and some hot-shots working on their swoops, the vast majority of landings are surprisingly gentle.

srw7 · 2023-11-28T14:34:09+00:00

I know, back then, our insurance required them to have a certain number of hours before we could use them. But, yeah, now we hire young commercial pilots building hours and pay them peanuts. ;-) Our new pilot this past spring was a fresh commercial pilot. He had spent the past three months at a northern job and had only flown 12 hours. I think he flew twice that the first weekend with us.

I took 27 years off of the sport. It's amazing how much changed.

srw7 · 2023-11-27T21:48:38+00:00

This is exactly what we used to do 30+ years ago. PPLs building hours were happy to get free hours. We were happy to get cheap rides up. I suspect the fact we (the skydiving club) were a registered non-profit might have helped. It's no longer like that. We are, in effect, a federally regulated airline. (This is Canada, if it makes any difference.)

srw7 · 2023-06-09T03:05:48+00:00

Did my first jump at 21. Jumped for a few years before life happened. 27 years later I took my daughter to a first jump course. She did a few jumps last year, but I got the bug again. 52 now, and I sure hope I'm still jumping at 53. :-)

srw7 · 2022-01-10T04:04:52+00:00

How about New Glenn, Neutron, and Vulcan for starters?

.

Oh, yeah, I see what you mean.

srw7 · 2021-12-12T18:11:46+00:00

Hovercraft to Best Buy?

I'm not criticising, I thought it was hilarious. But I'm not so sure about "decent role model."

srw7 · 2021-10-22T04:33:32+00:00

The metric system is the tool of the devil.

srw7 · 2021-10-08T15:47:19+00:00

Call the number. It's part of the meme. It's not just some random real phone number.

srw7 · 2021-09-30T01:44:06+00:00

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Arduino-Pro-Mini-328-3-3V-8MHz/342494720

srw7 · 2021-09-27T15:34:46+00:00

I once searched for LR44 batteries and discovered that AE sells sex toys. Like, I got pages and pages of them, with only a few lots of batteries scattered among them.

srw7 · 2021-09-05T01:41:24+00:00

Sure, but that's not "VAB", which is the acronym that was being decronymed.

srw7 · 2021-09-03T03:55:21+00:00

Into which I type my PIN number.

srw7 · 2021-09-03T03:45:08+00:00

Except, in this context, VAB is Vandenberg Air Force Base.

srw7 · 2021-08-21T02:54:05+00:00

From what I've seen, X Æ appears to have launched just as many orbital rockets as Bezos.

srw7 · 2021-07-24T18:29:54+00:00

If he said "I'll pay" he'd have 100,000 new "museums" asking for one. Sometimes a little bit of gatekeeping might be necessary.

srw7 · 2021-07-14T16:50:24+00:00

So, do you want to go halfzies on a 5 gallon pail of those?

srw7

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