8.05.2013

¶ - I finally caught the elusive North Korean satellite or, "Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2," but it was sheer luck. I just happened to catch a single flare as I looked for it near Arcturus. As there are no magnitude predictions in the tracking data I'm led to believe it is behaving as I've heard it rumored and have mentioned previously: It's out of control and tumbling. This would explain the lack of data for magnitude, the difficulty seeing it, and just the solitary (and lucky) flare I saw . . .

 

¶ - I have redone my weather station: a stouter pole for the anemometer and wind vane, made a separate "cluster" for the thermometer-hygrometer and rain collector, and fixed the annoying, slipshod-looking droop out of the radiation shield protecting the thermometer-hygrometer unit (another "design flaw" by AW). This is it with the "droop":


. . . And after:


I "beefed-up" the mount with an item I got in the Simpson Strong-Tie department at Home Depot:



. . . So now this is how my "Wx Station-Gen 2" looks now:


Astronomics . . .