Books Trickling In; My Relative Absence From Blogging

Yesterday, one of the three expected boxes of my new book arrived. Today, another box arrived. Since all three were mailed the same day, I'm utterly mystified why they are arriving day by day. But they are arriving!

I have not been blogging much because I am busily trying to make ScopeRoller products. There has been an unexpected rush of orders the last few days. In the interests of efficiency, instead of making one at a time, I'm trying to make several sets alike in one operation, both to save time moving tooling around, and because it produces a more consistent set of results. But the net result is that I get very little free time in the evenings to blog.

Also, the Moonlite Telescope dual rate focuser arrived--and considering that it ended up costing $330, I would say that I more than got my money's worth. The finish, the smoothness of the focuser, and the general appearance--wow! It makes the rest of Big Bertha look like it was assembled by cavemen--and gives me reason to replace Big Bertha's tube with something a bit less savage. The good news is that 20" inside diameter Sonotube (an excellent lightweight choice for this) will cost me about $35! Once I get done using some epoxy to make it into pseudo-fiberglass, it will look dramatically sharper, and weigh perhaps 60 pounds less than the current Sonotube and wooden construction.