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4/28/2011. I was awakened by nearly constant lightning early this morning, and got up to unplug the telescope's electronics and verify that a system backup I began last night (inspired by terrible weather forecasts) had completed. I checked email, of course, and was stunned by George's account of a tornado passing through Glade Spring, Virginia, and Kevin's narrow escape. Then a little after 3:20 AM, the phone rang. It was Abbie Cullen warning the neighbors that a tornado was on the ground near Morganton and coming our way fast. We looked for Mark & Cindy's phone number but I couldn't find it quickly. I said there was a good chance that they were in Florida rather than in their lakefront house, but I would keep looking. By the time I found it, the tornado had passed us by by several miles. I remained up, watching TV wx and computer radar in case I needed to gather Amy and the beasts and head for the basement. Another big thunderstorm passed over about 6:45. All in all it was a good day to spend some time looking at a ball of nuclear insanity in the sky. I wasted some time trying to find the Antares 0.5x telecompressor, and finally realized it was not on but in the Chameleon's 1.25-inch adapter. By then, I had collected some images using an add-on Barlow, then taken two frames to make a mosaic of the full disc. Had I known that the telecompressor was in place, I could have had a full-disc image with one take. In fact, it was seeing how close I had come that reminded me where the telecompressor was.
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© 2011, David Cortner