Also, the wheels on the roll-away shed over my 20-inch scope were failing, and I dared not move the shed lest it collapse to the ground and I'd never get it back up again. I ordered replacement wheels but they didn't help. The shed is too heavy to roll away. After much thought I decided to mount the shed on small piers and make it fixed. This I did by preparing the ground with stone leveling the piers, then I carefully moved the shed one last time on its tracks, and used my car's auto jack to lift one end of the shed, place the piers underneath it, then lower the shed down. This was very tricky because the weight of the shed far exceeded the limit of the car jack. I set the other end of the shed on piers in a similar fashion, and have been working this weekend to install the floor and route the electrical lines. I plan to build a tip-down ramp of a door, so that I don't have to fool with individual ramps. I should have it done in a couple of weeks. I bought a solar cover for the 20-inch, so I can just leave it outside, set-up, ready to go during our long dry season. I think I'll only need the shed during the winter.
I also went down a binoviewing rabbit hole. I wanted a set to use on all my scopes and especially for solar. I have three different pairs of differing designs now. I find the 6-inch f/15 is difficult to make binoviewer friendly, and I plan to shorten the tube. I ended up getting a 5-inch f/7.5 APO at a good price, and its optics are outstanding. I'm now in process to replace the stock focuser and to figure out which binoviewer set is worth keeping, once I figure out how to reach focus on all the various scopes.
In any event, I observed with the 20-inch last night. The sky was very clear with good transparency. Seeing was forecast to be better than it actually was, so I spent most of the time masked down to 7-inches. Another thing I changed was my planetarium software. I've used SkyTools3 for many years but it became glitchy and the developer will not support it anymore (only the ST4 version, which is imaging orientated and lacks basic functions like list sorting by column). I switched to Deep Sky Planner, which works fine, except for the observation log, which is not as effortless as SkyTools.
Given the seeing I went through Struve pairs. I didn't know whether I observed these before (my logs not having made the transition to DSP), and I didn't log every pair seen -- just the more striking ones. It was a fine 2 hours, and I stopped at 11:30pm from tiredness.
STF 2011 AB: 178; 280x: >2 Dm, closely split 125-280x. Analyzed previously
16h 07m 38.27s +28° 59' 43.6" P.A. 67.00 sep 2.6 mag 7.93,10.23 Sp A8IV dist. 307.69 pc (1003.68 l.y.)
STF 2022 AB: 178; 280x: Great pair, fairly bright A and very faint close B, seen 200-280x. -35% PRO, it is not binary.
16h 12m 45.46s +26° 40' 14.0" P.A. 153.00 sep 2.5 mag 6.54,10.03 Sp F2V dist. 73.26 pc (238.97 l.y.)
STF 2028 AB: 508; 420x: Split with best moments using the 20-inch, suspected as double with lower powers. White near equal stars, PA SE. SOC Grade 3 orbit, 105.43-year period, currently at apastron but will remain near this separation to the SE through 2050. Lacks Gaia parallax data.
16h 12m 48.11s +39° 21' 35.6" P.A. 145.00 sep 0.5 mag 9.88,9.14 Sp G0 dist. 67.2 pc (219.21 l.y.)
STF 2339 AB-CD: 178; 200x: Close pair, 2 Dm, off-white A and light blue B, nicely separated. Lacks Gaia parallax data. AB is HU 322 0.2" separation, did not see.
18h 33m 45.62s +17° 43' 55.9" P.A. 274.00 sep 1.4 mag 7.45,8.67 Sp F6V dist. 183.49 pc (598.54 l.y.)
STF 2319 AB: 178; 140x: Lovely unequal, well split pair, forms a slightly off-kilter triangle with similar magnitude stars. -23% PRO, it is not binary.
18h 27m 43.94s +19° 17' 43.9" P.A. 190.00 sep 5.3 mag 8.41,8.23 Sp F5 dist. 161.29 pc (526.13 l.y.)
STF 2315 AB: 508; 420x: White stars, 1 Dm, good split. Lacks Gaia parallax data. SOC grade 4 orbit, 2094-year period, so it's anyone's guess.
18h 24m 58.46s +27° 23' 41.3" P.A. 115.00 sep 0.6 mag 6.57,7.77 Sp A0V+A4V dist. 117.51 pc (383.32 l.y.)
STF 2312 AB: 178; 280x: Faint pair, very close split, unequal, needed foveal coaxing to hold B. 60% PRO, 581 AU WS, 2.1+1.8 Msol, it is possibly binary and needs an orbit.
18h 21m 09.08s +28° 20' 03.5" P.A. 341.00 sep 1.7 mag 9.28,9.91 Sp A0 dist. 404.86 pc (1320.65 l.y.)
STF 2309 AB: 178; 280x: Faint pair flashes like a beacon with averted vision. Wide, unequal. 41% PRO, 1178 AU WS, 2.1+1.8 Msol, and RVD 0.5 < EV 2.4, it likely is binary and needs an orbit.
18h 20m 06.84s +25° 31' 53.0" P.A. 352.00 sep 3.4 mag 9.31,9.95 Sp A0 dist. 180.51 pc (588.82 l.y.)
STF 2314 AB: 178; 200x: Faint, well separated. 83% PRO, 199 AU WS, 1.1+0.8 Msol, it is possibly binary and needs an orbit.
18h 23m 25.75s +23° 27' 19.1" P.A. 331.00 sep 2.7 mag 9.02,10.31 Sp G5 dist. 76.45 pc (249.38 l.y.)
STF 2320 AB: 178; 420x: Surprisingly difficult, B is quite faint, blue, and on the inside edge of A's diffraction ring, needed higher magnification to separate. 58% PRO, 334 AU WS, 3.2+2.1 Msol, it likely is binary and needs an orbit.
18h 27m 45.89s +24° 41' 50.8" P.A. 358.00 sep 1.0 mag 7.14,8.90 Sp B9V dist. 256.41 pc (836.41 l.y.)
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