The Night Shall Last Forever

Last weekend's Lunar Eclipse, taken with just my phone through the eyepiece of my small refractor.

So I Bought a Pinball Machine

Sometimes the adventures come to you.

They say experiences should be placed over possessions, and while I don't always follow this rule, I would have to agree. However, I might argue that certain possessions can turn out to be quite an experience in the end.

I've always wanted a pinball or arcade machine of my own. This time, I had an excuse: I have publicly decided that I want to build a custom My Little Pony themed pinball machine from scratch. No easy feat to be sure, but the world needs one and I have stepped up to the plate to deliver it. And what better way to learn how pinball machines work that to buy one and play it for "research" purposes?

Initially, I started looking for "fixer uppers" on eBay; machines that had some cosmetic wear or were least desirable in other ways which brought the price down. I knew I wanted a machine from the late 70's or early 80's. I admire the lovely electromechanical pinball machines of earlier decades, but for this project, I wanted an electronic solid state machine as that is obviously what I am going to build. What's more: the playfields are simpler and rules easier to understand than more modern designs, as fun as they are. At the risk of calling the kettle black, there is also a tendancy of newer games to rely on licensed IPs and movies instead of the dark fantasy and science fiction themes I associate with the game.

There were a few machines I was looking at that were an affordable price for their condition, and I looked (very briefly) for local sales but found nothing worth a trip to see, but then I saw Sorcerer knew I had to have it. I probably paid too much for it, considering the worn playfield and flaking cabinet paint, but I love it now that I have it and sometimes want to give it a hug. I paid more for something I am going to enjoy for a long time and not something I got deal to study regardless of how much I liked it.

It cost me just as much as a sailing trip and caused me almost as much anxiety leading up to the day the truck arrived. If anyone is thinking of buying their own machine, shipping it to your house should be a last resort. It is expensive, and you don't get a really good idea of how nice the machine is until it's sitting on its end by your basement door, in the middle of a snowstorm, with the truck blocking the road and no friggin' clue how or where you are going to set the thing up by yourself. But if there is a table you fell in love with across the country... join the club!

Setting up wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, although I did have to drill out the lock to get behind the backglass to check the fuses. It is also very loud.

It's been at least a decade since I played a real pinball machine, and very rare was the time anyone could afford a trip to the arcade before that, so I am a little rusty. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but I never got the hang of nudging and don't usually play with any kind of strategy in mind. But the best part was having my youngest brother come over to play it who probably never saw - but certainly never played - a pinball machine in the wild.  It's very addicting, at least to players of my meagre skill, and we would have put in countless two player games on free play if we hadn't smelled something burning and turned the machine off. An end of stroke switch on the right flipper was stuck closed and over heated the coil whenever the button was held down to catch the ball. Something melted and rendered the flipper useless, so that was the end of that session

It is an easy fix, not counting any tremendous derps one might make when ordering new parts... But video pinball will never be the same and doesn't do much to hold us over. In the meantime, I'm working on my Ponyville Crush table which requires a whole blog on its own. Using measurements taken from Sorcerer, I'm just about ready to hire an artist to draw me up a fitting playfield.

For now though, enjoy your hobbies, no matter how crazy or expensive they may be.

Daring Do and Professor Ravenhoof

For G.M. Berrow's contest on Twitter. Here we have a scene from Chapter 3 in Daring Do and the Forbidden City of Clouds. Daring Do chills out after her latest adventure (and dealing rather messily with one of Cabaleron's henchponies hiding in the closet) while Professor Ravenhoof fiddles with the Doomed Diadem of Xilati. She doesn't rest for long, of course, because she soon sets out to find Brumby Cloverpatch- the only pony who has seen the mysterious city and returned.

Let There Be Subdued Light

So I forgot all about updating this site with all my latest projects. But you are patient, I can tell!

My last few posts here mentioned buiding an astronomy light to help see sketches and star charts at the telescope. And how about that, I actually made one!

The design is very simple: I found one of those clip on lamps you would use to read while your partner is being a vampire or whatever and can't sleep in a lit room. I replaced the LED with a red one but it was initially way too bright. The solution was to wire a small trimmer potentiometer to adjust the current going through the LED and make it dimmer or brighter (but with the current limiting resisitor still in series so you don't blow it out) with a small screw driver. I think I used a 10k Ohm trimpot simply because that's what I had in the lab. It was a bit fiddly to get it inside the battery compartment but with a little patience and removing a few standoffs, it fits surprisingly well.

I tried it with a pocket star chart looking for double stars and it works wonderfully. I tried to sketch with it but absolutely everything else went wrong that night so I don't have a great report regarding its performance there, but I did notice a very slight "bullseye" effect on the paper so I will have to look into frosting the lens somehow to diffuse the light.

If you can solder without maiming yourself (or even if you can't as burns on my fingers may indicate) and you've put together stubborn model kits, this is a super easy project and simpler/ more reliable than most plans I've found online.

My First Sketch in the Field

Not too bad, if I don't say so myself.

Your Eyepiece is the Porthole of Your Very Own Lunar Module

I've been reading about lunar sketching and it sounds like an immensly rewarding hobby. I do enjoy electronic imaging but there seems to be this idea that if you don't have the newest and most expensive CCD cameras and $3000 tripods you aren't going anywhere as an astronomer. In sketching all you need is some basic art tools and some patience. It doesn't matter how wide your aperture is or if your sensors (in this case your own eyes) is peltier cooled. What's more, it will train you to notice little details and help you become intimately familiar with these celestial objects- making you a better astronomer faster than running an image through Registax will. At the end of the night, you don't need something spectacular to impress the people at work with like a highly processed astro image. It's enjoying your time spent in the field; just you on another world that's virtually free to visit.

The moon hasn't really coincided with my schedule lately so I attempted to practise using a picture from a book. It's not too bad, if I don't say so myself, but I'm not used to sketching without using outlines. If the sky remains clear this evening I might have a chance to sketch the real moon in the daylight and that would be the next easiest step as I won't need a red light at first. I may have to build something especially designed to illuminate my sketch pad without ruining my night vision or having to hold it with my other hand. It shouldn't be too hard.

Casual Imaging

Despite a clear sky, seeing conditions were deplorable. At the very least I got some ghost craters and a better image of Saturn that isn't a wonky shape. :3