Gina

Took the extruder and hotend assembly apart and gave it a "full service" at the same time changing to 0.4mm nozzle and 1.75mm filament (I had been set up for large relatively coarse prints but now want to print higher resolution). The other thermistor wire broke so I repaired both. Reassembled it all and tested. BUT now the thermistor is fine but the heater doesn't work!!! Amazing!

3D printer has a problem with broken thermistor wire on hotend so I need to sort that out before I can do more printing. Guess I could do with another 3D printer as spare. I decommissioned the mini printer as I got fed up with the string drives so simplest way of having a spare printer (at least for small things) will be to change the mini printer to timing belt drive. That will have to be after getting my Concorde printer working as it will need printed parts.

On closing the roof after last night's imaging run one of the chain joining links came undone a bit and jammed in the large pulley housing. Unjammed it with brute force (because I needed the roof closed). Just ordered a couple of links (one replacement and one spare). I think I shall have to design and print a new large pulley wheel cover with more clearance.

The current series of clear nights have enabled me to sort out a lot of the equipment and given me ideas for improving the imaging rig. I may have acquired some fair to good image data too, which I plan to process in the next week. Imaging rig improvements :- Design and print focussing gears for other lenses. Change the camera housing/bracket to enable the camera to be rotated. Produce a dual imaging rig.

As with any sharp blade, you have to be careful! Mind you, you can get a very painful cut from paper too.

Stanley knife is the ideal tool.

As I discovered some years ago!

I think I know what that might be...

I cut grass much like that with my new strimmer - it's quite powerful. Not exactly quiet - I wore ear defenders.

I used it yesterday and can offer comments. Worked fine on grass but ate string on weeds and the so-called heavy duty fixed twin strings wore out in a few seconds. I've bought a new spool of string but will probably refill spools with loose string in future. 100m of 2mm string costs about the same as a B&D spool of 6m, from Amazon and there are probably cheaper sources. I did try some unwanted ABS 3D printer filament in 1.75mm size but that didn't work. I think the "proper" stuff is nylon and a bit more flexible.

But why not use white - far less likely to be affected by UV?

No but I've only got the one and there's more than she can eat!!

Black + Decker GL7033GB Electric Strimmer Grass Trimmer, 700 W, 33 cm to attack nettles, thistles and other weeds between house and observatory.

Yes, its a very good site. Tim did a very good job in choosing it 😀

Comparison - trees before and after pruning.

I don't think that elder tree will trouble me this autumn and winter! 😄

Trees from east window.

Continuing the FOV round to the north... And finally, northern view showing the trees (or not).

While I was at the pier with the camera I took some more widefield views. It wants one more to the NE which I'll take shortly. Had to stop before due to rain.

Not a lot left!! Needs a bit of tidying up but it's started raining again.

Done as suggested with the elder tree - given it a damn good seeing to! 🤣 Removed a fair bit of dead wood from the apple tree too. Photos when I've got my breath back!

Rain stopped play!!! Taken a lot out but plan to do more when the rain stops. There won't be much of it left by the time I've finished. That pruning tool is marvellous! Branches up to an inch or so with the hook and bigger with the saw. Both are very sharp, the hook has a pulley system to increase the force and the saw has widely spaced very sharp teeth - it cuts through live branches quite easily.

I like elderflower cordial but I also like astro imaging. Going to chop a lot more off! Down to the angle of the neighbour's trees from the imaging rig. By next spring I would expect plenty of flowers.

Yes, I think you're right, been thinking that myself in fact!

I might prune the elder tree a bit more yet.