My planned morning observation session was thwarted by Hurricane Noel. It was supposed to be clear and of course it wasn’t; at least cloudy is all it is!. Pity too, I made some pretty drastic changes to my setup yesterday. Mainly I upgraded the firmware in the scope’s computer, doing so meant I erased any data that was there. I even had to realign from the beginning, I hadn’t touched the wedge so it was pretty painless.

I’m watching the solar panel repair. What a piece of work. Scott Parazynski is installing “cufflinks” to support the damaged sections of solar panel. So far so good. They are taking every precaution to make sure they don’t contact the panel or solar cells. It appears to me, the really hard part is just about to start.

In the image, STS-120 Pilot George Zamka holds one of the cufflinks. The fatter things in either hand are the parts that poke through existing grommet holes and hold the cufflink in place.

Solar panel update @ 11:15 am Success!!

Image Credits: NASA / NOAA

EDIT:  nevermind.