A friend of mine had mentioned that she would like to start a baking blog. I think that's a great idea. I wish her the best of luck and look forward to checking out the blog. Here is my version of a baking blog.
Like most men, i barbecue (insert manly grunt here). I can make a decent plate of pasta and a potato soup that is excellent. I've even been known to bake a loaf or two of bread. But i have never actually baked a cake. I have WATCHED someone bake a cake, and that probably qualifies me enough for this post.
If you were going to bake a cake, you would make a trip to the market. It's important to know what ingredients are needed and you would only want the best. "Good enough" would not be a part of your vocabulary. After gathering all the ingredients, you would mix them in the appropriate portions and order. Then you would preheat the oven and start the baking process. Now, you wait. Eventually, hopefully, you will pull an excellent cake from the oven, let it cool and decorate it. But many a sitcom has included in it's plot the hapless baker that removes the unidentifiable lump from the oven, walks to the trash bin, and unceremoniously dumps it. All the icing in the world will not make a bad cake good. It's all about the process.
Now for the photo. After making major modifications to my scope setup, I had been out for two nights gathering data. Only to find that after "baking" the data, i didn't have a photo good enough to work with. I could not understand what was wrong. There are many things involved. Alignment, sky condition, focus, temperature, exposure, the list goes on. Something was wrong, and i had no idea what it was. But on the third day, the Clear Sky Chart called for excellent viewing. That night, i made a conscious effort not to accept "good enough". That night, i would get the ingredients just right.
I opened my "DogHouse" observatory early. Nothing changes much. The tripod is bolted to the floor to reduce error. The camera is mounted on the back of the telescope and is rarely removed. While it was still light, i shot 5 flats at the exposure and ISO that i was planning to use that night. My target for the night was the Orion Nebula. An easy target that is bright enough not to require a lot of exposure time. I did a star alignment to get the sky map situated correctly, followed by a mechanical polar alignment to get the axis of the mount just right. I followed this with another star alignment just in case something got bumped during the polar align. After that, i concentrated on focus, focus, focus. When it was finally dark enough for good photos, i shot 20 exposures of 2 minutes each at ISO 1600, followed by 5 Darks and 5 Bias. After i was done for the night, and the observatory was closed, i manually went through the photos i had gathered. I rejected 6 on sight, and started the rest of them cooking. In the morning, i pulled the cake from the oven, and it barely needed icing. I'm still not sure what i was doing wrong on the previous two nights, but i suspect that when setting up, i was settling for "good enough". The best thing i can do is to remove that phrase from my vocabulary.
My next post? ummmm.... How few ingredients are actually needed to bake a great cake.
clear skies...
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