Tanzanian holiday - a must to return

Our trip is coming to a close but my heart has been won over by Tanzania. I have to come back!

There have been so many highlights and hard to organise them here for you now. In short, come to Tanzania and experience it for yourself. I highly recommend Simba Tours for their professional and experience in providing tours and stop overs. I am writing from Langi Langi beach bangalows in Zanzibar and I must say the manager here has ensured we have had a wonderful stay. Right from the first day we are able to arrange for a change of room to the Tumbutu suit, the highest appartment facing the ocean. the views are wonderful and the opportunities to view the night sky in all directions is possible either from the beach viewing balconew or the rear balconey showing a NorthEast viewpoint. From here I have seen Jupiter, a cresent moon and Venus rising before the sun. Venus was also seen to have a cresent shape through my small refractor. Southern views in the evening showed the Southern Cross and pointer stars, Hadar and Rigil Kentaurus. Whenever the power failed, which happens quite often here, the coalsack and milky was also able to be made out. Sadly, the south has its beauty spoiled by a huge hotel polluting the southern horizon. The North and West view is much better for night sky junkies.

One highlight was our 10th anniversary where we asked for a special meal to be made at the cooks choice, and found our table was well positioned near the water and decorated with flowers. A wonderful meal was provided and the bill withheld?? To our complete surprise and delight the anniversary dinner was complimentary!!! Suleimann Said is a really nice guy, not only for the wonderful dinner and making it complimentary, this guy really cares about his guests and hotel/Restaurant. I can't recommend Langi Langi in Zanzibar enough.

....more to come! Its time for my last swim and sun downer drink!

Well, the sun is shining again and there's clear skies to explore!

After resigning myself to not getting the latest and greatest 3D Printer by Makerbot, the Replicator, I was pleased to see a TOM appear on ebay. To my joy and delight I won the bid and this weekend had the chance to put it into action. After an excellent tutorial from Tim, TopperDEL, http://www.thingiverse.com/TopperDEL, the previous owner, I was keen to try something....well astronomy related.

I wanted something simple but still useful and was amazed to find a 3D diagram on thingiverse for an eyepiece cap. The perfect starting point.

This picture shows the Makerbot TOM setup ready to go, well almost, I'm waiting for the temperature to reach 200 . The eyepiece cap is ready and the G-code already created and copied to the printer storage card.

It took 20 mins to print the cap and it fitted very snugly. I would prefer to have a softer plastic so I am looking into printing with a softer, biodegradable plastic.

Cheers
Ivan