Day 6

Day 6

Still haven't caught that mouse. He made an appearance last night but he was too fast for me. He sort of sneaked food from my trap and vacated. I thought he would chew the food inside the trap but no. I'm more ready this time. He shall be mine.

It was cloudy this morning when we woke up. Last night Derek and I were fighting with the telescope, trying to get it to work. The webcam was attached to the telescope without issue, but the image we were receiving looked like a very fuzzy donut. I thought it had something to do with the redirecting of light from the telescope since we had taken out all the lenses (there was no eyepiece or lens on the webcam). Derek thought perhaps the image just wasn't focused correctly. After two hours and much frustration, I was fed up. And I hadn't even been working on the damn thing all day like Derek. I have a very short temper I think.

I woke up this morning with a very despondant feeling; an astronomer without astronomy to do. I had a mild nervous attack while lying in bed thinking about my purpose on this mission. I knew I would be the first to crack.

Breakfast and coffee lightened my mood a bit, and then Derek and I started looking around for possible reasons why we were seeing a donut instead of a nice clear image of Mars or the moon.

Turns out he was correct. The telescope wasn't focused to the webcam. We went out this afternoon to try and focus it, and took a pretty decent image of a far-off ridge. Hopefully we will be able to do something tonight. It's a bit cloudy still, but might be clearing up.

David said we could have tomorrow off to relax. I think I'll sleep as long as I possibly can. I'm getting tetchy, and don't want to inflict that on anyone.

Right now we're in the process of cleaning the HAB. By 'we', I mean my other crewmates. Jeff's got his head in the toilet again, and Auvi is working on the engineering table. Zena is rearranging the desks and things in the living quarters, and David is clearing out under the stairs.

We watched Bushwhacked last night, and I remember why I've only seen that episode once. Slightly on the creepy side. It's still very cold here, but my sleeping bag is nice and toasty every night. Tonight will be a sponge-bath with any luck.

Night monkey out.

End day 6