Raclette (our take)

We get so many questions about Raclette that I thought I would do a big post here I can use to help explain what it is, how we found it, and how we do it.

Raclette is a cheese that you melt and is usually served over potatoes.

The first Raclette experience I had was in Annecy. An incredibly beautiful town on lake Annecy in the French Alps. Hard to beat this for a first Raclette experience.

This is how it starts. A large wheel of Raclette (in this case French) in place on the melting thing, a bowl of potatoes, some wine, and side plates of things like salad and dried meats to taste.  The melting things this place has sets the mood for sure.

The process:

• Boil small potatoes (we normally use small Yukon Gold)
• Cut up a potato into some slices / chunks on your plate
• Optional -- we also add small chunks of avocado in with the potatoes
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Raclette is under the heater until it gets a nice melty layer about to drip off.
• Put your plate with potato under the cheese
• Use the scraper knife to scrape the hot melty cheese onto the potatoes
• Eat
• Each person takes a turn with their plate so this is a nice slow social meal with an occasional jockeying to be next in line for more cheese!
• Sip on Wine and snack on cornichon pickles while waiting for your turn under the cheese

I was by my self so they gave me a well used chunk of Raclette. Has no effect on how good it is. You can see the angled heating element, the plate holder area and scraping knife. I think the pitcher was full of wine if I recall correctly -:]

Here is a shot of Annecy. How can you beat eating great food in a place like this?

How we do Raclette in here in SF since we can't get to Annecy often enough.

We have a small Raclette heater and Raclette specific knife. We order a wheel of French Raclette and quarter it. Served with potatoes, wine, conrishantes and to add a flair of CA to the whole ting a side of Avocado.

We have had Swiss and French Raclette but prefer the more flavorful (and smelly!) French Raclette.

When by ourselves we tend to eat in front of the TV with a nice Yule Log video playing for atmosphere. Maybe one day we'll have a place with a fire place but for now we do what we can with our minimal SF space.

Here you can see an over view of our janky living room setup. Jank has no affect on the great flavor and fun of Raclette!

Close up of the heater with Raclette in place for melting.

The magic moment.

Just another beauty shot from the other side.

 

NASA DART on Target!

NASA DART on a Falcon 9 on target for Dimorphos as seen from SF. As in it is going to crash into  the asteroid Dimorphos in the first planetary defense test. Pretty fun that an interplanetary rocket launch is visible from 230miles away.

Our Local Star 2021-11-12

There it is, our local star. Finally some sun spots so it's a little more fun to image with my gear. Next time I hope to do a little eyepiece projection so I can get a little closer view of some spots.

Lost Things

So sad. I hope they are all found and get back to a loving home.

Sad Cat Delivery

Sad cat delivered to us. I think he was mostly sad because there was no more fish tacos in the bag.

Party Cat!

Well, maybe less party and more sparkly?

It's a dog head.

 Hello dog head.

Happy Planter Muppet!

 

Mail Bucket

 In red.

Shocked Tub!

 Apparently surprised by  a chunk of tub hair? Or is that tub brain?

Kimchi Banchan Shoe

 SF street food!

Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

 What is your Function?

What does it mean?!

Not much other than Jupiter and Saturn happen to almost line up from our point of view here on Earth Dec 21, 2020.

December 21, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 20, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 19, 2020 approximately 5:30pm PST (below)

December 19-20, 2020 all from about 5:30pm PST. Jupiter here is from the 20th. (below)

Some imaging details for my record and anyone interested. Taken using eyepiece projection with 500mm focal length + 16mm eyepiece + Canon EOS-M6 mkII (crop factor 1.6), 4k video at 30fps. Processed with RegiStax6 and Photoshop.

My rough and possibly incorrect estimate is that is a magnification of about 50x:

(478mm focal length / 16mm eyepiece) * 1.6 crop factor = 47.8x magnification

Exposures: 20-40 second clips

Jovian moons 1/30s @ 12800iso

Saturn 1/30s @ ~1600iso

Jupiter 1/30s @ ~640iso.

Telescope:

William Optics GT-81

Focal length 478mm

Diameter 81mm

Aperture F/5.9

Eyepice: Celestron 24-16mm Zoom

Camera: Canon EOS M6 mkII

Sunset Moonrise

We had a nice Moonrise here in the Outer Sunset.

Halloween Cat's Halloween Cat Toy

Inky enjoying the rubber cockroach that came with the candies wort sent to the team. Apparently I missed him bringing it to me while I was in VR playing Beat Saber. Thanks Mister Inky.

I joined the club

I'm having sinus issues and its too hot but all is in balance because this came in the mail today. I joined the stereo world club and this is part of the member ship -:]

The Moon and a Pale Red Dot

The Moon and Mars.

I stole "Pale Red Dot" from a friend, Kevin, who replied to me, "Look at that pale red dot. Our future home!".

Also I probably would not have taken the photo if Linda had not looked out the window and pointed out how cool the moon looked and asked what the bright thing next to it was. Thanks Linda!

Shot with my William Optics RedCat 51 which has a 250mm focal length but with my crop sensor camera it's closer to 400mm. I think anything longer and they both wouldn't have fit in frame.

Comet Over SF

Comet Neowise (aka C/2020 F3) over San Francisco.

SpaceX Demo2 Crewed Launch

Sketching during the countdown.

Also doing a little lego building as well.

Super excited there is a new (mostly) reusable manned space craft!!!

 

It is a worrying situation.

 So many wires and just one outlet -:[]

Holiday Stars

After having my 8" telescope stolen about 4 years ago and finally replacing it several months back over the Holidays I had first light with the new telescope and all went okay. We took a road trip to the Grand Canyon stopping in Joshua Tree on the way there and back for some Holiday dark skies. Well at least dark compared to SF -:]

Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula(NGC 2024)

My first real target (M42 is always my goto test) was the Horse Head Nebula which I have been trying to get a better shot of for years. This is actually combine images from two nights but half of the time was from first light night.

Horse Head, Flame and M42

I also setup my very portable Red Cat rig for a wide field shot of M42 and the Horse Head together. I am super excited about the results I get with my Red Cat on a Move Shoot Move star tracker. The whole setup easily fits in a small backpack with a little room to spare. For sure my travel setup going forward.

Sombrero Galaxy (M104)

On the first night before breaking down the scope I thought I would try getting some images of the Sombrero Nebula. Probably the best image of the Sombrero I have taken yet even though I only spent a little time imaging it.

Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)

And on the 2nd night in Joshua Tree again before breaking down I turn the scope to M51 for a little bit. Again I think this is probably my best image of M101 yet mostly due to the dark skies in Joshua Tree.

Now I just need to make more time to get back out under some clear skies!

wang stuck in our gate

 Came home to find a wang stuck in our front gate.

It smelled like dead fish outside

When we left our apartment to go get lunch it smelled like dead fish. It was trash day so the first thought was maybe just an open trash can. Walked out and didn't see any open. Then started walking down the block and the smell didn't get any better. When we hit the cross street and the sea breeze hit us fully it got even worse. In our hood that usually means there's something dead on the beach so we went down to see what was up. And it was a mass stranding of "By the Wind Sailor" jellyfish! Well they aren't really jellyfish and have some scientific name I think you can find on this blog somewhere. They are one of our favorite things that washes up on our beach.

Just look at them all! Lucky for Linda she wore a matching outfit -:]

This one is disolving Linda's face away -:\

So many dead By the Wind Sailors. There were miles of them and they smelled like dead fish. We were walking by the water most of they way and the wind was on shore (hence the mass stranding) and it didn't smell at all.

It seems the wind also washed up a giant tub covered in sea things. Maybe they are clams or mussels of some kind?

The tub was pretty big, probably 5'x8' and 2-3' deep. Probably a fish tub that fell off a fishing boat. Was thinking of dragging it home and cleaning it off and using it for something but decided that would be way to much work.

I really liked the way the side looked all blue and covered in sea stuff.

And it's me so here's some in 3D!

I really like the side in 3D.

And a close up of the sea stuff on the tub.

Jupiter Quick and Dirty

Took an unplanned quick picture(s as in a stack of 20) of Jupiter from the kitchen. Totally unplanned and with my small telescope, no tracking (just a tripod) looking across a slightly hazy sky through a slightly dirty window. I can't complain.

Spooky Spot

Sun is wishing everyone a happy Halloween -:]

Sun spot AR2192 is about to go away but is looking a bit like a skull right? Trying eye-piece projection with my little 81mm refactor scope. Worked out okay. Hope to try again in a few weeks when it comes back around or if there are any new semi big or interesting sunspots now that I have my solar filters.

P.S. Here are some maybe halloweeny sounds to listen to while viewing the astrophotography https://soundcloud.com/t1t4/sets/astrophoto-sound-track

Found a Pinwheel and a Horsehead

Went camping at Pinnicals National Park and was finally able to get my new little telescope out under pretty dark skies. Mixed luck but super fun!

First time imaging the Triangulum Galaxy (aka m33). Only about 7min of exposure but still got something. Need to get a couple of hours of this one at some point.

Finally managed to get an okay image of the Horsehead Nebula! I think I've been trying to image this for a few years now and finally got something okay. The new scope is a lot smaller than my other one and is a fair amount faster (3"@F6.6 vs 8"@F10) with a wider view. Also you can see the Flame Nebula (aka NGC 2024).

And how could I resist giving trying out the Orion Nebula (aka m42)? I couldn't. Much wider view without the need for a reducer which let me fit the Running Man Nebula (aka NGC 1977) in as well.

Now to practice my alignment with the new mount which took me the better part of an hour or more to setup this time. I want to spend more time imaging and less time fiddling with the telescope to to get it up and running next time. I might have had better images, more images or time to take some pictures of the meteor shower if I had been able to get up and running faster. Next time but so far so good!