2 Corinthians 12:7-11

The thorn in the flesh….

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

7 …..Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  NIV 

My thoughts concerning the “Thorn In The Apostle Pauls’ Side” as following: Roger Ivester

Could the “thorn in the Apostle Paul’s side” have been mental and his inability, therefore, as a human lacking the ability to forgive himself?   Could Paul’s thorn have been guilt, due to his murder and torment of Christians. Mental pain and guilt can be more punishing than physical pain. Despite the supernatural event and his conversion on the road to Damascus…the thorn in his side remained.

Was Paul continually “tormented” by Satan, saying…?  You have tortured and even murdered many followers of Jesus Christ. Who are you to profess faith in Jesus Christ, when his followers hate and fear you?

Disclaimer:  This theory and conjecture is based on my own simple understanding of the Bible, and mine alone.  Never will this humble servant pretend to understand or know “definitively” the many hidden meanings of the Bible. 

…..years ago, a sentence from a Gideon’s KJV Bible had a profound effect on my ability to share that which I do not know or understand, concerning the Bible:  “It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.”  Source:  Gideon’s International.   

Information compiled and personal thoughts by Roger Ivester 

Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus…blinded by Jesus.

Several months ago, it occurred to me that I needed a more organized system of filing my pencil sketches and notes. I was just filing my 5 x 8 sketches in plastic boxes, without having a directory, and having to look through hundreds of sketches to find the one I might be looking for. I have spent about sixteen hours to-date, and with many more hours to go.

I am using a laminator, lamination plastic, a paper cutter, plastic page protectors, and plenty of 3-inch loose leaf notebooks. When finished, there will be a directory in front of each notebook, then a master list to find the notebook needed, and then the page number.

This is a preliminary post, and I will be adding more information when the task is finished. At this point, I have five complete notebooks. I have all of my sketches digitized for the past fifteen years, but nothing like a “hard-copy.”

Four books now completed, with the fifth, just beginning. There is no way, I can laminate all of my sketches, and notes, as they are in different formats, journals, and too many small 3 x 5 cards to count.

Maybe a thousand or more small note cards ( 3 x 5) filed in plastic boxes, by constellation. So they are just fine, and easy to locate…the object I might be looking for.

The following are the books to-date with Debbie’s hand holding.

Richard Nugent and Bruce Berger saw the galaxy from Maine at +45º N latitude.

Pencil Sketch as following by Bertrand Laville from France, using a 25-inch Reflector:

Image by Mario Motta:

The data was collected in 2019, counting the number of subs, I have 70 min both Blue, and red filters, and 60 minutes Lum Filter. Green filter was only 40 minutes, likely it began to set in the west too low and could not get more.

This was taken with my 32-inch scope from Gloucester MA, with a ZWO ASI6200 camera.

Processed in Pixinsight

Image by James Dire:

Pencil Sketch by Roger Ivester from North Carolina:

14.5-inch reflector at 125x, from a local dark-site in North Carolina at +35º N latitude on October 22nd 1995. I made the following sketch using a white charcoal pencil on black card stock.

South is up, and East is to the right.

Pencil Sketch by Sue French from New York at +43º N latitude:

10-inch reflector at 68x

Stiction: Physics = “The friction which tends to prevent stationary surfaces from being set in motion”

I have an older Meade “medium duty” equatorial mount.  It’s been a while since I’d last used this mount. Unfortunately, while pointing the telescope, the RA and Declination shafts were “jerky” or sticking, when attempting to hand-move the mount. This is called “stiction.”  

This mount has teflon/nylon split bearings, and over the past 30 years, knowing that a petroleum based lubricant can attack plastics, nylon and teflon, I have disassembled and used paraffin.

It occurred to me to use some Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil in a tiny plastic dropper, might just be the perfect lubrication. 

I removed the counter weights, and flipped the RA and Dec shafts in all angles, and dripped small drops of Mobil 1 synthetic into the RA and declination lock down holes, which would allow permeation of the internal surfaces. 

The Meade Medium Duty mount seems to now work beautifully.

Debbie Ivester and Nova Sophia “Sophie” standing beside the city limits sign of Wadesboro, North Carolina…

Supplemental: The path of totality, also included other popular sites for research groups, including Pinehurst, North Carolina, as well as Newberry, South Carolina, among many others.

The following is a photo of the historic marker for the event in Pinehurst. Unfortunately, there is no such marker, or even the general area is not known where the various groups observed from in Wadesboro, at least to my knowledge. Roger

British Scientific Team at Wadesboro: Photo from the “NC Collection’s Photographic Archives”

The following information….again, provided by Tom English:

British Astronomical Association Eclipse Party at Wadesboro, NC, May 1900, courtesy NC Miscellany, UNC Libraries.

L-R:  Rev. John M. Bacon, Gertrude Bacon, Nevil Maskelyne, George Dixon, and three women, not specifically identified, but most certainly Miss E. K. Dixon, Mary Elizabeth Woolston, and Ada Mary Maskelyne, the magician’s wife. 

The BAA set up their station adjacent to the Princeton party led by Charles A. Young, at a site along what is now Brent Street in Wadesboro.  Maskelyne, a famous London magician, brought his kinematograph and used it to make the first successful movie of an eclipse – the device is in front of him in the photo. 

The Bacons had taken an earlier version of this camera to India in 1898 and used it to film that eclipse, but the film was stolen before it could be developed. John Mackenzie Bacon was a noted aerialist who once observed a the Leonid meteors from a balloon.  His daughter Gertrude was also an aeronautical pioneer and a writer. Her biography of her father, Record of an Aeronaut, includes an account of the Wadesboro trip.

George Dixon was an organ designer, and Miss Dixon is likely his sister.  There was one additional member of the BAA party not shown in the photo (perhaps he took the picture?) – David Hadden of Alta, Iowa, who joined them on eclipse day. 

Hadden was a pharmacist and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society who contributed solar observations to thePublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and Popular Astronomy. The BAA account of the Wadesborough trip and the eclipse can be found in the official BAA report of the 1900 eclipse, compiled by Walter Maunder.

The US Naval Observatory Station at Pinehurst 

A. N. Skinner, Professor of Mathematics at USNO, spent 2 days in April 1900 in Southern Pines, NC, searching for an observing site.  He eventually selected Pinehurst, after James W. Tufts, of Boston, MA, who owned several hotels and cottages in Pinehurst, invited the USNO to set up their station there.  C. D. Benbow, the general manager of the Tufts properties, worked out the details.  The Lenox Hotel was kept open for the party.  (Pinehurst was a resort destination for northerners in 1900, but by May the “season” was over and the accommodations were closing down.)  Their observation site was 800 feet southeast of the Carolina Hotel which is still a popular Pinehurst resort. 

Skinner & USNO Assistant Astronomer Theo I. King arrived in Pinehurst on 3 May.  They sighted a meridian line that evening.  The next day they staked out a plan for the expedition site structures.  Their apparatus/instruments arrived on the 8^th and the rest of their observing party shortly after, and the group got to work setting up their station, so that all was in order several days before the eclipse.  A temporary telegraph line was established on the 12^th so that they could get noon time signals from the USNO.  Drills were conducted several times per day during the 3-4 days before the eclipse. 

The primary focus of the USNO observing plan was spectral studies of the chromosphere and corona, and large format imaging of the corona using a 40-ft focal length camera.  A similar 40-ft. instrument was set up at the Naval Observatory’s other station in Barnesville, GA.  In addition to a team of USNO staff, the station included observers from Johns Hopkins, Yale, the University of Wisconsin, and Cincinnati Observatory. Details about the observers and equipment for these stations (and others) can be found in the expedition reports. 

Nearby, in Southern Pines, a less technical eclipse party of observers from Carleton College (Northfield, MN) and Guilford College (Greensboro, NC) were stationed on the peach farm of Mr. John Van Lindley, a Guilford College Trustee.  H. C. Wilson, the assistant editor of Popular Astronomy, which was published out of Carleton, was the primary astronomer at this site, and his report of the expedition in the June issue was the first formal publication of results from the May 1900 eclipse.

Back to Wadesboro: Click on the following link…

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241210537_The_Road_to_Wadesboro_Site_Selection_for_Expeditions_to_Observe_the_1900_Solar_Eclipse