Hmmm… I wonder if the earthquake mattered?

An interesting thought just occurred to me. We had a significant earthquake here in Ottawa this week (magnitude 5.0 for several seconds — unusually severe for Ottawa).

Because of the weather, it’s been over a week since I’ve had the observatory open. Now I find myself wondering how it fared during the ‘quake. The pier is solidly mounted to the bedrock, which was quaking. Is this the one circumstance where a really solid, rigid mount is not a good thing?

So, mental notes for the next opportunity:

• Check collimation of the optics — did they get shaken out of alignment?
• Check polar alignment — did any kind of shift get passed to the pier or mount?

This weekend would be a great time for this check, since it’s a full moon. Unfortunately the forecast is for clouds to arrive about the same time as darkness. If there’s any kind of window, however, I’ll do some tests.