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A Rush And A Push And The Sky Is Ours or Astronomy, Here We Come

First night of 2015

So the much belated start to 2015, while the real year started 17 days ago but, with the weather in Edinburgh having been on the terrible side of atrocious, the star gazing year only got going last night. For the first night of the year i thought i would do something a little different and i had my first night out at Harperrig Reservoir (Edinburgh). What a place it is; you get a slight red glow to the NW from Edinburgh/Edinburgh Airport and the lights of one house but, for the darker sites that
lonick

lonick

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LodestarLive Development

V0.11 now available

Happy days V0.11 is finally available - see post http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/234260-lodestar-live-v011-beta/ Looking forward to seeing how people get on with the new display processing controls!
Paul81

Paul81

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Nick's blog, including AOSX (Astronomy on OSX)

First alpha dogfooding :)

Well I managed to get a nice evening dogfooding: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/192900-atik-osx-drivers-r100-example-app/page-7#entry2530845 With some very basic first setup imaging - including the flame nebula and the horsehead. However the attempting to process the 5 minute subs this morning in PI was fine.. but then attempting aladdin this morning at the same time was too much for my poorly MBP. After a good 2 hours of power button pushing it got beyond a blank screen and DVD drive whirr t
NickK

NickK

0
New Guy

Help

I brought my son a 127 SLT Telescope for Christmas this year after seeing a few videos online.. I was taken back on what you can see with the scope and that is why I purchase one. After getting the 127 SLT setup I pointed the scope to the full moon and here I get a bright light. I tried focusing in the telescope focuser knob but still the moon shows up as a bright light.. I then point the telescope to a building about 100 to 200 feet anyway and I was able to focus in on one brick with no pro
dwaynerefford

dwaynerefford

2
Nick's blog, including AOSX (Astronomy on OSX)

Hmm MBP 2011 15" that I'm using is starting to die.. (along with 31,237 others)

Well I spent the day yesterday receiving a corrupt hard drive after a sudden black screen and then blank on boot.. given 10 minutes it restarted. Today I got another... exactly the same symptoms.. https://www.change.org/p/timothy-d-cook-replace-or-fix-all-2011-macbook-pro-with-graphics-failure It appears it's a wide spread graphics chip issue caused by the GPU desoldering it. What really annoys me is that this MBP was to replace a MBP that failed with the nVidia GPU-gate GPU.. so that's 2 MBPs d
NickK

NickK

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Andy's Column

When shall we five meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?

This week the challenge of finding a good dark sky site is tackled. Unsurprisingly the answer is to meet up with your local astronomy group which in my case was CLASS. Whilst your group and members will have different names I imagine the cast of characters will no doubt be similar. Oh and Paul’s dog is actually called Tilly, the reason for pointing this out now will become obvious around the third paragraph but will only really make sense if you are familiar with certain works from Enid Blyton.
Andy69

Andy69

0
Blog 19648

Enthusiasm

Last night, I stood and watched as my ten year old grandson looked through my old 10x50 binoculars and found for his first time; the Andromeda Galaxy and then the Pleiades. Looking out into space and back in time is and should always be very exciting! He was very pleased with himself. Binoculars are a great way into astronomy for the younger child. Negligible set up and minimal supervision required - wide variety of observeable treats and maximum time taking in the view! Have set him a challe
Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor

1
Nick's blog, including AOSX (Astronomy on OSX)

Pure OpenCL version of the pipeline in progress :D

So, after much pfaffing - my C++/OpenCL pipeline implementation is just starting to come alive! :D Previously it was using Apple GCD, however it quickly became clear that GCD's ability to sort out it's concurrency (it has it's own cl_command_queue) isn't strong part.. but I'm happy that it's starting to execute kernels and it shouldn't be too long before the pipeline is back at full tilt with some much needed OO refactoring :) This makes it rather portable too :D
NickK

NickK

0
crashtestdummy's Blog

big dilemma

Well I have now done about 15 hours polishing with nearly 10 hours through centre and I still have the same problems as before when the ronchi image flips through.when looking at the ronchi I don't get the same obvious centre circle as before but still showing the centre astigmatism.I'm pretty much doomed to going back to the tile tool and doing a few hours with 600 alu oxide to get it back on track then start polishing again.I could keep polishing but if it's not changed after nearly 10 hours I
crashtestdummy

crashtestdummy

5
Alienfox's Blog

Another damp cloudy evening

So I have had my scope for a month now and have had only about 2 hours with it in the dark pointing upward. And again this evening another damp rotten evening, so it looks like it's back to the books for another read on Astronomy for the newbie, me, I have purchased 6 in last 4 weeks and have read about 3, so still a few more pages to plough through, it would seem that clear skies are a rareity in my part of the woods, damn this weather, however it has given me time to think about how I can disa
Alienfox

Alienfox

9
GreatAttractor's Software

ImPP (Image Post-Processor)

NOTE: This program has been superseded by ImPPG, which includes all the below functionality in a full-fledged GUI. Image Post-Processor performs Lucy-Richardson deconvolution, histogram stretch, gamma correction and unsharp masking. Both a command-line tool and a graphical user interface (GUI) wrapper for processing of multiple files are available. Discussion threads: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/230841-impp-%E2%80%93-batch-lucy-richardson-deconvolution-and-more-of-stacks/ http://solarchat
GreatAttractor

GreatAttractor

3
Andy's Column

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your wallets

This article considers the financial perils of astro-photography, because while a hobby like Astronomy can at times leave you financially challenged, nothing is quite so fiscally ruinous as deciding it would be a jolly good idea to fasten a camera to your telescope. There are many reasons you might consider taking up astrophotography. Perhaps, as your eyesight slowly declines from the hawk like clarity of youth to Mr Magoo myopia in your advancing years, astro-imaging appeals as a way of extendi
Andy69

Andy69

5
Andy's Column

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are heard by your radio telescope

Originally I wrote this article in early January of this year so some bits may be out of date by now but I don’t think it really matters. Also if I were publishing these articles in the order they were originally written this one should be about astro-photography but given the recent comments by Brian Cox around his thoughts on the existence of extra-terrestrial life I thought while it was topical I might as well put forth my musings on the subject. The picture near the end of the article comes
Andy69

Andy69

0
mickmurphy's Blog

observing night 21st/22 october 2014

Here is a list of a few thing i saw on the night/morning of October 21/22 M1 The Crab Nebula in the Constellation of Taurus M45 also in the Constellation of Taurus M36-37-38 in the Constellation of Auriga M42 In the Constellation of Orion And about 15 Orionids in a short period of time before the clouds rolled over and put an early end to my obseving for the night mick murphy
mickmurphy

mickmurphy

0
Andy's Column

A telescope, a telescope! My kingdom for a telescope!

There are a couple of things I’d better point out about this article. First off, I have no affiliation with Skywatcher or any other astronomy equipment manufacturer or distributor. While I’m doing disclaimers I should probably also say I have no connection to Argos or Ford either. Secondly, I appreciate that I have ignored a huge number of telescopes of various makes, models and technologies. Guilty as charged, but then this is not a particularly serious or comprehensive buying guide by any mea
Andy69

Andy69

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