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April 19th The 19th was productive in the garden and in the observatory. A clear day also resulted in a clear night! Funny how life is circular. When the old Victorian school was knocked down in 1969, to make way for our house, the site was around one acre, with the bungalow only taking up a small part of that plot. The rest of the land was used as a plant nursery. Here we are in 2024, with plant production now going into industrial levels to fill the garden. We've multiple seed trays on the go, which have started to come to life in the last week. Having already spent around £200 on plants for the railway and path, I'm now looking for a cheaper source to fill in gaps. The postman also brought another box of twelve Purple Rock Cress plants. Right now, they are tiny, but they will go along the edge of the railway to complete a solid line of these plants as a barrier between the ballast and embankment. With night time frosts still possible, I've potted them for now, until we can be sure the frosts are behind us. Lynne was fretting a couple of nights ago, that we might loose £200 of plants to a late frost! In the picture below, I've got three pots of Forget-me-nots, pulled from the lawn and the grass separated from them. To their right, in the Flash box, are three pots of wildflower seeds. I think the seeds are tiny, so the box has a white powder mixed in to help to show where they've been spread. With it being still cold outside, I planted some in pots, kept indoors, to see if anything would emerge from the powder mix! The remaining two pictures are Candy Tuft seedlings, which were big enough to separate from the seed trays and plant in their own pots. The Slushie pots, complete with lids, make quite nice mini greenhouses which also helps to keep the moisture in. The open top still allows fresh CO2 in, for the leaves to breathe. I'm interested to know if those with lids grow faster or slower than the others.

Like as been said it depends on your perspective, imagine you are standing out in space with no stars, you know that your feet are down and your head is up but the space around you has no up or down left or right

Thanks for posting these pics Steve, always great to see new products! Was there any product presentation on the Pegasus SmartEye at all? Like how it would compliment an observing setup (would it need a standalone PC or just run via smartphone), estimated release date etc. Was there a demo of some kind (albeit during daytime indoors haha) showing how it works?

Never forget with a Venn diagram that I believe you can lie beyond the circles!

That's great! Using Venn diagram and bringing the discussion into the mathematical world really clinches it for me. We all now know without doubt where we stand in the greater scheme of things.

I was aiming more on funny side rather than informative, but hey .... (I edited the post and inserted the actual image instead of hot linking it ...)

Unfortunately Vlaiv, my tablet won't allow me to open your link, which I'm sure would be highly informative as usual. 😆

Just to be sure on terminology there ...

I've never been so insulted - middle class nerd indeed! I'll have you know I'm a working class nerd and proud of it. 😉

Thanks. Yes I was quite pleased the organisation of the kit worked well but was also thinking of ways to improve it. The easiest being leave behind any eps I know I won't use, I'll do that next time. I'm also thinking of ways to either add a shoulder strap to the tool box, or to the tripod. That may help or may not.... i'll need to explore. Covering EPs.... Thanks, I'll think on that. I guess replacing the dust cap is easy but I want to move away from having numerous dust caps floating about as I'm sure that will see them lost....a bit of discipline and it skittle be OK but I'll think about another solution too.

Very sorry to hear this. Ian's website, the Astronomy Digest, was a great resource when I first dipped my toes into AP and tracking. All things must end, and when they do, it is the memories you leave behind that are a measure of your worth. RIP Prof.

@Kon ISS images are amazing. And I didn’t think it was possible, even more so with the equipment used. Whatever your level of experience there’s always so much to lean. One reason why it’s such a great hobby. After seeing these I did have a go at tracking the ISS manually, with my 8” Dob, with a view to trying a mobile phone capture. I never (or haven’t yet) got around to attempting a capture, but I could see the ISS in a low power eyepiece - I could just make-out a shape of something, but it’s bright and fast. Visually theres a lot of “wobble” too. As for something else to view in a light polluted area (I’m in one too), there’s always our nearest star. And we are approaching solar maximum too. I made a white light filter without much expense using a sheet of Baader AstroSolar Safety Film and some cardboard. In the last couple of summers we’ve had a lot of fun viewing the sun, sometimes while out having a BBQ. Which reminds me. There’s then the possibility of an ISS transit of the Sun, or even the moon (which @Kon has done). I managed one of the sun and captured it using my mobile phone. There are websites that calculate transit times for your location. Of course it’s not an everyday occurrence and you need a fist full of luck! Some info in the link below, which explains things a bit. I’ve attached a little animated GIF so you can see how fast the ISS moves!

I presume you mean reviews re the Askar? I've put a few comments on SGL but not a complete review - I did do a short 'review' which is on FLO's website - one of those following their listing of the scope. Though I've had it since Dec, I had a heart procedure and replacement hip in Dec/Jan which laid me up for a bit and with bad weather I've not yet done a complete review. Pretty much the same for the StellaMira 125 f7.8 which I've had only about four weeks. I'll be writing are review for both scopes when weather permits. If there's anything you'd like to know particularly, pm me and I will make sure I'll give it priority and get back to you.

I think gimp will be more than enough for me. At least for the time being.

While I have not examined one of these mounts, I am surprised that the azimuth motor should have developed significant bearing wear. My experience of small motors is that this doesn't happen. If it has, one might expect that under load it would fail to engage with the gearbox at all. If it IS a motor fault, getting another might prove troublesome and if you can't definitely identify it as a generic motor you can buy on Ebay or from China, your only other recourse is to buy another subassembly or scrap mount. Or find a craftsman prepared to fit another bearing bush to your motor. A useful means of diagnostic where the altitude and azimuth drives (etc) have similar parts is to swap bits over and see if the fault follows the part. The altitude and azimuth motor/gearboxes in the Celestron SLT mount are the same (same part number) and I swapped them over while chasing a fault. (It wasn't in the motors). If you attach tell-tales (bits of paper or magic marker marks) to slow moving parts, you can see if anything is moving (slowly) or not.

Hi. I'm Chris Morison, Ian Morison's son. Thanks everyone for your very moving memories of Dad and for your kind thoughts - he was an inspriation to thousands, and also an amazing Father to 3 and Grandfather to 4. I joined here because I wanted to let you know that Ian's funeral will be held at 2pm on Wednesday 24th April, at All Saints Church, Macclesfield. You are all welcome. Thanks @richiedeepsky for wanting to make a donation. Mum & Dad have said that donations can be made to East Cheshire Hospice @ Home who took great care of Dad and provided support to Mum in recent times.

@jp1977 @Tiny Clanger Indeed! It won't be long before you catch those most virulent of astro viruses, known as "Gear and Aperture fever!" 😱😂

Hi all. The other night my already faulty intervalometer stopped working altogether so I saved the precious clear night sky time by taking some short vids of our Moon for later processing. I'm not really happy with them but atleast I got something to show for my night! Both images from exact same data, just processed slightly differently. *1 x 8 minute video @30fps *1200 x best frames stacked after PIPP. used Autostakkert and Registax 1st image simply 1200 best frames stacked in Autostakkert. Slight wavelets adjustment for sharpness. *2nd image had - wavelets, colour adjustment ( RGB ) and colour enhancement. *Mount - SW HEQ5 Pro *Telescope - SW 200P *Canon T1i DSLR "unmodded" I also took some close up videos of Lunar surface with ASI 224MC and ASI Air Pro but haven't managed to get data transferred from the tiny 32GB Air memory card onto the 64GB Dongle, so those processed images will be coming in a few days. If they're half decent I'll enter them into SGL's Lunar surface competition.

I inherited the “Nerd Gene” from both my grandfathers. One was a Power Station Engineer and the other a Tool Maker on the GWR in the 1920’s I didn’t stand a chance! Still SGL is a very safe, friendly, interesting and humorous place to gain a Huge insight into astronomy and all things engineering and scientific. this is also a fantastically well moderated site, thanks.

No. We're strictly Linux. It may have something similar.

nerd /nəːd/ INFORMAL noun 1. a person who is extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a particular subject, especially one of specialist or niche interest. 2. someone who is more intelligent and knowledgeable than you... verb engage in or discuss a technical field obsessively or with great attention to detail.

That's really interesting Ty Need to look at the (I assume) Photoshop panels you show a bit more but, Only difference I can see if the histogram further to the right but both histograms look 'valid' to me. I think I stretched/ ghs until the noise was "too much". I'm starting to see difference between just using histogram and using ghs.

In fact you're there. Even with the jpg, the detail is there. With a 16 bit tiff, you'll do even better. All you need is to go easy with the levels. Exaggerated so you can see what I'm on about:

Another very good revision Chris - they've definitely all had their clear merits, with an incremental change along the way. I do prefer the colours here although just personal preference. Great job with the tidal tail on NGC 3628. Any other commentary & feedback is just of the pixel peeping variety - I won't bore you with that

Thanks Steve. Only 12? Even using copious binning/resampling to keep the integration down, it would be a hell of a task bringing it altogether. The gradients alone would likely drive me to despair. Still, 2 or 3 panels a year maybe? 😉