Gfamily

Given the location of the talk, you might be interested in Dark Land, Dark Skies, by Martin Griffiths, who is Director of the Brecon Beacons Observatory, so local to the area. I can't remember whether Paul mentioned his name in his talk. It's primarily about the connections between the night sky and Welsh mythology narrated in The Mabinogion. A lovely little book anyway.

Also, Pro adds the Sun as a Solar System object. You have to perform a calculation to enable it. With Point and Track it makes solar observing straightforward (with appropriate filtering of course)

Thanks I first imported the video (4 minutes) into the Open Shot video editor as that allows you to zoom in on the disc which made it easier to spot the 0.6s of the transit event. It was helped that I knew how far through the 4 minutes I would expect to see it. Then, having identified the important timing, I used ClipChamp to clip the video, apply the slow motion repeats and add the captions. I find Clipchamp very straightforward for basic edits such as that - far easier than using Open Shot for everything.

Hard to say it really 'works' - but it's interesting to see what it can do. Video, processed in Microsoft ClipChamp to isolate the <1s transit, and to show it in Slo-Mo Scroll down, the transit and the caption is at the lower edge ISS Tracking.mp4

There's quite a few scientists and academics that have written criticisms of Sapiens for making assertions that aren't supported by the evidence - so I think that it plausible that same could be said for this other book. Not read either.

That sounds a reasonable alternative, although there are a few similar mounts at around that price range. I don't know whether this thread from earlier in the year would be helpful - it is about a newer mount from SkyWatcher that has a wifi connection rather than a handset and cable combination https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/423091-the-curiosity-that-is-the-eq-al55i-pro/ I really ought to add that I am not a serious imager, but I sometimes hang around with them, so if you get a reply from someone with more expertise, please take their advice rather than mine.

There are two mounts mentioned in your post. The AZ3 is a manual mount that is not really suitable for any astrophotography, but it would be usable for some level of visual observing. The NEQ3-2 Pro is a decent starter mount. It has a payload of 7kg for visual observing, but only about 5kg for astrophotography A problem is that the 120/600 telescope suggested has a weight of 4.1kg, to which you will be adding the weight of a camera and also a field flattener - so the mount is not really suitable for using with that telescope. The options would be to go for a smaller and lighter telescope (such as a good ED 70-80mm scope), or to get a heavier duty mount.

https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_launch_how_to_watch Launch time should be just after 10 to 4 pm (15:52 BST) on a Falcon 9 from Florida. As you may know, the mission is to follow up the NASA DART mission from 2022 that prototyped an Asteroid redirection method that could be considered if a future discovery is made of a potentially Earth impacting asteroid.

As the weather was mostly against us doing much for the IAU 100 Hours programme this year, we took advantage of today's (generally) fine weather to take our SeeStar to the gardens at RHS Bridgewater (nr Eccles in Gtr Manchester). Being able to share it on multiple devices is a great thing. The Spotty Sun and a newly appreciative audience

It may be a minor consideration, but the Heritage 100p is mounted with a dovetail that will allow it to be used more easily on a more versatile mount in due course. It would definitely validate it as a 'proper' telescope if he can use it on your mount when he's visiting. Also the 44% more light gathering capability. Finally, it's not clear whether the 80mm mirror is parabolic or spherical - whereas the 100P is definitely parabolic.

A great resource is the https://binocularsky.com/#! website that's managed by @BinocularSky here (aka Steve Tonkin - well known for his magazine columns). He used to produce a monthly newsletter with suitable targets for binocular users, you can download the back copies for October/November etc from several years, that will give you ideas. MrsG uses binoculars on a tripod and Stellarium on a tablet to observe - and is very successful. If you're too tall for the tripod, get a chair - and when the children are using the bins, put the chair the other way around so they kneel on the chair and hold on to the chair back. Keeps them stable and their hands away from the binoculars. We found a Manfrotto 222 head on eBay that works very well as it locks the binoculars in position when the target has been found.

The weird is strong in this one

Given that an S80 takes more than 2.5x the amount of glass than the S50, the price isn't going to be as immediately attractive. And that's apart from it likely being up to 60% bigger.

Both are correct.

Edited back again to say, a star system is gravitationally bound, whether of stars and stars and planets or just of a star and planets, or even a star on its own. The nearest star system is definitely the Alpha Centauri system of 3 stars (and any associated planets), the second nearest is Barnards, which is a single star. The fourth star system would be contentious, because it would depend on whether a sub-brown dwarf would be counted as a star.