Gfamily

Not really (or rather, yes!) When I set it to Point and Track the Moon, it was at 9:30 am and the app could calculate the Moon's then Azimuth and Altitude (256° 59' , 37° 48'). Because I was already pointing at the Moon, it knew it was at 256° 59', so it would thus know where North is. It only works if you are already pointed at the thing you want to P&T.

Not really - if you centre on a target, and it knows where that target should be, then once you have it, it can compute what its path should be. It assumes that the mount is level, but apart from that it's relatively straightforward (in principle - I wouldn't like to have to work it out on paper of course 😀) . Do you have one ? Try it out. ETA - to be honest, it came as a surprise (and a delight) not only that it worked, but also how well it worked.

Nope - if you can see something and it's in the app, you can 'Point and Track' - so long as the mount is level, it will track remarkably well. It doesn't set the encoders, so its internal pointers aren't aligned automatically (so if you then connect with another app it won't necessarily give you the right scope location) ETA - as per the handbook, this only works in AltAz mode - but it is a great thing for a very quick set-up.

I feel like an idiot that I've not really looked at the 'Point and Track' functionality before. This morning however, the waning gibbous moon was looking lovely in the clear blue sky, so I quickly dragged the mount out. I wasn't sure how it was meant to work, but I manually moved the scope to point to the moon, before selecting Moon from the Solar System menu and hitting Point and Track. 20 minutes later the Moon was still centered. Not only that, but it keeps tracking even after you've disconnected the app.

We have a 130P Heritage and haven't had any problems with collimation - and I'd expect the 150P to be the same.

MrsG is a big fan of binocular astronomy - and probably sees far more than I do with my telescopes. Yes, she uses a tripod and trigger head, but that's still very straightforward - and the wide field of view means that star hopping from brighter stars is easily done and very easily checked off against a star atlas or a tablet/phone. She uses the suggestions that Steve Tonkin ( @BinocularSky ) includes in his monthly newsletter (link to binocularsky.com ) and is very satisfied. Although starting with a pair of 10x50s, she has recently moved up to a pair of 20x80s - for which she'll be using our heavier tripod. She's very much looking forward to our next star party to take advantage of decent dark skies. That said, I would say that binoculars complement telescopes, so if someone is looking for a telescope, the best advice is get both. And for the OP - the suggestion of the 150P Heritage collapsing Dob is probably one that would not disappoint.

Hi Ash. You may have seen that there's an occultation of Uranus by the moon this evening (Sept 14th). The Virtual Telescope project is planning to stream the observation this evening, which may be something you'd like to follow. Details here https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/

The planets will be highest above the horizon at night during the winter months. So you shouldn't get a lot of distortion due to heat rising from the sun-warmed rooftiles at least. A good reason for making sure that your loft is well insulated, I guess.

Agreed - and even through binoculars, it would be a challenge to see it against the bright limb. The Moon is about 2 million times brighter than Uranus. Easier might be seeing it reappear about 52 minutes later (for my location at least), as that will be emerging from the dark limb.

I think Sky Guide is Apple only. Which is a shame as I'd like to see the content written by Dr Jen from Astrocamp.

1969 - it had to be really, didn't it. 😄

Anyone play Blast Off? You had to do a Lunar Orbit Rendezvous and then visit the planets. Used to take forever, not sure we ever finished a game

DSO Planner has images. There's a free version that you can try out and three paid-for versions if you want more catalogues. It generates observing lists and has note taking capabilities for recording your own details.

James Ritson has produced some free Affinity macros for Astrophotography processing. I'm pretty sure you can try these out on the trial version of Affinity Photo https://jamesritson.co.uk/resources.html

I'm not really sure what you would be expecting In optical wavelengths, the images would look like this...

According to the NASA Artemis blog I'm not sure if the following has been mentioned here or not, but depending on the length of investigations required, there is also the issue about the certification of the batteries on the Flight Termination System - and replacing them will require a return to the VAB. There is a timetable on the NASA site giving the launch windows - with the mission lengths possible for each artemis_i_mission_availability_aug2022.pdf

Looks like we already have one, just needs a change to the thread name.

According to the Spaceflight Now feed that I'm following, they're having a problem with reports of a leak when loading the liquid Hydrogen - same place as they reported a leak in a trial wet run in April. I'd not be surprised if there's a scrubbed launch today, and if they've not been able to fix something they've known was a problem for 4 months, I'm not sure whether they'll get it sorted for the next launch window on 2nd Sept. https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/08/29/artemis-1-launch-live-coverage/

Ah, Google misled me.

It's a bank holiday isn't it?

I have used a tool called Batch Rename Utility to add date and time to filenames, but I'm not sure whether that was from the EXIF data in the image or the metadata simply associated with the files. I've read that exiftools can retrieve EXIF data from fits files, if that's any use.

Using one of the PCs to set up a local wifi lan is probably the easiest method, but if your remote site in an area with mobile phone data you could connect to the internet using your phone's data and hotspot capability to make remote desktop access to manage the NUC that way.

Post deleted, wrong thread

What's the 'it' though ? As I said, the exhibits at Jodrell Bank are very clear that the success was in tracking the launcher by radar, and make no mention of tracking the satellite itself after its battery had died. The following article on the JB website talks about looking through the archives and mentions "The radar tracking of the Sputnik rocket bodies (and later Sputnik 3 itself) demonstrated that the telescope had the capability to detect missiles", which suggests that for Sputnik 1 at least, it was only the rocket that was tracked. https://www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/part1.html Yes, maybe they did track Sputnik 1 by radar, but it's not mentioned, and I wonder whether the nephew mis-remembered what his uncle told him.

I'm not sure about bouncing radar off Sputnik itself, but the '250ft telescope' was certainly used in radar mode to track the launch rocket - as it was based on the Soviet R7 ICBM rocket launcher. Later renamed the Mark I Telescope, it's now called the Lovell Telescope. If you get a chance to visit Jodrell Bank, the new 'First Light' gallery there has a great exhibition about its construction and early use. Tickets last a full 12 months, so it's great for re-visits as well.