Gfamily

+1 for Chinese lantern

All I'll add is that the planets are small targets, whereas the Moon (as a whole) is a large target, albeit that individual craters are small. So whether you want a small sensor may depend on what scale you're aiming to capture on the moon.

Our first evening observing at Astrofarm France in 2022. We had company from a Brit living locally who has been helping out with getting the warm room finished, a Canadian living in the East of France who has been over several times for imaging, and a relatively new observer who wanted to try some good dark skies. She has an 8" SCT at home, but gets frustrated with how long it takes to get the alignment good enough - and I sympathise because my 8" Meade ACF also has that problem. I had two scopes with me, the 72mm frac and the 127mm Mak, and it was interesting to be able to swap them over on the mount so that she could see the difference that the wider field of view allowed. This was particularly true when we looked at NGC 457 (Owl/Dragonfly Cluster) in Cas. I have to say that this is one of my favourite targets in the frac, I'd always been a bit underwhelmed by OCs using the longer focal length scopes, but with the wide field of view it looks fantastic. Other targets she was keen to see were Andromeda Galaxy and the Lagoon Nebula - hard to make out the nebulosity on the latter (but that could be my eyes), but the open cluster around it looked great. I also was able to show Albireo and M13, both of which were good to see again. By not long after midnight, Saturn was clear of the trees, and was spectacular in the frac and about an hour later, Jupiter was also visible above the treeline. After spending a while looking with the frac, I swapped over to the Mak for both, and demonstrated why the design is known as a planet killer. Despite the relatively low altitude (23° and 14° respectively) , both planets looked fantastic under the higher power - I've never seen Saturn so clearly, at 160x; though Barlowing to push the magnification to over 300 was a bit much. For some reason, the AZ GTi mount wasn't working properly with the Synscan software on my phone, but fortunately, I had a spare handset in my kitbag, so was able to set the alignment and find the targets that way. Thinking about it now, the local Brit was trying out his recently purchased SynScan wifi module next door, so I wonder if he had connected to my mount's wifi network by accident. I'll have to experiment further. By about 1:30 it was getting more humid, so decided to pack away, and the others lasted no more than another 30 minutes.

I'll have a look at the Decathlon ones, but people might also be interested in several that are made by Energizer. The ones of particular interest have two buttons on them, one which operates the red led, and the other operates the white led. We've had some for several years and they're very solidly made. We bought ours online through 7dayshop at good prices, but they don't always have them.

We arrived at Portsmouth Ferry terminal at 1:30am on Wednesday morning, ready for an 8am sailing to France. Jupiter very bright, and Saturn clearly visible further over to the south. First sight of any planets (other than Earth) in 2022 I reckon. Arrived at our place in the Charente at about 10;30pm, under clear dark sky. No energy for any astronomy though. Prospects are good for clear nights over the weekend at least, so fingers crossed.

Home (at 53°N) doesn't get Proper Nighttime until Sunday However, we're just off to AstroFarm France (46° N) where we'll get over 4 hours

A Scientific American article giving context https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-revelations-raise-pressure-on-nasa-to-rename-the-james-webb-space-telescope/

And then to 'justify' his own decision by saying (in effect) that 'there is no evidence'; despite the knowledge that people were dismissed from their roles and had their NASA careers terminated purely for no other reason than prejudices about their sexuality. This, at a time when Webb was in charge. Now, back in the 1950s and 60s that wasn't uncommon, though regrettable. However, for someone in the 2000s to disregard the historic injustices and prejudicial actions of the administration at that time seems to be an active dismissal of the injustice done to those workers and what that implies to those like them who currently work in the administration and in astronomy. I can see how some people might say "oh, it's revisiting historic attitudes, and seeing things through today's lenses", but the decision to honour Webb wasn't made in the relative past, it was made in the present day (more or less), and it seems made with very little consideration. There's also a question about how well the recent historical review was carried out.

According to the regulations that I've been able to find, as it has less than 100Wh capacity, it can be taken as carry on provided that there are no exposed terminals. So remove the lead and tape over the power out socket. It is not allowed in hold luggage https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/before-you-fly/baggage/items-that-are-allowed-in-baggage/

Published paper here https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09434

A perfectly novel idea is the Pentax Papillio binocular design. These are pretty compact, with the unique ability to focus to less than a metre - so they can be used for very close up work as well as distant. It's named as a suggestion that they can be used for seeing butterflies close up - though they often move off too quickly, but they are great for looking at flowers close up. I have also found them very useful in museums, as you can get very close up to exhibits in their display cases - one review (properly) described them as much a long distance microscope as a short focus binoculars. There are 2 versions, I have the 8.5x21mm, and there is also a 6.5x21mm. As mentioned, they are by Pentax, so optically they're very good - the only possible caveat is that the design makes it impossible to make them Water Resistant, but they are very compact so easy to put away if it starts to rain. Review here https://www.bestbinocularsreviews.com/Pentax-Papilio-II-85x21-Binoculars-Review-286.htm

There isn't any other satellite that is anywhere near as bright as the ISS, so if it wasn't the ISS it probably wasn't a satellite . The Heavens-above website gives the times for ISS passages, and on 17th July they were at their max height at about 10:20 and at 11:58, so it wouldn't have been the ISS (if your timing was accurate). Are you saying that the track you saw on Sunday started in the East and travelled towards the West? That would be very unusual in a satellite (as they tend to use the Earth's spin to give them extra speed at launch so tend to traves from West to East. There are many satellites that have a North/South orbit, which might have 'looked like the wrong direction', but it's hard to say for sure. NB the Heavens-Above website doesn't suggest any bright satellites moving from East to West on Sunday.

Have a look at the binocularsky.com website. Lots of great information there, and your can sign up for a monthly newsletter that gives an observing list suitable for binocular users. +1 for recommending the Opticron Adventurer 10x50 binoculars. I bought some for MrsG and she uses them at our place in France, though she uses a tripod and trigger head to make observing easier. She uses a 7" tablet to cycle between the newsletter and Stellarium when tracking down the targets.

Indeed. One of my first thoughts when looking at the Carina Nebula First Light image, was - ooh, that looks like Christmas wrapping paper!

FYI - the M74 images are from a proposal to study star forming locations in nearby galaxies, so there's probably huge amounts more to come. https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/2107.pdf 19 JWST targets, with data to be combined with HST,VLT and ALMA observations

I'm not sure if we have a post that explains how to connect the AZ-GTi to allow control via Stellarium on a laptop over WiFi. In response to a query on the "Getting Started" forum, I put this together. I think it's complete.

At 1am on Monday morning (for viewers in UK), Saturn's moon Iapetus will start a rare transit of the planet. It'll take about 10 hours to complete. Discovered by Cassini in 1671, Iapetus's surface has two distinct regions, one bright, and one much darker. As it is tidally locked in its orbit, this means that it is 2 magnitudes brighter when to the west of the planet than to the east. I would be very surprised if this would be visible, but worth knowing about if you're up and observing

Long response: What concerns me is that there is no comparable Space Telescope that isn't named for an Astronomer. Rather, sometime in 2002., the then NASA Administrator decided that a previous NASA Administrator should be marked this way. Hmm I think lots of scientists and engineers had found out about the (official or unofficial) intolerance of homosexuality in the 50s and 60s, and since then, many LGB scientists and engineers will have had to keep their silence. By 2002, there was no way that the previous homophobic attitudes could be justified - so I can't see how someone who was so involved with the 'Lavender scares', and the promotion of homophobia could be considered suitable. Short response What 'huge contributions' to science did JW personally achieve?

Afraid I can't give any information about your specific queries, but personally I'd not be too concerned about minor scratches and pinholes in a Baader filter, they're not going to admit any more light than your normal pupil unless they have a total area exceeding 5-10mm^2, and standard magnification is going to disperse even that over a larger area of your retina than your naked eye would give. I would though be concerned about any defects that are very obvious.

All the best, let me/us know if I've missed anything.

Hi Andrew. Download the SynScan app for Windows from the Skywatcher website. In Stellarium add a telescope mount as follows (you need to scroll the lower part of the screen down to get the Connections Settings entered) Then power up the AZ GTi Connect your laptop wifi to the SynScan_aann wireless network Start the Synscan app and connect to the telescope - Align the telescope using Synscan app (I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I do it) Connect to the telescope You should then be able to Select Objects in Stellarium and GOTO them (Current position in Red, Selected object in Blue)

Credit should be given to Judy Schmidt who processed the data. https://twitter.com/SpaceGeck/status/1547854886657675265?s=20&t=mJdFKM4j8oQ-OR6IoqEAzQ She isn't sure why she's getting the double edge on the right.

I'm sure they will, just as I'm sure that old people and the people with power will continue to find reasons to disparage the young and idealistic. All we can hope is that enough of the young and idealistic carry the faith forward so that society improves in tolerance and acceptance of others. So, although the 60s was a time of great advancements in social attitudes in many ways, the leaders and administrators saw many of those advances as threats - hence the 'Lavender Scares'.

I'm not sure of this has been posted, but there's a rather splendid gallery of images available now. https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images 247 lovely images of which the first 15 are recent, and well worth exploring.

Imagine the SMACS 0723 image is up on someones iphone screen. Now imagine them standing on the goal line of a football pitch and you're on the other goal line. That's the view. Hard to believe.