Gfamily

At the last Astrocamp, we arranged to arrive the evening before it officially started, but were aware that there may be others who had set up early. So, when arriving at the campsite entrance, we thought it would be considerate if MrsG got out of the campervan at the top of the drive, and I would drive down on sidelight, guided by her. Unfortunately when getting out of the van, we found that we had stopped on the cattle grid, and MrsG fell into the gap. Luckily, she didn't break any bones; though her mobility was severely limited for the weekend. So - if an organised event, try to avoid arriving when it's seriously dark; and reduce your impact as best you can. To be honest, the way that interior lights turn on when you open your car door or boot is as almost much of a problem as people driving on and off the site.

Checking what is on G-Play isn't easy if you already have the app installed - I had to open the App page in an Incognito Browser to see what's currently on offer. It could be a backwards compatibility problem - maybe Google insist on some level of support for earlier versions, and it sounds as though Android 11 introduced something that meant it couldn't also work with earlier versions - but I'm just guessing. I'm more disappointed that SynScanInit 2 has fallen off G-Play, that that's such a valuable app for simplifying set up of location and date/time entries

I'm not sure about that. The version on Google Play seems to be 1.17.0 and the description says it doesn't work with Android 11, with a reference to go to the Skywatcher website to get the latest one, 1.19.x

What's particularly good is that the launch on the ESA Ariane 5 was so precise that they estimate they'll have enough propellant left for maybe 20 years of science - twice the original estimate. I think I read that there are still >70 single points of failure to go between now and full deployment in orbit around L2 though - so fingers crossed still.

Again, this doesn't seem to be available via Google Play - but can be downloaded as an APK.

As you may be aware, the battery optimisation may need to be disabled against the Synscan App - otherwise it stops controlling the mount when you swap from using Synscan to Stellarium.

I read somewhere that SS6 Pro had about 1.9Gb of data to download, and it has to go in main storage (it can't download to an SD card). I have SS6 Plus, and this seems to be about half the size of Pro - but it can also be used to control Synscan devices. An alternative app for this is Stellarium Plus, but I think I prefer SS6+

A friend managed 10 min unguided exposures with a 400mm scope and dSLR combo using the original SA. He was very good at polar alignment - but 2 min exposures should be feasible with your set-up.

If you paid using a Credit Card you'll be able to claim back from them.

If you can't get the S&T Pocket Sky Atlas, you might want to consider the Cambridge Atlas of Herschel Objects, which seems to be available second hand for more reasonable prices.

One critical difference between HST and JWST is that JWST always has to be oriented within much narrower range of angles relative to the Sun, so that the sunshield remains effective. This means that at any time the Scope can only observe a band between 85 and 135 degrees from the Sun - but it can be rotated to see anything within this band. I assume that the use of the tertiary mirror allows fine guidance while reducing the need to use reaction wheels or propellant. Over the year, this band will cover the complete celestial sphere. You may recall that one of the first deployments was the Aft Momentum Flap - this is a 'hard fix' that was implemented to try and negate some of the torque that is imparted by the pressure of sunlight on the SunShield. Because the centre of impulse of the sunlight isn't coincident with the centre of mass of the JWST, there would always be a turning motion caused by sun pressure, and the Aft Momentum Flap is designed to reduce this by a fixed amount - however, the negating effect depends on the exact angle of the Sun - so my expectation is that the science team will try and keep observations to a much narrower range than the 85 to 135 degrees as, ultimately, the torque has to be dissipated by using the limited store of propellant.

I believe there was a discussion in today's Nasa TV transmission about this. As @AstroKeith mentioned, with the sunshield deployed, it's dark - there's no source of illumination on the 'business' side of the telescope brighter than Sirius, so there's no point in having a camera without the addition of an light source, and if it's to be of any diagnostic use it'll need to be steerable and zoomable and ... etc etc. Simply not worth it. On the Sunshield side, where would you put it? For it to be any use, it'll need some 'stand off' or otherwise you're stuck with a single field of view - simply not worth the weight, and the risk of it causing a problem in itself.

Planetary imaging is straightforward with this mount. The best approach is to capture a video stream and use Autostakkert to process the file to select and stack the best images. The fact that it's an AltAz mount is not a problem.

If meant as a pun, bravo!

Unfortunately, Synscaninit is no longer on Google Play. However, it can be downloaded as an APK from some other sites. If you download the Synscan app, the 'Location' settings page gives you the data in the right format - just make sure the longitude has 3 digits for degrees.

On my phone it looks as though Sky Safari Plus will allow you to Goto a satellite's position, but it doesn't actively track it , but continually tapping the goto button will keep the scope moving with the satellite. Not ideal, but it might work for you. ------------- I've never done it myself, but my Meade LS 8 scope allows for satellite TLEs to be imported into the handset and it'll allow you to track a satellite. Basically, you tell it in advance which satellite you want to watch, it goes to an early position on the arc, and you wait at the eyepiece and press 'Enter' when it comes into the fov. The scope will then track the satellite across the sky. That's the principle anyway. As I say, I've not tried it myself. I would assume that other Meade Autostar controlled scopes will do the same.

Mark is a great guy and well worth following on Twitter. We first came across him at Bluedot Festival when he gave one of the early talks in one of the tents. There were technical problems with the screens, and he was able to gave an absolutely flawless first half of his talk without them. When the technical team managed to get the screen working, he quickly ran through the slides and effortlessly picked up the talk to completion. A real Pro. We saw him again at the Solarsphere festival the year later and had a great chat with him in the bar afterwards.

I think the HST is moving much too quickly in its orbit to be able to get much of an image. It would need to slew at a very a-typical rate to be able to image something only a few 100,000 km away. Given the very recent issues with HST itself, they wouldn't want to risk running the existing 'best space telescope' outside its normal use case envelope for an uncertain gain.

If travel restrictions are lifted, we're aiming to get back out to Astrofarm France at the beginning of April to try and do my first Messier Marathon. Later in the year, we have outstanding re-booked tickets for Bluedot Festival (under the dish of the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank) in July, and the ever brilliant Solarsphere music and astronomy festival in August. In between, we hope to get back out to Astrofarm, simply because it's a great place to be.

The mirrors have individual actuators that'll be used as part of the initial collimation, and i assume they'll also be able to re align any mirror element that gets knocked out of position in an impact. What would be interesting is if they can move a very damaged element enough to make sure it was not sending any light to the focal plane

After having had the loan of a 72mm Lightwave ED refractor since 2020, I was very pleased to find one at a good price on Ebay this September. Fantastic piece of kit, and perfect with my AZ-GTi.

Massive amount of fisheye distortion in that image. Check out the shape of the doorway on the right. 🙂

This is a good dashboard for tracking its progress and stages in the deployment https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

According to a tweet from Mark McCaughrean (@markmccaughrean), the rain wasn't a particular problem, but the wind direction would have been. A northerly wind on Friday meant it wouldn't be safe to launch then, but the direction is due to change by Saturday. Mark McCaughrean is the Senior Advisor for Science & Exploration at ESA; well worth following if you're on Twitter, and a great speaker if you ever get s chance to hear him.

With a current adverse weather forecast for Friday, the target launch date has now been put back to Saturday. Launch window remains at 12:20 UTC. The forecast will be reviewed again on Wednesday https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_new_target_launch_date