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Whirlwind

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  1. Yes I finally got to see the Aurora now I've moved North. Exciting to see it for the first time! Here's my iphone attempt...
  2. What about St Helena if you are looking for something in the Southern Hemisphere but want something a bit "home from home". Though not the easiest to get to.
  3. Yeah, sorry I've just recently moved up here for work. Just stepped out the car and there it was!
  4. There were some Nacreous (mother of pearl clouds) that were displaying yesterday evening and this morning. Here is my attempt just before I went into work (Dingwall, Highlands). Very strange how it just stood out in an empty sky.
  5. No it's nothing to do with rate of cooling (other than how quickly it will form). It is at a simplistic level a combination of humidity and differential temperature. If you have high humidity you need less differential temperature for dew to form. If you've had some particularly wet weather the humidity will be higher so it is more likely to form on a cooled surface.
  6. You'd probably want to test both and see which you prefer. G2V is calibrating against a sun like star whereas SPCC, from my understanding, is looking at your image and determining what the colour calibration should be against a "standard" galaxy colour. There will be differences to both really. It would be interesting to see whether either fall down in non-standard conditions though (for example a narrow field view of a cluster of hot stars etc.) I don't think you need to change the individual exposures though for the different colours as you can just change the ratio of the number of exposures I believe. However strictly speaking you should expose a G2V on the same night / same area as your target etc. SPCC is ultimately simpler but arguably is processing based rather than your own "data" based.
  7. I've got a place at Pixelskies but it isn't yet set up (waiting for a mount). But they've always been very helpful and communicative. Have no experience with E-eye. There's another hosting firm in Spain here as well (again no experience):- Telescope Hosting - Trevinca Skies I'll send you a PM separately. Cheers
  8. Yes, it was quiet compared to when I was last there in 2019, though I did spend more this time as I'm about to move to the Highlands and wanted to get a grab and go set up as it won't be until next year until I have a property I can put an observatory down in. However, I'm not sure PAS2023 will be any better as I tend to think the quietness is largely down to the economic circumstances we find ourselves in. Even those with more money to spare (and astronomy favours those with deeper pockets) then they are going to be having to consider mortgage increases, energy bills etc. And this is before considering everything has increased in price and there are less discounts on offer etc. There are some fundamental issues I feel though in that:- It was held a week or two before half term. Holding something on Friday when most families will be banking holidays for the following week(s) doesn't make sense - this then only encourages older people to turn up. Even though I was there on Saturday midday'ish until early afternoon, I barely saw anyone younger than me not on a store (there were a few). Hence, I don't think that helped attendance. I think there should be an effort to make it more 'family friendly' in terms of getting more activities that younger people can engage with - That might mean engaging with universities and the like to try and do outreach activities. Although I appreciate RVO want a full room - I think this could be better set up for this area. The talks could also link to these outreach activities as well. Also because you would have mini-speakers it might become more interactive. For example perhaps holding a spectroscopy event (which might then make people think about doing some of their own). Hold it earlier in the summer - by mid October I have pretty much sorted out my set up for the winter season - I'm less likely to be looking for things in October. This would also potentially allow outdoor activities (weather dependent) - e.g, solar observing, moon observing if linked to first quarter etc. I recognise FLO tried this partially with remote viewing but it was tucked away in a corner as well (really could understand this at PAS - might encourage people to buy a solar scope. I don't think paying for the talks separately is a good idea for a niche hobby - to go to all talks would cost nearly £40 each. In my view it would be better if the talks were included - so even if you brought the family it wouldn't be prohibitively expensive (especially if you have kids 16+ that might be interested). Personally, I'd prefer to pay a bit more and have free talks (even stream them for a small cost). The site is easier to get to though, so that is a positive. Just my thoughts.
  9. I'm working on the principle and looking at the website that they are doing follow up detections. Many of the space telescopes and even ground ones focus on cooler red stars. Not only are the stars smaller, so transits have a larger impact they also occur more frequently. On top of this their habitable zone is a lot closer to the star (so it's easier to identify potentially habitable planets). Hence there is sense on what they are telling you as I expect many of the follow up stars are M and K stars. Once you start to get hotter stars then a lot more flux is outside, what I assume is the R band filter. Hence there is a balance that yes, red filters do reduce your noise but then you are also filtering a large fraction of light in bright, hotter stars. However from a guidance perspective one simple message for the public is easier to explain. It also ensures greater consistency of data (is the depth change because of noise or because it is a binary etc). Yes, binning in time is for higher SNR, for most observatories (barring very large telescopes) you generally run multiple observations of the same object over and over to get the precision as you can phase fold the data. But again the consortium are doing that with the various data sets I assume (again preference for consistency would be key in this approach). On the other hand if you are doing it for 'fun' and just want to evidence you captured the object then time binning is likely to show the transit easier.
  10. For exoplanets you really want as much signal as you can get. I think this might come from the principle that many short period planets are around cooler stars as even at short periods they might be habitable. However around brighter hotter stars a red filter is just cutting out flux more than any benefit you will get from seeing or sky noise issues. There is some benefit from using filters to identify binary stars (as depths will change dependent on the filter band). But really you want as much signal as you can get. If it is noisy just bin your data in time (not on the camera). Also think you are doing something wrong in astroimagej as both your assessment are putting your data half a phase out of where the eclipse is. So your T0 has been shifted for some reason.
  11. Annoyingly I've just tried installing it all and it's gone through fine (and I'm not aware this computer already had Python installed). So can't really help here.
  12. As a question, why does the second line (bulleted on plot) say Kepler 408b? Just checking you are using the correct model as I wouldn't expect it to have been this far out when you modelled the system. Are these data points binned in time?
  13. Sorry, missed this initially. Yes I use Prism and do also like it being an all in one solution. However, quite pricey compared to things like NINA I suppose for most (unless you want some of the bespoke options). I think it is based off professional observatory controls from what I recall has been said (but then for most they don't need that). The interface is a bit clunky though compared to things like NINA/Voyager. What was the problem with the guiding as I've not had any problems (barring my own setup mistakes)?
  14. Are we sure cable tangle isn't going to be an issue with these mounts...?
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