saac

1 hour ago, IB20 said:

 For me visual astronomy is about relaxation and de-stressing,

Not mutually exclusive with ownership of a big dob. The phrase "always paddle your own canoe" comes to mind   One of the great things about this "hobby" is it offers enough variety to challenge, stretch, frustrate in equal measure to personal preferences while keeping us all happy.  

Jim 

I don't think their days are numbered rather they are as they have always been more specialist rather than generalist telescope.  Apertures of 16 inch and above, no matter how well designed, will always require a certain amount of commitment due to handling and storage requirements.  They will always have their appeal to those who can.  

Jim 

Do you think the manufacturers of threaded bottom brackets know how they are doing their bit for the circular economy and sustainability? They deserve a medal - and therein lies another discussion, astro awards for accidental supporting companies to the astro cause  

Jim 

You won't do any harm to the mount by doing what you are suggesting. Just be mindful when lifting and moving it though as it will have an awkward balance to it. 

Jim 

Too be honest I wouldn't go and overthink this. Just start imaging and you will find the limitations of your particular location. I think you will be surprised just exactly how well you can image from even the most light polluted areas now. You only need to do a casual trawl through the site to find the most excellent deep sky images from people who image around the environs of London.  Don't let measuring you sky quality delay your imaging. 

Jim 

31 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

I can vouch for the usefulness of this App, it proved very helpful on the 10th-11th May giving real time updates on the display.

On reflection I particularly liked how with the naked eye or a modest DSLR the whole event could be enjoyed.

Cheers,
Steve

 

I think this is a very valid point Steve makes.  The aurora last week was as much a once in a generation thing - the whole of the sky was covered (East to West , North to South) not just the usual curtain of light dancing in the Northern part of the sky. With moments like that I think it's important not to just keep a camera held to your face but to experience the whole effect.  I'm convinced that if I was ever lucky enough to see a total eclipse I wouldn't be taking photographs rather concentrating on the experience. Easy to say I guess, harder to do maybe but I got close to it last weekend, it was very moving.

Jim

We saw colours here in Fife with naked eye. Sure, no where near as vivid as with a camera/mobile phone but yes the colours were definitely visible by eye. Allowing your eyes time to dark adapt also made the colours more prominent.  It was also possible to detect movement in the aurora, not so much real-time just an awareness that the pattern had changed if one looked at a different part of the sky and then back again.  

Jim

7 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

Looking to get practice in for soldering (for building an autofocusser and EQ platform) I've been ordering DIY kits from eBay.  I've been looking them over and Been cherry picking the ones with all the teeny surface mounted stuff attached so it's just through hole.

Imagine my surprise when I found these in the component tester kit that arrived today:

 

I think I might struggle.  Wonder if I can claim my money back since the pictures clearly showed this stuff on the board.

Take a run up at it and you'll be alright!  Good luck - can we see before and after ?

JIm 

It was inspirational, truly magnificent and wee reminder, as if we need it, how beautiful this world can be.

ps - I love the photograph with the boat  - as though it is adrift in the sky across a sea of colour. 

Jim

Cost of living crisis and electricity prices, it switched over to energy saving lamps.

Jim

I wonder if FLO will get an aurora bounce with lots of enquiries Monday morning for beginner telescopes  Hopefully a lot of people got a kick out of looking at the night sky last night and it may stick. 

Jim 

Funny that this was across the whole of the UK and beyond. Guess what movie I was watching as it was happening - Invasion -. Will we all wake up tomorrow alien drones 😖

Just now, Davesellars said:

Wow.  Quite something - Was viewing this from 11:30 till 12 in Derbyshire - incredible colours!

Yep WOW - the universe certainly put on a display for us tonight.  It was extending from South rotating 360 degrees through the cardinal points  - seemed to be centred with the rays appearing to radiate from the zenith. Easily visible naked eye and colours really  vivid, best I've seen. What a treat. 

Jim 

"it's not me, it IS you"

Jim 

51 minutes ago, andrew s said:

I have just sold my last astronomical telescope so it's very quiet here.

Regards Andrew 

But can you hear it calling to you from across the void Andrew?

Jim 

"have you tightened the dovetail?"  "No seriously go and check have you tightened the dovetaaaaaaaaail "

"dust cap is still on ya muppet"

Jim 

Gary welcome to the world of astrophotography, you are in for a wild ride and lots of fun. Don't be put off by the learning curve , there is a lot to get through but it is all relatively easy to understand taken step by step.  The first thing I would do if you haven't already done it is to set up your scope on your mount without the camera. Get use to how it all connects , do it in the daytime. Once you are happy set it up at night and figure out how to roughly polar align the scope.  I would then spend a bit of time using the scope in visual mode as this will get you use to its operation. Once you are comfortable with that you will be ready to take on imaging and it will make life a lot easier. Some software to download: Stellarium (good planetarium to tell you were object are in night sky) maybe Deep Sky Stacker which you will use later for imaging. These are free, if you have any difficulty finding them (google search) come back and we can point to a source for download.  Sorry if you are already familiar with basic scope operation I just assumed from your post you were starting right at the beginning.  Anyway you have found the right place, you will get plenty of help here. 

Just a though how are you intending to control the scope/camera - are you looking to control it from a laptop or does your setup have goto capability? The control of the scope - pointing, finding targets, framing etc is a big part of the learning curve and can be frustrating at the beginning.  

Jim

2 hours ago, andrew s said:

The interplay of mathematics and physics is fascinating.  At times maths has led e.g. Riemman geometry required for general relativity and others where physics led e.g. the Dirac delta function eventually made respectable by mathematicians with via the theory of distributions.

Regards Andrew 

What actually separates the two disciplines, particularly theoretical physics and say pure mathematics?  I mean at the most professional level say in research or academia is there a particular body of knowledge or skill-set that differentiates the two disciplines. I've always thought that at that level the disciplines must really converge. Or does it simply come down to what holds the interest and hence motivates a particular researcher?  I used to think that the level of command of mathematics would be a limiting factor. But then Einstein used to make fun of his mathematical abilities yet he obviously had imagination, insight maybe a natural intuition of the physical world that allowed him to see what he needed to see. I guess this is where the value of interdisciplinary teams come in. 

Jim 

4 minutes ago, George Jones said:

Wandering off-topic a bit, but the Navier-Stoke situation, for me, is quite interesting. Engineers and physicists are happy to solve Navier-Stokes on a computer, but mathematicians have yet to be convinced that any reasonable solutions to Navier-Stokes exist (as the mathematics of mathematicians). There is $1 million riding on this! Anyone who can prove existence (without even writing down a solution), or who can find an explicit solution, wins a Clay Millennium Prize.

The attitude of hard-nosed physicists and engineers is that mathematicians are too worried about crossing every t and dotting every i.

I never knew that George,  it made me laugh. The thought of engineers and physicist just cracking on with it while the Mathematicians hesitate; afterall somebody has to design the pumps, gas turbines and water park flume rides!  I'll cut the Maths dudes some slack, afterall, I suppose the dot placing is tricky on those imaginary i s .    

A million dollars you say eh, now where did I put my laplace tables  

Jim 

43 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

No need for levelling. My 12" tracks just fine on its EQ platform  

Which, by the way, tilts more side to side while tracking than any uneven surface 

More evidence to support no need to level equatorial mounts, only Alt Az  

Jim 

Same process in engineering (fluid dynamics) with use of the Navier Stokes equations in analysis of turbulent flow regimes; from what I remember there are no easy analytical solutions (modelled by differential equations then cracked with lots of CPU power). Laminar flow, yes, but that's boring  

Jim 

Thought I'd treat my laptop to a memory upgrade. Now to find a YouTube video on how to swap it out - oh no I have my laptop in bits  

If you never hear from me again you'll know what's happened!

Jim 

Has anybody tried to do any spectroscopy with the SeeStar and say a StarAnalyser (Paton Hawksley)?  

Jim 

I bet somebody somewhere has one of those and levelled it. 

Jim

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

. On the other hand, I guess you wouldn’t want a pier looking too wonky would you?  

Yes the aesthetics of the amateur astronomer's rig is very important. This is self evident in the way telescope and mount manufacturers have embraced bright primary colour hard anodising.   Now here's a thing, I wonder how my fellow amateurs "dress" while astronomising (yes Olly I know that is not a real word).  This could be a whole new thread - "astronomy attire for the evening session and twilight hours and even formal (black tie) astronomy attire when you pass the port to the left  

Jim