Chris

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

Fortunately my neighbours don’t like security lights. 🥳🥳🥳  

Only one in the area is on a garage and too low down to be seen over my fence. 

I'm very pleased for your John, and I'm definitely not jealous at all 😬😄

1 minute ago, Astro Noodles said:

I think you will be surprised how little difference it makes apart from obviously ruining your dark adaption.

One of my neighbours has a really bright floodlight like those. I have found that when I'm observing, using a hood to cut out the other light from various windows etc, I can't tell whether the light is on or off. I also find that it makes no discernable difference for AP in my bortle 5/6 skies. I can't tell the difference anyway from one frame to another.

That is re assuring

29 minutes ago, dmki said:

living London and being able to stalk my local park without a head touch at night  any time of the year, all i can say is

what are you complaining about, you can still see black behind the house 😀

It's a fair point, everything is relative. Although it's more of a dark grey than black

26 minutes ago, dmki said:

stalk my local park

Why does predictive text always have to make us look bad? 😃

10 minutes ago, Franklin said:

Set up out the front and do another one of your excellent Astro La Vista YouTube videos. Make the subject "light pollution and how it affects peoples view of the universe". You never know, if they see it, they may be shamed into pulling the switch!

 hehe I like the idea of a passive aggressive light pollution video! 💡  💡💡🔭🙈

13 minutes ago, Astro Noodles said:

That's really outrageous. 

You could complain to your local authority, there are laws about lighting causing a nuisance.

Artificial light nuisances: how councils deal with complaints - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

1 minute ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Well Chris at least burglars will ignore your house and head straight to theirs! 🙄

Get straight to the council. Seems like a light nuisance case. They could at least angle them down. 

I appreciate the support, I guess I'm more baffled/amused than angry. I mainly wanted to share this because it's such a curiosity to see someone light up their house to such an extent. Especially in this day and age of increasing pollution of every kind and massively increasing energy bills. 

I'm not sure what type of lights their running but I'll test out my light pollution filter and see if that helps before pondering further action.   

5 minutes ago, HiveIndustries said:

I dunno why you're all so outraged, they've gone through such great lengths to color match with the other lights and make it soothing to the eye. Anyone who says the Brits don't understand class needs to visit this person's backyard.

Enchanting evening under the basking glow, a bella sera as we'd say in Italian.

Well looking on the 'bright side' I never thought I'd be able to get a tan at night!  

10 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

No wonder they feel the need for security lights - someone is constantly taking pictures of their house

 

hmmm? now you mention it, it could be because I sometimes press my face up against their patio window whilst they're having dinner? 🤔😄 

11 minutes ago, HiveIndustries said:

They have to be messing with you.

Even my neighbors saw me outside with the telescope and started to turn their motion sensitive one off, no conversation needed.

Now that's a neighbourly thing to do

7 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

My word, how awful, that streetlight is basically redundant.

I really think there should be a limit to the total brightness of lights and also height you can place them on private houses, that's just ridiculous.

Steve

Seems a bit superfluous doesn't it. 

It's going to be like living opposite a sports stadium from now on. I can just imaging their power metre evoking special relatively as it whizzes round! 

They have just upgraded from their two security lights to 3 security lights. I thought it was the Full Moon glaring through the curtains!

On 14/10/2021 at 23:56, Stu said:

The reducer/flattener takes it to f4.8, presumably getting rid of the curvature too.

Well I happen to be a very lucky boy as I have my hands on a StellaMira 90 + 0.8 reducer/flattener! The reducer is for the imaging side if things and I'll be testing that with a crop sensor and maybe a full frame camera (if I can borrow my father in laws). BUT I'm very much looking forward to looking at this scope from a visual point of view also. I won't be able to use the 0.8 RF for this but I can check how it performs otherwise. 

20 hours ago, happy-kat said:

That's a nice easy start vid for people to follow.

I think as the register process has not yet been run and stack is ticked there that's why the stacking summary page doesn't  know total exposure time.

 

Thanks, and yes I was getting a head of myself there : )

If you're new to Deep Sky Object (DSO) imaging the three main steps are 1) Capture plenty of long exposure images 2) Stack the images together to increase the signal and reduce the noise 3) Process the stacked image in order to pull out detail and make it look pretty.   

In this tutorial I run through the stacking part with the very popular and free stacking software called DeepSkyStacker: 

I skip one or two steps that I don't think are important for beginners

The C11 Edge looks sharper to me. Did you nail the focus for the TOA Rodd? 

That just looks right doesn't it! That view too!

8 minutes ago, Grumpy Martian said:

I am well thankyou Chris. I have recently been travelling past that service station where we met for me to buy your Revelation 80mm years ago near Ipswich.

I remember that well because the Revelation was pristine until I dropped the metal objective cap during the sale! 🙈😅

10 hours ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Thanks Chris. How are you? 

Good thank you Martin  Keeping busy with plenty going on. I hope you're well also? 

3 hours ago, Grumpy Martian said:

Looking at the specs of the Helios Lightwing, they seem impressive.

Here's my first light report for the LightWing ED's, in case you would like a second opinion 

54 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

I have a pair of Helios Lighting HR 8x42ED binoculars that I picked up from Lockie (@Chris) a couple of years ago and I've been very impressed by them, but only tend to use them for general daylight observing, mostly birding but Chris posted how impressed he was with them under the night sky if I remember correctly.

Put it this way Ade...if you ever want to sell them back? 🤩 Seriously though they are an excellent small binocular. Roof prism bins don't usually have that pseudo 3D effect, but the Helios LightWing ED's could focus tiny pin prick stars on the edge of visibility which gave the view nice depth.

If I recall correctly the field was nice and flat over a good portion of the AFOV and reflections weren't a problem also. 

I find myself recommending them quite often   

This is 40 (ish) 2 minute exposures, ISO1600, with a vintage Asahi Pentax 135mm Super Takumar lens, Fujifilm XT1 and Stars Adventurer mount.

Just light frames because I tend to crop in anyway, and the Fuji is relatively low in the noise department considering its a camera from 2013/14. 

Couldn't agree more Rob! Like many I have chronic anxiety and panic attacks but always feel great when I get out under the stars! 

My other hobbies of running, cycling and fish keeping all seem to be designed to help with anxiety too, either relaxing or producing endorphins.  

Cheers Steve

That was a really cool video, I do appreciate Ed's story telling. However, ironically it made we want loads of telescopes! 😆