Chris

I heard this news from Steve at IAS, and I can tell you for a fact my jaw rarely drops that far! A remarkably generous, exciting, and forward thinking project. what a resource for the community to have!

Cheers Dave, I had 74 minutes of footage total so there could have been more Astrograph footage in there somewhere. Can't recall a plane wave mount though unfortunately?

More than one way of skinning a cat then. I've never come across any of these bits of software!

Ah, finally I've figured out what's wrong! When rendering in Movavi it defaults to VBR which apparently stand for variable bit rate. It's not obvious but you have to setup a custom bit rate. It's too late for this video without doing another 8 hours of editing and applying lots of warp stabilisation, but I'll know for the next video

I'm having real problems with this actually It looks fine on a mobile devices or in normal YT format, but as soon as you stick it on full screen on a laptop you get the jaggies When I edit videos on Movavi the quality looks great. The problem seems to happen when I export/rendor movies. I've tried MP4, MOV and AVI formats and AVI looks slightly better than the former. I set all export settings to high and best quality. I've got a reasonably decent camera (Pany Lumix GH3 - semi pro level camera not so long back) Recorded in 1080p 25fps with a shutter speed of 1/50 complying with the 180 rule. I need to check the bit rate of my camera in the above setting but the footage looks so nice until I export it so I think it's file compression Not sure what to do about it?

Changed the video thumbnail to give that lovely Stella Mira Scope centre stage 😍

It's good to know your doppelganger also enjoys astronomy

Maybe Elon's Starlink satellite watching will be the next big thing then lol

lol Thanks, the hat's from Tesco's, in fact I have 3 in different colours so will wear a different colour next year I don't know if you could wing a solo trip next year? As a fellow family man it was so nice to have some me time

I think there's only about 60 so far, but he's planning tens of thousands.

I can't believe how easy that tiny Rainbow Astro mount was flinging that Esprit about! Pricey though at £3,800 so I'm hoping as the tech becomes more mainstream for astronomy the prices might come down a bit? Yes! it was a wonderful atmosphere and so nice to be surrounded by like minded people, astro does feel in a good place I'm a bit worried about Elon's satellite fleet though

Thanks Paz. This is was my aim

Stu, this makes me happy, not that you couldn't go of course, just that the video has served it's purpose

Thanks mate I remember searching for astrofest footage shortly after the event last year and I initially couldn't find hardly anything. I just think it's nice to see a vid if you can't make it yourself

Thanks Alan Yeah the Rainbow Astro mount was in the back right corner on the IKI stand with Rob (he was a really nice chap), and I too had a fondle of the AZ100, it was silky smooth! I took loads of video of the AZ100 and interviewed the guys but I had audio problems so couldn't include that footage I meant to though.

Ah thanks Steve, glad you enjoyed it I hope it took the edge off not being able to go, and yes, next time!

No problem, I hope you enjoy it I don't think there was many things I missed.

If anyone didn't make it, I've put together this tour video which includes demos and interviews with vendors It was fun, and I said the word amazing! a lot! lol

Hi all If anyone didn't make it to the IAS 2019 in Warwickshire the other day, I've put together this video tour with interviews and demos by vendors. I massive thank you to the organisers and vendors for allowing me to film. Everyone was really friendly, and it was a great atmosphere. I'm really pleased to have finally met some SGLr's in person (Ade, Mark, Helen, and Mr Spock to name a few) as well as Steve, Grant & Rob from FLO and IKI. Anyway here's the video:

Sometimes you just need to salute a man Well deserved success for all involved, and more to come I'm sure!

You never now, there might be a slightly smaller version in the pipeline.

I was keeping my eyes peeled for you too, the venue wasn't that big, I don't know how we missed each other lol

Yes speaking to Steve, FLO are launching their own brand of scopes - Stella Mira ! The Apo on display was a 104mm f6.25 Triplet with not one but two ED elements! It's in a lovely black and red livery and of course very nice CNC machining inc a carry handle I was impressed. There is more but I can't remember what I'm allowed to say?

What a day, I enjoyed that so much! Really great to finally meet some of you, and I have no idea how I managed to resist buying anything with room upon room full of goodies! I think I must have been pre occupied with filming Ok, I was tempted by a WO 73 ED.

Tis done I've got 74 minutes of eye candy footage to edit! I've made a start and got it down to 34 minutes so far. Interviewed I few vendors - Ian from RVO, Amy and another chap at Atik & QSI, Simon at the Wide Screen Centre, Dave from nPAE (precision Astro Engineering), Rob from IKI, and of course I finally got the pleasure of meeting Steve and Grant from FLO. Boy have I got some exciting stuff to share regarding FLO!