StuartJPP

A very good question....do the northern lights look anything like this to the unaided naked eye even under the most spectacular conditions (as advertised by Icelandic cruises)? Considering this is how Andromeda is portrayed: But we all know what the Andromeda galaxy looks like to the naked eye. I haven't witnessed northern lights myself*....so I can't comment but I am surprised at how few comparisons are made between photos and how the show looked to the naked eye on a particular night (there's one or two on Google search). I can comment on noctilucent clouds and the photos and the naked eye visualisation can be quite similar with the naked eye being a bit more faint but still very impressive and easily seen with the mk1 eyeball during a spectacular show. *I think I once did witness a faint showing of the NL but I didn't even take photos as I wasn't even really aware of them, just thought it was thin cloud. Someone I knew staying about 3 miles away from where I was staying took some fairly impressive looking NL images that night.....🤷‍♂️ Thanks to the impressive photos above which I would never claim to be my own.

Thanks chaps unfortunately they are not removable, well not without any major surgery so that's why I was contemplating some form of front filter(s) that could be added and removed quickly. I think I'd basically be adding a pair of glasses to the front of the bins to correct for hyperopia and need a prescription of the correct diopter. I think the issue comes in that fractional positive dioptre filters are not very common. I can't believe that there isn't a set available for exactly this type of application though it's obvious I don't really know what I'm talking about 😂

Not sure if this is the right place to put this but I'm sure someone here will know way more about it than me. What I am trying to do is reduce the minimum focusing distance of my binoculars (8x42) so that I can focus on objects closer than say 2 meters. I'm not bothered that I will lose infinity focus at this point as it would only be temporary should the opportunity call for it. In the photography world I can attach a close-up filter to my camera lens and it will allow me to focus the lens closer and closer depending on what diopter filter I attach. I have tried one or two different ones that I already own (+1 or +2) but it shifts the minimum focusing distance from about 5 meters to about 20cm, way too close. I have read somewhere that I'd need a +0.25 diopter or even +0.125 or less to perform this function.....is this correct? Where on earth can I get such a filter in the size of the objective of the bins? Probably in the days gone by I could have had an optician grind one but not even sure this is something plausible these days. It seems like every genre of optics, photography, astronomy, microscopy etc. has its own vernacular despite the underlying physics being the same thing.

I'll take them both onboard @vlaiv and @AstroKeith as I'm sure they both play a part in it. Of course this thread (that I missed) may also play a big part in it. I equate my experience to looking at those washed out LCD monitors of yesteryear where there was no real black and the contrast was poor.

I was out last Saturday night imaging from my usual spot and although the SQM meter was indicating pretty much the same as usual (circa 20.80) things just didn't seem very dark at all to the naked eye. Conditions weren't perfect as there was a slight bit of haze but no worse than what I'm used to. I could make out the cloud of the Milky Way but again it just didn't seem very bright, almost washed out like someone has been adjusting the contrast/gamma. What has changed is that the street lights have changed from sodium vapour to LED so could it be more of a perception thing? Also I was using different imaging kit to usual so I couldn't compare previous subs to this session to see if it was better or worse. I thought that an SQM reading would go lower as the sky fog/glow increased but as I said it was pretty much where it usually is. Any thoughts? PS...one other thing that has changed is that I'm getting older but I'd have thought that would make the view dimmer not brighter 😂

I missed the conclusion to this, glad to see you are up and running again Ash. I'm always in favour of getting the most out of any device and save it from landfill.

You won't be loving it when it is unscheduled and part of daily life, just ask any South African. Don't worry, you'll be able to process the images when the power eventually returns, if it's on long enough to actually finish processing them before it's off again that is. While it's off you can sort out the freezer of spoiled food and charge up your power banks.

On that specific star it looks like the same issue as this to me. However the rest of the field looks pretty free from the same artefact (though the other dimmer star not far away and close to the edge appears to be starting to have the same issue). It is the brightest star and is at the fringes so maybe the mirror box or something else is causing an obstruction?

Okay, who are you and what have you done with the real Olly? 😜

Hi Ash, Yes the stripe marking on the capacitor does have to be facing the same direction as in my photo. That's important. The solder you have is fine, it has 5 cores of flux in it.

Hi Ash, do you have any solder at all? The vast majority of solder has flux infused. You may be able to get away without using it if not but I doubt you will get a decent solder joint. Would probably be okay to check if that is the only thing wrong. Just remember to get the polarity of the capacitor right otherwise it will all have been in vain. Fingers crossed it was just that capacitor. Without a multimeter it's not going to be easy to do much more fault finding. If I were you I'd get one, just a cheapie, always comes in handy.

Hi Ash, Do you have a multimeter handy? It would be useful to measure across the capacitor in continuity/Ohms mode to confirm that it is a short, then remove the capacitor and measure again to see if it has gone. Definitely make sure you're not powering up with anything more than 12V. Can also use a 100uF capacitor as well if they are available. If possible check to see if you can get a 25V capacitor instead of a 16V one, might help going forwards though obviously in the same footprint and height. I'll have a look in my "bits" box and see what I've got but I don't think I've got many tantalum capacitors at all. If I do I could pop one or two in the post. If there was space, other types of capacitors could have been used but it is quite a tight fit in there and I doubt you'd get the top lid back on with anything more bulky.

Hi Ash, Finally managed to get a photo of the PCB. Looks like the capacitor that was damaged is a 47uF, 16V surface mount tantalum capacitor. The fact that it is rated at 16V doesn't leave much room for margin if the unit was powered from anything other than 12V DC. Power is fed through an "idiot" diode coming from the 8 pin header so incorrect polarity shouldn't have been an issue. Was the unit plugged into something and using the guiding port (the RJ-45 connector) at all? That could have been another path for things to have gone wrong. The stepper motor is controlled by the Allegro A3984 using a tangential pulse speed that changes over time depending on how far away the head is from the start position to achieve the tracking accuracy. I did some investigations a long time ago on how it all works.

Looks like a tantalum capacitor. They do have a tendency to go wrong spontaneously and in doing so normally go short circuit. I can pop the cover off mine to see what value it should be if you're considering repairing it? Depending on where it is in the circuit it may be sacrificial and protected the rest of the circuit, fingers crossed.

Depends on how thick the Pritt layer is but it tends to melt away anyway. I wouldn't say It is as smooth as on the original glass, but certainly better than not sticking.

Z-offset is zero. The thing is that with a thin layer of Pritt the print adheres fine so I can only conclude that the bed is not as good as it used to be. Maybe I was a bit overzealous cleaning it? I'll try light scouring as mentioned, nothing to lose. Re: Auto bed levelling, I can see the appeal, but yet another thing to go wrong. If I was more of an enthusiast then I'd investigate but for now a manual tweak only takes a couple of minutes and it wasn't even off after the whole time the printer wasn't used.

Interesting Alan.... The original sample PLA that I got with the printer was terrible, popping and spluttering all over the place. I put it down to it not being in a sealed bag, just a jiffy bag and judging from what I read online and watched on YouTube. Must have just been cheap rubbish filament of unknown origin. Me thinks that a lot of the content on YouTube is a bit of....well let's say.....horseradish.....to sell views. I know that the spool on the printer was exposed to moisture because it was in the garage for a year through all seasons and the label is all crinkly like it has been damp but yet still completely usable. If you watch any video on YouTube you will see how much they go on about storage of PLA in dehumidifier tubs etc. Seems a complete waste to me, maybe they should just buy some decent filament instead (my filament of choice is just a fairly basic one from Amazon).

I hadn't used my Creality Ender 3 V2 for quite a few months, in fact probably well over a year. It had been sat in the garage just covered with a cloth (I know, I was intending to store it a bit better but never got around to it). Anyway it was sitting there with about 1/10th of a spool of PLA on it. First thing - Would the PLA have absorbed so much moisture so as to be unusable? - No, it printed just fine, no pops, whistles or any little "explosions" like they show on YouTube. Maybe I just got lucky or maybe they soaked their PLA in the bath before filming. Second thing - I thought I was a bit rusty but I just couldn't get the print to stick to the bed. Everything seemed fine, nozzle temperature and bed temperature was where it used to be. The bed was levelled and cleaned as I had always done. The bed is the glass type with the mottled/dotted texture. I had never really had problems with bed adhesion, though admittedly the last few times I used it, it wasn't as good as when I first got the printer but still wasn't an issue. I tried quite a few prints, cleaning between each, however each one lifted after a couple of layers. After thinking that maybe the PLA was indeed "off", I was about to change the spool but then I noticed a stick of Pritt Stick (original). Dabbed it on, looked like a mess, but thought that I might as well try it, what have I got to lose? Worked like a bomb. Didn't even have to clean the bed for a 2nd and 3rd print. Am I a convert? Maybe, definitely worked well and was easy to clean off with just some water and finished with IPA, ready until I print again in another year's time 🤣 Just to be clear, I'm not claiming the Pritt Stick is my idea, the reason I had it on the shelf is because I had heard good things about it so had it "Just In Case".

I'm almost certain that the 6D would have been modified when I took these images. Light leak could be a cause but not sure, there's definitely more heat generated with live-view so was assuming that was the cause. Besides I always image with live-view off, so it is almost immaterial what the root cause is.

A bit late to this but this is what I found regarding live-view usage in the 6D. Pretty similar image as to what you got.

When you say the cables are loose do you mean the connectors can move slightly when seated? RJ connectors are spring loaded and do move within their sockets slightly, especially in the in/out direction. As long as there is a positive click and the little locking tab is engaged they should be fine. You could have a faulty cable or one connector failure in either part. To test in daylight you can use PHD to issue manual guide corrections and listen if the motor noise changes

+1 for the Muck Boots, however they are pretty expensive now. Can't believe that I only paid £40 for my pair on sale a few years ago from a gun range. They also work well on black ice for traction. The thing to remember is that if you are feeling cold in the extremities it usually means you are losing core body heat. Doesn't mean you can wear a thick parka and flip-flops but you'd survive longer than wearing double fleece-lined snow boots in your birthday suit.

Before I spend loads of money trying to find the right thing, I just wondered if anybody knows of a strong ~50mm wide double-sided (clear) tape that is difficult to tear but isn't reinforced with strands. Just "regular" double-sided tape thickness, not padded or anything and not costing an arm or a leg, in the region of £15 per 50m roll. I have got a roll that is quickly running out but it has no branding on it and I'm unsure of it's origins. Most of what I can find online is "easy to tear" or they don't mention it and when asked they come back with "it is easy to tear". I want to be able to remove the tape without it splitting up into thousands of tiny pieces. So it must be difficult to tear, or at least not tear very easily but definitely must not have any strands to make it stronger. For reference it is for use on my small milling machine to temporarily hold workpieces to the bed, usually acrylic/delrin sheeting. Any thoughts?

I thought that the "Human Cannonball" act was halted due to health and safety concerns.

Definitely phone the insurance company and give specific scenarios to see if you are covered. Mine will cover kit left in a locked car at home as well as away from home as long as it was not visible and in the boot. Some insurance companies require that boot to be inaccessible from inside the car such as a sedan, not a hatchback. Mine covers both. It will cover me if someone steals the kit from me if I am present, i.e. aggravated theft. It will cover me if I leave my camera on the roof of the car and I drive off damaging it (accidental). It won't cover me if I drive off leaving my kit behind (negligence). It will cover me for loss in foreign countries to the same level as in the UK. It will cover most accidental loss, but definitely not any negligence. After asking them a few questions like above you soon get an idea of what is and what isn't covered since you can't dream up all possible situations.