Paul M

I had a few looks in the early hours of today while working a night shift. Lots of cloud had moved in but there were big gaps here and there. Didn't see a thing.

My work site is currently a huge construction zone. Temporary floodlights abound, so limited dark adaptation also.

Hopefully there will be some big gaps in the clouds during tonight's shift. 

I've always been disappointed by the Perseid's. I'd say my success rate isn't much above the sporadic meteor rate!!

Bring on the Gemenid's, a proper meteor shower

This bloke would have surely been a YouTuber....

The sky right now, here on the Fylde Coast, is deep blue and cloudless. The forecast is good, the heinous lump of cheese is nearly out of the way and the sky just about gets dark now!

It's the night I've been waiting for for months!

Oh, hold on....

My shift rota  

4 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Its sad that you had a bad experience.

Yes, I was deeply dissapointed and frustrated in equal measure.

Gina, the late, great friend of this forum was a user of Pi's and KStars/Ekos and it was her successes that inspired me to take that route into imaging.

As it happens I put Ubuntu on an old laptop last year and have KStars et al installed. I like KStars planetarium as a standalone tool but I also have plate solving and guiding set up and ready to go, should I have a brain storm and give it a go at imaging again!

That laptop lives at our Cumbrian get-away, so gets frequent use as a day to day PC. I don't have any imaging gear there but I'm always thinking about getting a lightweight rig that can get stowed there. 

2 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

And thats the advantage with using a software such as Kstars which comes bundled with planetarium, control of mount, cameras, dome etc., platesolver & guider. There is no reliance of attaching external programs and getting them to all talk together.

Been there, done that!

Abandoned Astroberry after 3 months of failure: the RasPi just crashed or hung after taking a single sub. Tried every possible fix...

Then tried KStars/Ekos as standalone on a mini PC running Ubuntu. Looked good right up to the point where I never got an image out of that either, but I didn't hang round that time.

Went back to Windows. It just works! 😀

I kept the Pi so that I can thrash it with a big stick now and again. Just for old-time sake 🤣

I've had weird stuff when using planetarium software to point the scope.

The problem I've identified was that when using, for example, HNSKY (as I sometimes do on my imaging PC) to GOTO an object that isn't in APT's catalogues, I find, and center the object and start guiding. But if I have HNSKY set to "follow object" while it's still connected/synced with APT, HNSKY will keep sending the mount back to the original GOTO position. This may be some distance from the actual centered object. And off it shoots, apparently randomly.

So now I don't sync the HNSKY "telescope" with APT. I only use it to display the plate solved image frame size, position and orientation - which it does excellently. I can then confirm if the target is in the frame and adjust using APT functions.

There are more accurate ways of "grabbing" the RA/DEC of say, a comet or asteroid in HNSKY by sending them as a custom object to APT and then use APT to perform a simple GOTO and platesolve.

Dylan O'Donnell's latest YouTube video says it all:

The thing to remember is that the Met Office is the national weather service. No other source has better data. Maybe different but not better.

The Beeb going over to some French provider was entirely political. But still they are in many cases, buying data that originates from the Met O.

Forget apps that do no more than produce a graphical output of raw model data. And anything beyond 3 days needs a great amount of consideration.

The way I've done it for years is to keep an eye on the general synoptic situation: http://www.metbrief.com/resources/asxxfsxx.html

The Met O forecasts on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@metoffice

Satellite imagery: https://www.met.no/vaer-og-klima/satellittbilder

And a general interest in meteorology. 

3 hours ago, Mike Q said:

So the universe is having a mid life crisis.... Got it. 

Aint we all? 🤪

Maybe the Universe is getting a sensitive about its age now? Maybe it's been passing itself off as "13b years old" for the last 13b years 🤣

David A Hardy!

A link to an online resource: https://pin.it/6Ue6BLs

My last outing was in April.

But with light nights from May onwards I've not lost too much.

I'm now getting emotionaly prepared for dark nights returning. So hopefully it'll improve. 

My astro life has had many ebbs and flows over the decades. I don't mind long gaps. Life has got in the way more than weather. But my love of astronomy is always restored by, for example, the winter constellations in a crisp, clear night sky.

Orion, like an lifelong friend returning ❤️

"We'" the masses are certainly being softened up ready for something.

Have no doubt!

That's magnificent. Excellent result!

16 minutes ago, woldsman said:

Astronomy and healthy sleep are hard to combine if you have work/family commitments and the consequences of poor sleep are serious,

That's it in a nutshell.

I'm amongst the rather common group here, the lifelong astronomer that had a hiatus during peak family/work/life. Astronomy is just not compatible with young family and work the next day.

So i returned to the fold about 10 years ago as our son became a young adult and the pace of life slowed. I bought a new scope and all that. But only 3 or 4 years in the MD declared that we were to become foster carers. 

It's unlikely I'll retire before state pension age, about 8 years off for me, and we are timing our inmate's, agewise, to be ready for flying the nest about that same time... The struggle, the renewed struggle, to find astronomy time continues like it's 1999 allover again... 🤪

Very nice. The second image looks like a different data set! 

The adjacent galaxy is very well defined second time round. 

Well done to the winners! Great images.

I think this was the first challenge I've entered. Not that I thought had any chance, but I do now have an unused acceptance speech, should anyone need one..🤣

1 minute ago, Paz said:

In 10 years of observing I've never yet managed to get myself out of bed for a really early observing session, I will try harder!

I know the feeling.

I've been a stargazer for nearly 50 years and as a boy was acutely aware of 2 big calendar events in 1999. Things i had to see:

That Solar Eclipse, I had that in hand and we watched totality in perfect conditions on the center line in Bulgaria.

Second was the 33 year maximum of the Leonid meteor shower, expected to be a storm. The peak was due before dawn. The forecast was favorable. I was getting up for work at 6.30 anyway so an earlier start would not be a problem.

I failed. Couldn't get out if bed. Gave myself some reasons.. when I did get up, the dawn sky still displayed some convoluted and iridescent persistent train(s) from a  Leonid fireball(s) I'd just slept through.🫢

I think that any imbalance in your circadian rhythm will show itself somewhere else down the line.

I work shifts 2 x 12 hrs days followed by 2 x 12 nights then 3 clear days off. By my days off I'm a zombie. And it's accumulative. Memory loss, mood issues, fatigue. I manage all those but that doesn't mean it's ok.

I do find it easier to do a full night shift than to stay up late astronomying and going to bed at 3am. I'm lousy next day!

My advice would be to avoid being up after midnight, particularly if you normally go to bed at 9.30 or 10pm. Set yourself a minimum sleep time and stick with that. 

As Frankin says, early morning observation is an option too. If you don't feel like getting up, fine, nothing lost.

One thing that has changed my astronomying in using cameras instead of my eyeballs. I'm no imager but all my observations are now images. I set up as soon as it goes dark and,  forecast willing, leave it to do its own thing. My rough processing ( no pixel peeping..) is then done in normal, humane hours! Better than watching TV. I like tracking down transient or difficult objects, faint comets, asteroids. I bagged a Trans Neptunian Object that's further than Pluto earlier this year. So no APOD entries from me.

I honestly think I'd have given up active astronomy if I'd not moved away from visual, for many reasons, the need for sleep among them!

18 minutes ago, Elp said:

Just putting this here on its first birthday (stunning rendition of Rho Ophiuchi):

That's a stunning image but looks "contrived" almost. It looks like a huge flaming insect coming in with bright landing lights...

I've just "liked" a set of images taken with a robotic scope elsewhere on SGL.

I see the FLO have a bit of a sale on a selection of robotic scopes right now. I'm getting a twitchy finger!

I've been playing with the idea of upgrading my NEQ6 mount as it's just at the limit for my newish 10" RC scope. But it's only been out maybe 8 or 10 ten times this year so far and the EQ6 does alright, if I'm honest.

So for the same money or less (much less for the Seestar) I could scratch the itch and get a plug and play robotic scope. Great for up at our Luxury Cumbrian Villa, with it's rural/semi rural sky. I don't get chance to set up fancy gear there, but one of these would be perfect.

Plonk it outside, open a can of cheap lager and explore the sky. Simples!

Very nice! I do wonder why I've spent so much money and time on fancy equipment to just get similar results!  

I've got a growing itch. One of the robotic scopes would fit perfectly at my dark sky get-away in Cumbria.

I see FLO have some offers on, right now! 

Well that's a disappointment. I was, for a few minutes at least, looking forward at a bright new supernova to drag me out of  the summer doldrums!

Thanks for the heads up. I'm a subscriber and always keep up to date but I didn't realise there was a fundraiser on the go. APT doesn't get much use by me between May and August so maybe missed something.

Donation now sent! 

1 hour ago, FenderGreg said:

why do I enjoy all the troubleshooting?!

I think that's how we learn, how we progress.

I get frustrated by my silly mistakes but proper trouble shooting is a big part of it for me. 

When I returned to astronomy from the usual life-gets-in-the-way hiatus, I started right here on SGL. The imaging talk left me bemused; "Plate Solving?", what are they even talking about? Etc...  And I didn't understand many of these things until I started gearing up for imaging. 

90% troubleshooting, 5% test runs and 5% poor images! But I loved it all.

I'm now at the 5% troubleshooting, 95% poor images stage 😁