DaveS

Well now, here's an off-the-wall idea

For imaging the processing is all. You will frequently hear purely visual astronomers, especially the "dob mob" talk about "the thrill of the chase" hunting down impossibly faint fuzzies through star hopping. For imagers the "thrill of the chase" happens when you have your data in front of you on the computer and you try to tease out faint tidal structures or IFN from the background. Even if your circumstances preclude having your own imaging rig and you have to acquire data from a robotic telescope, you can still participate in teasing out those faint structures.

An out of focus and grossly overexposed M13?

I need more (Or any) clear nights more than I need another 'scope. Not buying any new astro kit for the foreseeable, as there's no point.

That's a fabulous image.

From what I've seen the HLS will use secondary thrusters mounted high up in the ship, so less chance of digging a crater. But this is SpaceX, so everything could change.

They can't excavate a flame trench, the water table is too high. The only option is to build up. If they don't want to completely rebuild the OLM then they will need to install a flame diverter as well as the water deluge system. I've been hearing multiple conflicting reports / predictions about what they have planned, including a water cooled metal plate to protect the concrete, which doesn't sound like it will work.

The Cosmic Horseshoe From a challenge set by @Xilman. Ignore the foreground galaxies, the target is the ridiculously tiny bullseye in the centre (And shown in the crop). This is 6 hours of Luminance only in 10 min subs captured in Maxim with the ODK 12 and Trius 694 using a Baader L filter. Stacked and processed in AstroArt 8 which did a better job than PixInsight in this case. The ring is a galaxy at 10.5 GLy that is being lensed by the foreground galaxy at 5.3 GLy. My tiny mind is slightly boggled that I managed to capture a gravitationally lensed galaxy with not very extreme amateur equipment from my back garden. it is mag 20.3!

I've decided to put this to bed and move on. I've got the ring so will consider it a success. 6 hours might be considered a rather short integration time, but I want to see what else I might be able to image before the end of astro dark.

Well, I guess that's one way to dig a flame trench 🤣

A preliminary result from the ODK 12 and SX 694. 36 x 600 sec Luminance subs over the 18th / 19th. Stacked in AstroArt, DDP and Richardson-Lucy deconvolution, with a denoise to finish. It's the ridiculously tiny bullseye in the centre. It does show a broken ring when examined at 100%. In the unlikely event of my getting more clear nights (Yeah, right) I will add to the data and process in PI with BX (If i manage o purchase a licence) This may, however, have used up my clear sky quota for april and Galaxy Season. Centre crop given another R-L deconvolution

An "epic fail" would have been a RUD on the launch mount or a low air-burst which would have destroyed the whole launch complex. The fact that it didn't has to be considered a success. And notice that B7 S24 stayed intact through all the twists and turns that they went through. I suspect that an aluminium rocket would have come apart at the seams.

Yep, and the exhaust from the Raptors does look very much like a humongous Bunsen burner

I rather think that Ukraine has been very glad of Starlink.

Do you want to return to a dirt-grubbing substance agrarian economy? I certainly don't.

Point one: it isn't a waste. Point two: what Musk has spent is chicken feed compared to what would be needed.

I'm conflicted about Musk. On the one hand I applaud what he's doing to make space travel affordable and sustainable, but on the other his Starlink junk just annoys the heck out of me, though I can see that he needs the money to fund Starship etc. Like I say, no simple answer.

Some videos of Raptor engines test firing and gimbaling

The inner engines are gimbaled using hydraulic actuators but the outer ones are fixed. The latest version uses electric actuators, which a much faster.

The outer ring of engines are fixed, but the 13 inner engines are gimbaled.

I don't know how detailed the telemetry is. For all I know each engine may have been monitored to the last degree.

Or possibly an Auto dismantling Event.

Telemetry data would be good. I could see 6 Raptors out before the bang, and could see some flaming out (Or exploding) during the launch. Given that SpaceX reckon that they need 31 running to reach orbit, this was never going to proceed. Guess they ran it as long as they did to gather as much data as they could.

I saw a documentary on the Saturn V computer (Possibly YT), showing all the work by women threading impossibly fine wire through the ferrite cores (I'm old enough to remember core store), and feeling angry and depressed that all that effort would be thrown away, ending up at the bottom of the Atlantic. Hopefully the days of chuck-it-away will soon be over.

Mutterings that I've heard talk about another launch in August. Booster 9 and Ship 26 are pretty much ready. SpaceX will learn a lot from this test.