DaveS

Following my thoughts from a post in the now-locked thread got me wondering.

Our current bunch of rockets, even with developments, are still at the dug-out canoe level, and what improvements we've made are no more than polishing the outside and adding some varnish. Ion drive is a bit better but still nowhere good enough to really open up the solar system.

I'm leaving out interstellar travel here, though if we want to explore the Oort Cloud then we will need something close. Even the Kuiper belt will need something a *lot* better than we already have.

So where do people think technology will go?

Nuclear Thermal? Barely a step up from our current dug-out canoes.

VASIMR? looks much better

Epstein aneutronic fusion? Now we're really getting speculative

Other forms of fusion / plasma drives? eg Fatima Ebrahimi's plasmoid drive?

The totally barking Nuclear Salt Water rocket? High thrust *and* high Isp. But do you want to ride a continuously exploding atomic bomb, leaving a hugely radioactive trail behind you?

Antimatter rocket? Very high performance, but would need a massive increase in the efficiency of antimatter factories.

I'm leaving out the woo-woo drives like the EM Drive or the Mach Drive, both of which break the laws of physics.

A down-rated form of Warp Drive *might* be possible. It doesn't as such break physics / maths, but may still be impractical.

Any other thoughts?

A few Youtube channels

Scott Manley

The Angry Astronaut

And now for something that will need your voodoo filter set to 11. But remember Clarke's second "law"

AstronX

You really don't want to know how much the stuff in my sig cost me. I'm not sure I do either .

Yeah, I noticed all the robotic images

I had prepared three images that I thought I might submit, but then I saw that out of five DSO images, three were from robotic telescopes, (Including the image of the month) and one was from Tivoli in Namibia.

So I thought "what's the point?". I don't have a sexy robotic image from an exotic location, just my back garden.

I even sent them an email expressing my displeasure, not that it would have any effect, not with Nick wossisname pushing one particular robotic provider.

Fabulous detail in there Peter, puts my poor efforts to shame. Will try to get some more data on this when we get some clear skies with no moon.

Given that Steve has implied that SX are working on a new range of cameras (Hooray!) this is what I might hope / expect to see:

IMX 533. Possibly, though I suspect the margins might be small. The sensor would fit into the current Trius 694 sized body, though I would hope / expect USB 3 connection.

IMX 571. Almost certainly, given that everyone and his brother have cameras based on this. Would fit into a Trius 26C body, with the comments above.

IMX 455. Ditto, and would fit into a SX 35 body.

Bigger than that, and things become much more uncertain.

IMX 461, Possibly given that both QHY and ZWO have cameras based on this sensor. In any case it wouldn't be cheap, and would likely need a new body, though the Trius 56 might be big enough.

IMX 411. Very unlikely. QHY have a camera based on this sensor and it's crazy expensive.

GeSense 4040. Could be a possibility. FLI and QHY have cameras based around this sensor in various forms, sort of a modern SCMOS take on the ancient KAF 16803, and would be a fit for the SX56 body.

Now waiting to get shot down.

In any case SX don't do cheap, so expect sapphire windows and dry argon filling. We're not looking at ToupTek / Risingcam prices.

Ah, makes sense now.

Fabulous fireworks 🎆 galaxy Peter.

Though that camera looks like a Moravian G4 with integrated filter wheel. One size up from my G3 16200.

I didn't, and am much happier as a result.

I started out reading S @ N and AN, but found S@N too poor in science content so focused on AN. However in recent years I've found AN increasingly catering to those who just want to *look* through their telescopes (What a bizarre idea) rather than those who want to actually *image*.

The monthly sky guide has become a singularly egregious example of this, as once there was a "How to image it" section, at least for the object of the month, now there's merely a "how to observe it". 

You might guess that I'm almost 100% imager.

1 hour ago, FLO said:

No. They are NOT dead in the water 🙂 

Starlight Xpress (like many other UK companies) are of course affected by the arrival of Chinese-manufactured brands but they saw it coming (Sky-Watcher did same to the telescope and mount market) so were prepared. I.e. they also manufacture cameras for the scientific community and industrial imaging, not only for us astronomers.

This is good because Michael, Gill & Terry are some of the nicest people you are ever likely to meet and their company is now the 'only' (please correct me if I am wrong) astronomy camera manufacturer in the UK. 

They have a number of new astronomy cameras in development, hopefully for release later this year, and will be attending Herstmonceux, IAS and at least one other event (soon to be revealed). 

HTH, 

Steve 

That's good to read Steve.

This is a question I've been asking myself for some time now.

My first astro camera was a SX Trius 694, and very good it was (Still is) too, but the sensor and pixel count it a bit low for me now. I did consider a SX 46 when I was speccing out the ODK, but the costs became silly.

I fear they may have missed the CMOS boat and been left behind.

I run 900 sec subs for NB with my G3 16200, while RGB is run with a first order G2v calibration, resulting in 600, 600, and 1050 sec exposures for R, G, and B.

Oh yes, I saw her there, but was hoping that Chris would be talking to her. What she would have to say about the Stephan's Quintet image with the active black hole would have been far more interesting than an IR picture of Jupiter.

And no Dr Becky either.

Fuji appear to be the current best exponents of the "Larger than 35mm" cameras at very reasonable prices. I think they use their own sensors, but don't quote me on that.

If you want a 6x6 sensor, QHY 6060 or FLI Kepler 6060.

Make sure you're sitting down before looking at the price.

From what I remember Dr Becky will be one of the "boffins" talking to Chris., he was her PhD supervisor I think.

I'd watch it just for her.

50 mm square filters will work with the IMX 461 sensor, so expensive but not exotic, and a Tak FSQ 106 will easily cover the diagonal (88 mm image circle).

QHY Have had the 411 and 461 for a while now, but been a bit cagy about price. "If you have to ask how much..." The 411 ia a bit of a monster.

Not going to win any prizes, but here goes.

Milky way through Cygnus down to the great rift.

One PLus 8 using Deep Sky Camera beta. 28 x 15 sec subs at ISO 800. Stack and post in AstroArt 8. There was a huge gradient from the Devil's Lightbulb, I may try to get some 30 sec subs when it gets out of the way.

I'm subscribed to her channel, so I'll have a look this evening. From her other videos she looks to have become rather disenchanted with theoretical physics, and physicists.

Her book "Lost In Maths" says a lot more.

With the ZWO camera on the ZWO wheel 1.25" filters will be OK up to micro 4/3 size, eg the ASI 1600, so the 533 will be fine too.

For NB filters, and leaving out the crazy expensive Chroma and Astrodon, can you stretch to Antlia 3nm? If you're imaging under Bortle 8 (Been there, done that) then go as narrow as you can afford.

This chap's not happy

Hope the damn thing lands on Chairman Xi's house. Might wake up the Chinese to playing nicely in space.