Grant

This week we are joined by Paul Money of http://www.astrospace.co.uk/. Paul is very well known for his extensive talks and as review editor for BBC Sky at Night magazine. He also publishes his yearly 'NightScenes' sky guide - an extremely useful book! Paul is going to join us and take a look through 10 astronomical images that have been inspiring him through the years and look at the stories of and sometimes behind the images. If you've not seen one of Pauls talks before you are in for a treat, there are few more passionate and energetic astronomy speakers out there and it's always a pleasure to attend one of his talks. This should be very interesting and entertaining, hope to see you there! 🙂 Meeting details below: Topic: EP25 - Sunday, 1st November 2020 7:30pm GMT - Images of the Universe by Paul Money Time: Nov 1, 2020 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/92069436395?pwd=Q2hqRTBhMUxNdWNKNVhXTGtPTmdjZz09 Meeting ID: 920 6943 6395 Passcode: 903667

Ta, all done 🙂

M17 data now released 🙂 Iris Nebula is nearly done. Any suggestions for the next target?

We've just released the third set of data from the Ikarus Observatory project here. Following the wonderful entries from the first and second processing competitions we are running another to see who can get the most from this data and create the 'best' image! The winner will receive £150 of First Light Optics gift vouchers and two runners up will receive £50 of gift vouchers. Details below: Closing date: 11th November 2020 @ 22:00 Please post your entries into this thread Please only use the data we've released - don't blend it with other data or add to it with other sources Use what ever processing software and techniques you like, potential bonus points for sharing your workflow and techniques with others - that way, we all get to learn as well 🙂 Multiple entries are allowed but, please refrain form posting multiple attempts that are very similar - better to update an earlier attempt if it's just an incremental improvement but, it would be interesting to see totally different attempts using different narrowband blends etc... If you win or are a runner up, we would really like to use your creation in future marketing materials, on our website etc.. so by entering the competition, you are giving us permission to use your image in this way. Judging will be done by a small team of judges from the FLO team - It's completely subjective but will be based on what image(s) we think do the best job of extracting the most from the data released and, look the 'prettiest' We will announce the winners by the 16th November 2020 via SGL Thanks all and look forward to seeing your entries! P.S - We won't run a competition each release just every so often - we have more data to release very soon!

This is our second release of IKO data More to follow soon and will be more regular here on. The small print: We will be releasing all public data from the Ikarus Observatory project under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence. What this means is you are free to share, copy and redistribute the data as you see fit and adapt, remix, transform and build upon it but you must attribute 'Ikarus Observatory' as the source of the original data and must not use it for commercial purposes - i.e. no sticking images on the side of mugs and selling then Beyond that, enjoy and have fun! You can find out more about the IKO project here including details of the equipment used, observatory site etc.. This image was processed in the Pixinsight Weighted Batch Pre-Processor and comprises: Ha - 80 x 20 mins OIII - 80 x 20 mins SII - 80 x 20 mins Bias 101x Flats 21x for each filter Darks 21x 20 mins These have been stacked and calibrated in Pixinsight. The raw XISF, FITS or TIF files can be downloaded here. Details of the processing competition are here. I hope you enjoy playing with the data and we look forwards to sharing more very soon!

Sorry 7:30 GMT - we will be on in forty minutes 🙂

It feels like only yesterday we last had him on but, It is a great pleasure to welcome back to SGL Dave Eagle of https://www.star-gazing.co.uk/ this time to give us a talk about Affinity Photo and how to do astrophotography image processing using the Affinity Photo software. A lot of people have shown interest in this subject and Dave literally wrote the book on it so this should be a really interesting talk. Dave is an amateur Astronomer, Planetarium Operator, Presenter, Author and Tutor, you may have read some of his books or come across one of his talks before. Hope to see you there 🙂 Meeting details below: Topic: EP24 - Sunday, 25th October 2020 7:30pm BST - A tour round Affinity Photo by Dave Eagle Time: Oct 25, 2020 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/97464900210?pwd=eVh0QUc3TzBUcndQcmwxV0phS2N0QT09 Meeting ID: 974 6490 0210 Passcode: 322525

We’re taking a break this week - Darren and others are off to Kelling and this will be the first Sunday off in about six months 🙂 We will be back next week as usual 🙂

So next we are going for NGC7023 / Iris Nebula in LRGB - not sure if it's worth trying to get any narrowband on this as well to blend in? Any thoughts? Here is progress so far, single 5 min L sub:

Oops - it's actually 360x 5min L subs that we've captured.... I've updated the post above.

Reminder - tonight’s talk starts in an hour 🙂

I’ve not had a pm from you?

Couple more nights on M33 and we will have: 120x 20min Ha 360x 5min L 120x 5min R 120x 5min G 120x 5min B That should do us? What next? 🙂

Wowsers, this was tough! I think the Crescent data was a bit more challenging to process, I wonder if that's something about the target characteristics or the data on this occasion? A group of us at FLO and Gary Palmer of http://www.astrocourses.co.uk/ helped us judge, you can see all the entries here and the winners are.... Winner - x6gas Runner Up: Spongey Runner Up: matt_baker Thank you all for taking part and we are looking forward to the next data release which will be shortly - this might be a double release too. I will be in touch with the winners to arrange their prizes

@old_eyes has kindly updated the video for us to improve the quality of the slights after Zoom went to town on the compression!

This Sunday at 7:30 we are delighted to welcome back Steve Tonkin ( @BinocularSky ) of http://binocularsky.com/ and https://astunit.com/. Steve has been using binoculars for astronomy since the mid 1960s and, as his main observing instrument, since 2002. He is also the author of the book Binocular Astronomy. This time, we've asked him to talk about binoculars for us 🙂 Two Eyes are Better Than One: Choosing and Using Binoculars for Deep Sky Observing The binocular is not limited to being a beginner's instrument and a subordinate adjunct to a telescope, but is an exceptionally valuable astronomical instrument in its own right. Find out how to choose and use binoculars for deep sky observing: discover what makes a good (or bad!) binocular, distinguish between valuable information and advertising hype, and learn how to optimise your observing experience. Very much looking forwards to this one! Meeting details below: Topic: EP23 - Sunday, 11th October 2020 7:30pm BST - Two Eyes are Better Than One: Choosing and Using Binoculars for Deep Sky Observing by Steve Tonkin Time: Oct 11, 2020 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/93018939349?pwd=NUY5SEdScTJ5Rm55VTI2a2Zma05ZZz09 Meeting ID: 930 1893 9349 Passcode: 502748

Talk starts in 10 minutes! 🙂

@old_eyes / Richard Miller has kindly offered to give us his talk: From the Big Bang to the Periodic Table Richard Miller trained as a Chemist, and after a long career in industrial R&D has now settled down as a consultant on innovation, sustainability and the future of cities. Took up astronomy 12 years ago and has now progressed to being a moderately incompetent astrophotographer (his words not mine!!!). From the Big Bang to the Periodic Table The Periodic Table of the Elements is the book from which we build our world. And yet we started after the Big Bang with just hydrogen, helium and a touch of lithium. How did we get from there to the 118 elements we know about today? The answer is in the stars. The Periodic Table has a fascinating history over several thousand years of discovering the elements and searching for an underlying logic that made sense of it. But that did not tell us where all the unique elements came from. For that we needed a modern understanding of cosmology and stellar processes, from the Big Bang through nuclear fusion in the heart of stars to the immense energies of supernovae. I'm very much looking forward to what promises to be a fascinating talk! Meeting details below: Topic: EP22 - Sunday, 4th October 2020 7:30pm BST - From the Big Bang to the Periodic Table by Richard Miller Time: Oct 4, 2020 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/98355327288?pwd=VHhGOHNSUVJHTElTOGw4MmpHMkhldz09 Meeting ID: 983 5532 7288 Passcode: 393820

Here we go 🙂

Dave's Autumn Observing challenges talk kicks off at 7:30pm tonight 🙂

I have no intention of contacting OO, if they wish to report this ex-employee posting negative things about them on SGL then they can use the 'report' button to report this to the moderation team or email contact@stargazerslounge.com to report it directly to the admin team. We take such accusations very seriously and would investigate them thoroughly as we have done with anything similar reported to us in the past. Nobody is questioning John's integrity or innocence just trying to understand if there is some truth in this accusation which needs to be dealt with. As it stands, there is no evidence, no official complaint and the first I've ever heard of a potential issue is John's comment on here which, had it been left unchallenged would've left a long-term damaging question mark over any negative comments on SGL about OO whether they could be believed or not.

The difference Andrew is I directly know several of the people I refer too as they are on the moderation team on SGL so mine is a fact, I do know several people who are disgruntled OO customers. John's comment was repeating something told to him by OO which causes me great concern because of the perceived integrity of SGL being brought into disrepute. If there is evidence of an ex-employee using SGL to spread untrue comments about OO or any company we would want to investigate as we would not want SGL being used in this manner.

Then without proof, this is fake news - they could say that about every single negative review posted about them online.