Grant

That’s not really a fair comparison - the ASIAIR comes with case, 32gb memory card, memory card reader, a good quality usb to serial cable and a really good 12v to 5v usb power adapter so the price difference is much less than that. True you are paying for the software but as somebody who has been using the ASIAIR for over a year now and before that used a StellarMate (the OS alone for that cost around £50) I can honestly say the ASIAIR has transformed my astrophotography and from what I know now, I would pay even more than the cost of the ASIAIR for what it does. I would like to see other devices supported but understand the amount of extra testing and support that would be required to achieve this - not to mention the commercial side of things. I’m not convinced that the open source community will catch up with the front end apps for the ASIAIR anytime soon - ZWO have a years head start and I’ve not seen anything yet to rival it. Look at it a different way - if ZWO were selling the software by itself commercially how much would it be worth? If you look at the licence costs with things like SGP, Pixinsight and Maxim then the ASIAIR is an absolute bargain. I’m very excited about this rumoured pro version but appreciate it’s not for everybody and I am very happy to admin I’m very biased on this one because of how much enjoyment it’s given me this past year or more.

That's a beautiful capture - not come across this object before either! Thanks for sharing

Sorry I had to leave these announcements to Steve, I've been away in Lincolnshire today with the kids visiting my parents but spent most of the day on the phone trying to sort this out after hearing from Lucksall this morning. Nothing else to add other than to say I am gutted, I love coming to the star party and it's seeing everyone have a good time that makes all the effort that goes on behind the scenes worth it. This year, all the effort has happened without the end result

Lovely first light images Francis - shows the potential of the RASA 8 and the what can be done with short subs / less data. Really nice fields of view too. Look forwards to seeing more of these - I'm getting very tempted to have a play with one of these RASA 8's myself....

Lucksall have had a move around as well - updated plan here to bring everyone a bit closer together and nearer to where the marquee will be (at the front of Long Meadow).

An update on pitch allocations - Lucksall have advised me that they will allocate the long meadow pitches next week once the marquee is sited on the Thursday morning. This means I won't know in advance but Lucksall will let you know when you book in and collect your welcome pack.

Hi Dave, The bulk of the time is more the logistics of the whole thing - coming up with a challenge idea often takes some time and discussion, then sourcing suitable images for the banner and designing the banner and then creating the new area on SGL and setting up the permissions etc.. Then announcing the new challenge, create the banner announcement and publicising on Twitter and Facebook. Then once finished, collecting the votes from the mod team, announcing them and then organising the mugs to be ordered (although Scott helps with this) and then contacting the winners for address details and organising for the mugs to be sent out. No single part is that time consuming but there are quite a few hours across all of them and as you guessed, the star party has been consuming much of my time this month. I'll chat it over with the mod / admin team at Lucksall if we can and see if there is a way to share the load a bit more or rejig it to make it run smoother. Cheers, Grant

Food bookings will now be switched off - if you still haven't booked please PM me and we will see what we can do (no promises at this stage though!).

I’ve been tied up doing star party stuff so not had time to look at this - you’re the first person to have mentioned it as well so I’m not sure how worthwhile the challenges are anymore - the effort to organise them doesn’t seem worth the amount of participation they’ve generated recently 😞

We need to have the numbers for the food bookings by Monday please so if you haven't booked yet, pease get your booking in soon! https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sgl-sp-booking/sgl-2019-sp-food-friday-curry.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sgl-sp-booking/sgl-2019-sp-food-saturday-hogroast.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sgl-sp-booking/sgl-2019-sp-food-sunday-roast.html We still have some pitches yet if you would like to come but please be quick!

SGL has the 'clubs' feature now so if any of these astronomy related groups wanted to use SGL to host their content / discussions ongoing, please get in touch (contact@stargazerslounge.com) and we will see if we can help.

No changes to SGL here - sounds like perhaps your browser hadn't downloaded the full website theme files or something like that, try a different browser or a forced refresh.

Oops sorry used my test account to reply by mistake!

Pitch Plan v1 This should have your name on it if you've booked so far. Campers in long meadow - the letter is provisional for now, it doesn't correspond to any particular pitch. Exact pitches for long meadow will be allocated out nearer the time based on conditions and where we site the marquee so please don't panic 🙂 We still have plenty of space if you are thinking of coming along - See http://sglsp.com/ for details. For any changes - please contact me directly and I will do my best to help.

We’ve still got four weeks to go, way too far off to worry about the weather! We will have the marquee again this year, even bigger so even if the weather is bad we will still go ahead with the various talks, workshops. Quiz, demos etc.. so it will be a good weekend no matter what the weather does 😀

That's spectacular! Lovely composition

Bottom is flat and M12 thread in the center - it’s designed to go on an EQ6 tripod with the alignment pin removed. Rowan have done a beautiful job with this - the machining, engineering, mechanics and finish are first class.

Wowsers Steve! That's absolutely stunning! 45+ hours! Wow, with our clear skies that must have taken ages! I really like the way you've written it up and presented it, that must have taken a lot of effort but it's well worth it - thank you

Yes - I have pitch allocations but I'm not sure how helpful they are going to be to people. Because of the changes at Lucksall to camping pitches, everybody camping will be in long meadow but the pitches will not be allocated in there until nearer the time - this is in case of ground condition issues but also, we need to determine the best place to locate the marquee which may also affect things. I will draw up what I have and post that soon but please don't worry, if you've booked, you will have a pitch and we still have some space 🙂 Lucksall try very hard to accommodate everyones choices but it is not easy - I remember from hard experience!

Not yet, I've asked Lucksall so hope to receive this soon and will likely put it together early next week.

I've tidied that up for you 🙂

No it isn't? This isn't closed until 31st October.

Sorry for the delayed start everyone - things have been very busy here lately so running a little behind.

The theme for the 30th challenge - September 2019 - is Celestial Motion! Start Date: 1st September 2019 End Date: 30th November 2019 Rules: The theme this time is Celestial Motion - we want to see star trails, time lapses, animations, comets, transits, planetary movement - anything that shows off the movement we see in the night skies. Images, animations, videos, sketches all welcome 😀 Prize: A personalised mug for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places featuring your image kindly provided by our sponsors FLO and a virtual trophy for your signature. -- RULES All data must be captured and processed by you (no collaborative entries). Data must be captured during the challenge start & end dates. Multiple entries are allowed but please start a new topic for each entry. Multiple submissions of the same image, processed differently, will not be accepted. -- To enter please start a new topic with your image in the ‘Imaging Challenge #30' forum (each challenge will have its own). Please post as much information as possible - when it was taken, how it was captured and processed, etc. The info won't necessarily be used for judging but will help fellow SGLers looking to learn and improve their knowledge and technique.

Last year, to save people waiting around for ages we had three different sittings for lunch about 30 minutes between each one to give the kitchen chance to keep up. Depending on numbers we will do the same this year and I think they started from around 1pm onwards. There is some flexibility here though so if you needed to be in the earlier sitting to get away, I'm sure we can organise that.