Grant

Our latest released of data from the Ikarus Observatory project 🙂 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: Luminance 360x 5 mins Red 120x 5 mins Green 120x 5 mins Blue 120x 5 mins Bias 101x Flats 21x for each filter Darks 21x 5 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. Enjoy!

See you in 50 minutes all 🙂

Thanks everybody who took part in this competition - our first LRGB data set You can see all the entries here, the data is still available here if you want to have a play. The winners are: Winner - Xiga Runner Up: Gorann Runner Up: Ollypenrice Congratulations all!

It is a great pleasure to welcome back (again!) to SGL Dave Eagle of https://www.star-gazing.co.uk/ to set us some more observing and imaging challenges for Late Spring / Early Summer. 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. Dave is going to treat us to an overview of interesting upcoming observing targets and challenges These sessions are always fun and informative so hope to see you Sunday! Meeting details below: Topic: EP43 - Sunday, 11th April 2021 7:30pm BST - Late Spring / Early Summer Observing / Imaging Challenges by Dave Eagle Time: Apr 11, 2021 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/97858736067?pwd=TFJFNXRiVHA0UjdhMTl5d3Z3cTg3UT09 Meeting ID: 978 5873 6067 Passcode: 245119

A general overview / getting started with EKOS / KStars would be a good starting point I think, you can share screen in Zoom and it works nicely.

Yes please!!! That would be awesome 🙂

We're having a week off from StarGaZine this week so we will announce the winners on Tuesday instead 🙂 Happy long bank holiday weekend everybody!

Thanks very much to @JulianO for a superb and very interesting talk 🙂 For those who missed it, recording below:

Your only going to see the last reflection back to the sensor with this formula. I can't see a way to go further than that without knowing more about the placement of the other optical elements in the train - that can often be enough though to start diagonosing the issue. This method is more useful / commonly used for finding dust motes though. If you know of a different method though, I'm up for having a go at building a calculator for it.

Talk starts in an hour 🙂

SGL member Dr Julian Onions (@JulianO) joins us this Sunday for his brand new, hot off the press talk 'Crazy Interstellar Rockets'. Julian has always had an interest in astronomy, and after many years as an amateur studied for a Phd in astrophysics at the University of Nottingham. There he studies computer models of galaxy formation using some of the biggest computers in the world, building model universes using mostly dark matter. He also helps out with undergraduate teaching and various outreach activities. Julian has put together a new talk 'Crazy Interstellar Rockets' looking at what sort of rockets or spaceships could we use to go to the distant stars. In the talk we will explore some of the crazier designs that have been proposed over the years, most of which have some possibility of working. The future may be nearer than we think! I'm really looking forward to this and hope to see you all there 🙂 Meeting details below: Topic: EP42 - Sunday, 28th March 2021 7:30pm BST - Crazy Interstellar Rockets by Dr Julian Onions Time: Mar 28, 2021 07:30 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/98310520323?pwd=L1RZNmVQUmM0ekE1QmcyM0owRnR6UT09 Meeting ID: 983 1052 0323 Passcode: 181616

Sounds like you need EQMac: http://eqmac.hulse.id.au/ - their website looks a bit broken at the moment but this app does the same sort of job as EQMOD does on a windows machine. It also provides a gateway for Stellarium to control your mount without the handset being there.

A huge thanks to Ivo for a superb talk last night - we will look to arrange some more time with Ivo as there were lots of questions and requests for further demos. Recording below:

It’s 8PM GMT - not sure how BST crept in there yet - that’s another week away.

IMPORTANT - Please note the later 8pm starting time! This Sunday we are joined by SGL member @jager945 Ivo Jager the developer of Star Tools who is going to give us his talk 'Advanced astrophotographical signal processing with StarTools'. This is starting at the later time of 8pm GMT as Ivo is in Australia so it is super early in the morning for him. Writing software since age eight, Ivo won his first accolade from the Dutch Institute for Industry and Technology at age ten, for a physics related program for MSX home computers. He holds an MSc degree from the University of Amsterdam and is named as inventor on 11 US and EU mobile computing related patents, ranging from areas such as Artificial Intelligence to User Interfaces and Networking. Ivo has a penchant for signal processing and multi-platform software architectures, and above all, audio/visual and engines. He is the author of the acclaimed StarTools astrophotography image processing suite and has been a speaker at astrophotgraphy related events such as the Australian Astro Imaging Conference. Star Tools StarTools implements a groundbreaking new GPU-accelerated signal processing engine for astrophotographical imagery. StarTools' inception was a direct reaction to the disappointing level of signal processing sophistication the author observed in other astrophotographical signal processing software. The ground-up designed, novel signal processing engine tracks your signal's noise component as you process, while effortlessly allowing algorithms to time-shift their signal modifications and consultations. The result is cleaner final images, enhanced detail and inherently streamlined workflow. Today, StarTools is used by thousands of users, schools, observatories and universities around the world. Ivo is going to give us a brief explanation of how StarTools came about, and how it was designed to fundamentally differ from all other software that came prior. This brief explanation will contrast StarTools inner workings and capabilities with traditional software and workflows. This short exercises is meant to provide context for the subsequent live processing demonstration, which may - to users of older software - appear to defy signal processing convention and best practices. Ivo is then going to use an Ikarus Observatory data set to demonstrate a live process as well as potentially an other nosier dataset as well. We really look forwards to learning more about Star Tools and what it can do 🙂 Meeting details below: Topic: EP41 - Sunday, 21st March 2021 8pm BST - Advanced astrophotographical signal processing with StarTools by Ivo Jager Time: Mar 21, 2021 08:00 PM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/94951279173?pwd=VjdzYjc4TFgxQjBmdzg4bVR3eE1pdz09 Meeting ID: 949 5127 9173 Passcode: 991371

This Sunday we have the pleasure of welcoming back Colin Stuart of https://www.colinstuart.net/ giving us his talk 'How We’ll Live on Mars'. Colin an astronomy speaker and author who has talked to over half a million people about the universe, ranging from schools and the public to conferences and businesses. He has written sixteen books which have sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide and been translated into 21 languages. He has also written over 200 popular science articles for publications including The Guardian, New Scientist, The Wall Street Journal and European Space Agency. In recognition of his efforts to popularise astronomy, the asteroid (15347) Colinstuart is named after him. In 2014 he was awarded runner-up in the European Astronomy Journalism Prize and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He's talked about the wonders of the universe on Sky News, BBC News and Radio 5Live and been quoted in national newspapers including The Daily Telegraph and The Observer. Colin is a superb speaker and he's talks are extremely informative and entertaining - definitely not one to miss! How We'll Live on Mars Humans will soon make their first trip to Mars. How will we get there? What challenges will you have to overcome and what spectacular sights await the successful? In a talk packed full of stunning visuals and the latest scientific thinking, Colin will take you on a journey to the Red Planet to witness the majesty of a Martian sunset. Based on several of his books, including The Astronaut Selection Test Book with Tim Peake, you’ll hear just what it’ll take to achieve the most audacious feat of exploration ever attempted. Colin will even bring a real piece of Mars with him in the form a Martian meteorite. Strap in for the voyage of a lifetime! Meeting details below: Topic: EP40 - Sunday, 14th March 2021 7:30pm BST - How We’ll Live on Mars by Colin Stuart Time: Mar 14, 2021 07:30 AM London Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/93468703836?pwd=TzJMOThTMFErM05aTHB4MUxYRHBCZz09 Meeting ID: 934 6870 3836 Passcode: 769679

No problem with the link - coincidentally, I was having a play with the demo of StarTools last night - would you be up for giving us a talk / presentation on it at one of our weekly StarGaZine talks? We've had demos of other software like APP, NINA, Pixinsight which has worked really well so I think StarTools would be good to get a demo of as well.

The Ha is a bit wonky - I've redone it by itself and been more aggressive with ditching some frames - I've uploaded it to http://ikiobservatory.com/data/M33_2020-03-05/ as the 'v2' ha files. Hope that works better - sorry about that!

The Ha is a bit wonky - I've redone it by itself and been more aggressive with ditching some frames - I've uploaded it to http://ikiobservatory.com/data/M33_2020-03-05/ as the 'v2' ha files. Hope that works better - sorry about that!

That uses script tags so cannot be embedded on SGL, it would be a security risk.

For those who missed it, this video is available for the next month. Many thanks to Mary - what a super talk! Very inspirational

Looks like you sorted it? SGL no longer supports BBCode, most forum software is moving away from BBcode as with the WYSIWYG editors these days, there is no need for it.

Thanks Julian - PM coming 🙂 I saw a great talk by him debunking some of the common Moon hoax myths out there! Good suggestion. 🙂 Shout when you come up with something!

I've contacted Jasem but not heard back, is there anybody else who could give a talk on INDI, Ekos/Kstars etc..?

This talk starts in 40 minutes - hope to see you all there 🙂