Wyvern

Hi, In response to Geminids questions, my counts are manual and blanks in the tables are simply where the setup was not switched on and monitoring. I run my dongle into SDR# and have a screen grabber catch the screen every 45 seconds. I then manually look at each grab for a "ping" and then work out rates from this. A six hour "observing" session can therefore generate 480 grabs to individually view for meteors. Would be good to "automate" this to be able to run 24/7 but I'll admit that "speclab" and I do not see eye to eye.......... actually I think it hates me!!...... so I use the "low tech" approach listed. Regards, Les.

Eight Perseid session working GRAVES pre and post maxima has produced this result for me. From the 2nd-3rd Aug until 12th-13th Aug, a steady increase in rates occured, (no surprise there!), with peak numbers around 03.00 to 04.00UT on the morning of the 13th after a sharp rise in counts from the 01.00-02.00UT numbers. An initial "early Perseid" session I did on the 30-31st July seemed somewhat high in relation to some of the counts in early August. I then realised I'd managed to catch the tail of the max of the Southern Delta Aquarids, so totally failed to establish a baseline for the Perseids! Oops!! Some of the more "interesting" pings around the max are also attached. Regards, Les

Hi Neil, Transit finder automatically corrects for your "local time" , currently BST for us in the UK. I set it up on two computers, one running on BST, the other.... my "astronomical" set up ..... on GMT(UT), and they both dished out the same "local - BST time" for observing the events. Strangely, I had similar duplication issues on Stellarium. A predicted Solar pass in transit finder...... and observed as such.... was a "near miss" in Stellarium inspite of updates to artificial satellites files. Curious!!?? Regards, Les

Hi Alan, Sorry to hear of inconsiderate lighting from your neighbours. If relations are "cool" as a result of being Mr Nice Guy, they clearly need to be reported to local council under lighting nuisance guidelines. Harsh, possibly, but "light blight" and inconsiderate lighting is something that the councils can do something about. Why not invite your local councillor or lighting engineer around for an astro viewing and see the issue themselves? Links below might offer some assistance to you. www.mylawyer.co.uk/lighting-a-A76076D76858/ www.gov.uk/guidance/artificial-light-nuisances-how-councils-deal-with-complaints Good luck and wishing you darker skies. Les

Been running the Graves meteor setup for a number of days over the past couple of weeks to "see" what is reported to be the best of the daylight meteor showers, the Arietids. Pleased to report that I wasn't disappointed. Although the setup wasn't running for the exact same periods over the observation times, the results seem to confirm the max around the 7th June. Individual rates from the observation sessions are, 23 May, 190 meteors in 13 hrs ~ 15/hr 01 June, 290 meteors in 15 hrs ~ 20/hr 07 June, 140 meteors in 4 hrs ~ 35/hr 08 June, 304 meteors in 10 hrs ~ 30/hr 09 June, 188 meteors in 9 hrs ~ 21/hr Chart of results here- Anyone else been busy? Les

Hi Ron, Yep, +1 to the Startech units. Les

I know.!!!!!!...... flying in the face of convention, or should that be "construction"? Seriously though, there was method to my madness. Available "storage holes" all around the mount. I find I'm usually either at the door side of obsy by the controlling laptop, (from where the photo was taken), or parked on the visible seat so storage holes are nice and close to hand. The hole in the bottom block neatly holds the Nevada Power Transformer, purchased from Jkulin some months back, with the output cabling coming up and out from a side I don't frequent so little chance of accidentally snagging cables in the dark. I rest my case! Regards, Les

+1 to the "Todmorden Pier". So simple....... so do it! Les.

After a rather long equipment "downtime" on my Graves setup, I got the new 2m Moxon ariel up and talking to SDR#. The software then does it's stuff and is left running on the laptop overnight until I get up and remember to switch things off. A screen grabber is set up to automatically catch the screen display every 20 seconds, and I then wade through the grabs with the good old Mk 1 eyeballs to count up the meteor "pings". My counts and events line graph are below for the Eta Aquarid maximum and of course, the other minor showers and sporadics around. Anyone else get something similar? Regards, Les

Agree with Beulah's comments on sites around the Elan. Word of caution regarding the Teifi Pools site though. The "road" out to the site is quite narrow and "challenging" in places. I'd strongly advise a trip along it in daytime to avoid surprises at night.......... Even knowing the road, I was still having to be careful driving along it whilst doing the SQM readings for the Elan for their IDA application process. Les

Hi Dan, Interesting results on the 20p coin paint coverage. Just one small question....... is defacing the Queen still considered as a treasonable act? ? No sweat, we'll all come and visit you in the Tower! ? Seriously, good info! Les

Managed this shot - compressed and resized for here - on the 25th Feb. To say I was "underwhelmed" would be an understatement.!!! Les

+1 to what Peter says, and check info on link below. Similar problem and answer methinks. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/331559-enabling-opengl-on-windows-7-laptop/ Regards, Les

Last Iwamoto shot from imaging session on Tuesday, with frame size at approx 72'x 52' arc. Comet gliding through the starfields of Auriga in the following days, so this is why the weather went pear-shaped! Les

Chris, Go to Stellarium web site and download the current user guide 0.18.3-1 at top right. http://stellarium.org/en_GB/ Section 2.4 describes running Stellarium under OpenGL, Angle and MESA modes. After installing Stellarium, Go to Start menu and, if memory is correct, ( because I deleted to options I didn't need!), you'll see a couple of "start" options listed. (GL, Angle and MESA). Run each in turn to see which works best for your setup and then just create a shortcut to launch that particular option of Stellarium. My Toshiba laptop running Win 7 64bit runs under the Angle mode quite happily. Regards,Les