Alien 13

That Mak is soooo cute.

Alan

4 minutes ago, Sp@ce_d said:

Glad he's finally Boldly gone.. he's certainly "touched" by the experience.. got me going.

and me, very moving.

Alan

T-4 mins to go..

Alan

Just over 30 mins to go where no Star Trek captain has gone before...

https://www.blueorigin.com/

Alan

A lot of people do get put off EQ mounts but as said polar aligning can be simple and quick for visual and I certainly prefer these mounts for Lunar or Planetary observing and with a simple RA motor it will keep the object in the FOV for several minutes or more. Even a basic rough and ready set up will allow for some quick Planetary imaging or even a few minutes of widefield imaging with a DSLR and 50mm lens.

Alan

1 minute ago, Zermelo said:

I've seen that when you posted it before, can I ask you which kind of foam(s) have you been successful with?
My first flight case came with a very soft pick-and-pluck foam, which I cut with modelling knives and scissors. I don't think it would have responded well to anything more severe. I've now got another case with a slightly firmer foam (I think they're probably both polyurethane, but I don't know).  And then, if you buy equipment that comes in its own case, it's usually that stiff, "rubberized" type.

I'm trying to cut my new block with various sharpened cylindrical objects, twisting by hand, with limited success. But it might be more effective if I could drill it (I've not had the nerve to risk destroying it!).

It wont work on pluck foam but OK with the stiffer stuff available as well as the black polystyrene type material thats made up in thin layers. As with most things its best to try it on a sample first.

Alan

I do miss the Maplin cases 😥

P.S. If you want to make nice clean holes in foam or other soft material get a set of these...

But importantly run the drill in REVERSE..

Alan

Just a few thoughts, I would not bother having USB 2 ports and look for a machine that has USB 3 with additional USB C ones.

Some laptops can have three disc drives in them so I would opt for a 512 Gb SSD for say the OS and software and a similar one for work in progress with a large HDD for storage.

Worth having a browse at the "gaming" machines on offer as they will generally fit the bill regarding possessor/RAM and Graphics card.

Alan

6 minutes ago, Iem1 said:

That is a great effort! Thank you for taking the time to help me out, I do appreciate it  

Il have a few more attempts and see if I can find some guides online, but the movement between the foregrounds is huge for some reason. maybe I nudged the mount or something.

That or I will just cut my losses and take the original sky image as the completed image and just have a slightly blurred silhouette of the church/trees  

Its always difficult when there is foliage in the foreground, another idea based on your last sentence would be to use the original blurred church but blend in some highlights from the windows etc and do the same with some of the lower foreground too.

Alan

I think what I would do is slightly enlarge the foreground layer so that it overlaps any motion blur from the image of the sky then blend the two layers together. Then paint out the fiddly bits using a layer mask.

Alan  

On 04/10/2021 at 16:15, DannyST said:

This is a minefield by the sounds of it, never know if the camera I get will have it or not.

From what I read it sounded like the cause was the hybrid sensor but canon website says that started with the 650D. 

I was skeptical as my M3 has the hybrid cos af iii sensor and I've seen no banding. Last night I aimed it to a dark corner with the lights off when I was at work. I did  five exposures at each of 3,4,5 mins with different iso,s none had any banding. 

I'm hoping to get clear skies this week so will try and get longer subs on andromeda or pleiades. My best so far is 45 seconds so need to nail my alignment. 

Thanks for the updates on 600d.

Danny

I had the 650D which indeed had the hybrid sensor and did have banding under certain conditions, as all the following series were similar I moved to the 80D which has dual pixel AF instead as does the 60/70D models.

Alan

3 hours ago, Simon Dunsmore said:

Hi All, Huge thanks for all your replies and advice.  I think I'm going to take a look at Affinity, for the price it has to be worth a try and doesn't require to higher spec to operate it.

Thanks again 

Simon 

Its even better when its either 30% off or half price as it often is 😋

Alan

I bought a similar bluetooth remote for my Sammy S21, never liked touching the screen and couldn't do without it now.

Alan 

8 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I know exactly where you are coming from Alan, my laptop screen is pretty redundant for me as I need a 2nd monitor connected to see anything these days even with my new perscription glasses.
Its a bit ironic really when I choose to look at things light years away and I can see the dammed thing sat on my lap 🙂 

Steve

I did trawl through the Adobe user groups and it appears that the older versions of PS (all but the pay monthly) will default to run at the computers natural max resolution with no options to change that..

Alan 

1 hour ago, Simon Dunsmore said:

Thanks Alan, Can I ask if there are any online tutorials that you would recommend for Affinity? As a total noob, it was the abundance of you tube tutorials that got me thinking about Photoshop.

Cheers 

Simon 

I have not realy looked too much at tutorials as for me moving from PS CS6 to Affinity was almost painless as they look very similar. There are however a lot of users on this site and plenty of you-tube vids.

The main reason I jumped ship was because the text and toolbars with my version of PS got progressively smaller with each iteration of a new laptops ever expanding screen resolution, it got so bad that I couldn't read anything on screen without a magnifying glass.

Alan

Affinity Photo is a genuine competitor to PS and now has a suite of astrophotography tools included, the price is very reasonable with discounts offered on a regular basis.

Alan

You will need around two inches of extension either with T ring spacers or a focus tube camera adapter.

Alan

I clean all my optics including scopes and camera lenses after every use, only ever use lens pens.

Alan

Have been wondering if anyone has tried the Samyang with a camera X2 teleconvertor, 270mm f/l at f/4 sounds good to me..

Alan

12 minutes ago, John said:

I wonder how many fags you had to smoke to get the full set of the Wills "Romance of the Heavens" cards ?

 

 

You didn't have too, most of us young uns had uncles and aunts that did it for us 😁

Alan

What a great thread, am already looking around e-bay for some long remembered sets but its such a shame they dont still make them, give me a card in a packet of tea or a toy in a cereal box any day over a cut priced deal.

Alan 

P.S. in the 60s when I was a lad we used to call the cards "faggies" and swapies with your mates was great fun.

The set I have the fondest memories of was the Lyons Maid famous people, took me forever to get Yuri Gagarin, would love the set again..

Alan

I like lenses, much kinder on the mount requirements and they are ready to go with there inbuilt field flatteners etc but you pretty much get what you pay for in performance. The new breed of scopes like the RedCat based on camera lens designs are interesting too.

Alan

I think the inbuilt timer is similar on my camera, you can do bulb or multiple time lapse etc but not both at the same time. The 30 second limit is actually fine for wide field shooting with a 14mm lens or similar but not a scope.

Alan

Its not my fault but have to admit I dont like the dark, too many monsters about so keep the lights burning inside my house 24/7 but never outside... I do like satellites though.

Alan