Alien 13

5 hours ago, billhinge said:

Funny how people assume aliens may be hostile based on historic actions of earthlings, if they evolved past our technology and survived, surely they are more likely ultra-woke Star Trek Discovery types

Have often wondered why would any alien civilization travel across space when probes etc could give them most of the scientific information required for exploration, it can only be for colonization and/or resource gathering so they would see us as food 😱

Alan

1 minute ago, gorann said:

Maybe this is sacrilege, but why do they spend billions on showing what Newton's second law tells us about  momentum and that it is just speed x mass. We all know what will happen, and we do not need an experiment to tell us what we have known for 400 years. Checking Wikipedia would have been much cheaper for NASA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momentum

I expect its a bit of the unknown similar to when Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 which was predicted as almost a non event hit Jupiter..

Alan

Lovely image but am a bit confused by the star spikes when only using a refractor..

Alan

1 hour ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

I was using an old 4th gen i7 gaming laptop until recently. I decided it was getting slow and very hot trying to process, WBPP took ages. Built myself a SFF PC, AMD 5700g with 64gb ram. WBPP flies by now. 140 subs with calibration frames and drizzle takes about 50 mins. 

All in cost me about your budget. Allows me an ok upgrade path in the future if I want to put it in a larger case with a GPU. 

Very nice, could you supply any details of the case you used? thinking of building something similar myself...

Alan

On 21/09/2022 at 18:32, vlaiv said:

Oh, yes!

I'm actually struggling to keep the flood of ideas at bay, keeping sort of backlog of things I need to print

Me too, it starts with a look at other hobbies that might be useful for parts like Cine follow focus systems, camera cage parts, RC cars and aircraft etc and before you know it you are down another "rabbit hole"😃

My big project is still under consideration but will involve robotics and harmonic type drives but fear the cost could be astronomical if I start... a small version of Boston Dynamics "Spot".

Alan

11 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

... and the audio mapped version will be along shortly.

Why not, some parts of the universe must be full of sound but not as we know it..

Alan

6 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Well, not sure I made a good choice but picked up a cheap used AOC u3477 ultra wide. Certainly makes a nice workspace for PI and remoting into my pier is nice to have Nina and phd2 side by side. 

Looks a good choice to me, thinking of an AOC monitor myself.

Alan

58 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

You are correct, it does not work with older PS, I used to have CS6 and it was a nightmare to read….👍🏻

My CS6 got progressively worse over the years with improvements to laptop and monitor resolutions and in the end switched to Affinity 😀

Alan

25 minutes ago, scotty38 said:

I didn't know about the auto scaling so maybe wouldn't have been too much of an issue. I use it for work too so I didn't want to end up with ridiculously small text. If it was just for say PI and RDP to my imaging PC it wouldn't have been an issue anyway. I should have been clearer for sure but the scaling you mention is possibly the answer, thanks.

Windows scaling is very handy as is the ability to scale web pages but it might not work with some legacy software like older versions of PS for example where you are stuck with tiny unreadable text in places.

Alan

9 hours ago, Tomatobro said:

 Only the folks that have worked with Cryogenic fluids will know how difficult they are to handle. NASA share everything and long may it continue.

 

I used to be an engineer in charge of a number of liquid nitrogen environmental chambers and a huge 40 foot tall liquid nitrogen tank and know about the problems regarding its use, one of which was the formation of oxygen rich ice next to the pipes which could be a foot thick and as hard a iron and certainly enough to deform any suspect seals etc.

Alan

7 minutes ago, iapa said:

I seem to remember the some exo-planets were not orbiting stellar masses, so, that would be a significant mass to collide with a fractional 'c' speeds.

I wonder if all this dark matter nonsense is due to far more large rocks/rogue planets etc everywhere 😀

Alan

I have to ask how we can be sure interstellar space is mostly empty with a few grains of dust, it could be jam packed with large rocks and as far as I know nobody has been there to check..

Alan

How about a nice trip at 1G provided an engine could provide a constant thrust for a prolonged period, Mars in a couple of days and the nearest star in a few years simple 😀

Alan

1 hour ago, Shibby said:

This is true, a 24" 4k probably wouldn't be a great idea (although my work laptop strangely has a 16" 4k monitor!?)

For home, I like to game and edit photos/astrophotos, so I've been considering the G70A, which is a 28" 4k monitor, which is good for playing games at 1080p. For image editing, it gives around 150ppi.

The G70A is on my wish-list 😀

Alan

Have been looking at monitors myself for a while now and can pass on a few thoughts.

Productivity and gaming don't mix very well unless you have good graphics capabilities, for example a  2560x1440p monitor hits the sweet spot at around 27 inch for productivity but could look awful if it had to downscale to 1080p for games.

IPS panels are generally the best all rounders, giving vibrant accurate colours and good viewing angles.

Make sure the display has the correct input ports, modern PCs use HDMI, Display port and in some cases Thunderbolt ports for video. Its worth checking too on the monitors menu interface, generally those that include a "joystick" work best (my acer monitor has a terrible interface).

Alan

There are a few eyepieces out there that disguise there previous life as CCTV camera lenses by the fitting of a sleeve, some are zooms too. The lens is always mounted with objective end towards the focuser.

Alan 

2 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

ahh I have the same caliper, do you find it has a habit of turning itself on when stored and then you've a flat battery next time you want to use it? I tend to use the lock screw to stop the sliding part moving now as that turns it on when you don't want it to.

Snap!! me too.

Alan

I like undercuts but I only use my focuser with a FR/FF for imaging and they provide a very secure connection.

Alan

I think Physics has a long way to go and is more "history" at the moment, when we can run our theories in reverse and predict "Humans" from nothing then we will have nailed it.

Alan

My travel kit is a Sammy S21 phone, small carbon fiber tripod, Smallrig head and a Zodiac remote.. oh and a 3D printed adapter to remove parallax errors.

Alan

Regarding The JWT and its diffraction spikes does anyone know if there is a PS plugin to reproduce them as they look kind of cool 😀

Alan

Very nice but do wonder if M31 is actually much bigger still and even touches our Milky way at its extremes.

Alan

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

I’m often amazed both how stupid and how intelligent our Jack Russell can be at times. Mind you, his maths is dire. 

Throw a ball at any speed or angle or distance and most dogs will catch it proving that their "Maths" is very good indeed..

Alan

2 hours ago, powerlord said:

yeh a cheap dremel is great for finishing off prints - the sand wheels work a treat - just go over the thing and smooth in no time

I have one of those small USB rechargeable ones and is ideal for work on 3d prints..

Alan

Mini PCs are so good now that I run one as my main PC, lots of good deals on those with older gen processors too but bear in mind that if you ever intend to upgrade to win 11 at some point you will need an 8th gen or newer.

Alan