Alien 13

I would be happy if our Moon was classified as a planet.... Alan

Its worth a punt in my view, as Peter has mentioned you would have to strip the lens down to do a proper clean with IPA or similar but giving it plenty of fresh air and sunshine (not direct) should stop any more fungal growth. The lens being an L series should be reasonable easy to dismantle if you can find a guide and spares might also be available for the USM motor and internal wiring if you wanted to get the lens back into tip top condition. Alan

The ability of an AF lens to go far beyond infinity is vital for video use, it would not be good for the motors if they were always hitting the end stop. Alan

I think that is a slightly different phenomenon, my personal view is that ball lightening is caused by micro black holes that are picked up as the solar system moves through the galaxy, could explain why they were so common in the past (my Gran witnessed several) and virtually none existent now.. Alan

I have an EQ3-2 but would consider it to be a camera tracker much like the Star Adventurer and performs best with camera lenses or 70 mm scopes with a max usable FL of around 400 mm. The one advantage that the EQ3-2 has over the trackers is that it will hold larger scopes like a 6 inch newt for visual or planetary imaging but not DSO. Alan

I have to admit I always wondered how they did this, I took some sky flats once without a diffuser and there were hundreds of stars visible. The question is why dont the big scopes image during the day as there would still be lots of targets? Alan

I cant imagine anything worse than faffing around with filter wheels and filters, besides mono cant do meteors or comets unless yo want them well in mono... Alan

There will be an option in one of the menus to "shoot without lens".. Alan

My vote is for more CMY filters.... Alan

I used to clean my old Charles Frank mirror once a month for years and never had a problem with any damage so not sure why people are so afraid of doing so.... Alan

I was shocked by this as well for both telescopes and microscopes, it took my 4 year old grandson who was playing with a couple of plastic lenses half an hour to ask "Granddad why is everything upside down when I hold them like this?" he had one close to his eye and the other at arms length. Another thing was that I remember reading about is that lenses (natural forms) have been around for 4000 years or more. Alan

The type of batteries could make a difference. 8 X rechargeable batteries = 9.6V 8 x Alkaline batteries = 12V Alan

I like a bargain too. I am sure Pixinsight has its own benchmark software so its worth looking on their site as to what works best at a certain price point.. Alan

The Achilles heal of AMD is stability and compatibility with a wide range of hardware/software, my experience is that Intel just works even if its not as fast sometimes.... Alan

Unfortunately I am an Intel man combined with Nvidia wouldn't touch AMD with a barge pole I couldn't comment on those chipsets.... Alan

A fast PC or laptop is just as important as any other astro spend, give me a high end gaming machine over a TAK refractor any day... Alan

Use the camera features to your advantage, grab a bright star and get rough focus with the live view screen, zoom in X5 and focus again but take notice of the dimmer stars that pop into view, finally use the x10 zoom and get the realy faint stars to appear.... Alan P.S. you can temporally boost the ISO to help with star detection and also initially set the timer for 20 seconds rather than bulb to get the best live view.

Thanks folks, I had an extended play today with the Canon EOS utils version 3 latest update and it almost does what I want although its a bit of a faff. The software connects and runs fine over WiFi but has a couple of oddities. The timer function is grayed out unless the image files are set to save to both SD card and PC or PC only but not SD card only!!!!! The live view is very good and allows the exposure simulation to be disabled so you can see lots of stars on screen and the lens microfocussing controls work well but the timer is not available till live view exited. The timer itself is fine for exposures of less than 30s (static camera and lens shots) but can be extended to full intervalometer function by setting the camera mode dial to bulb. There is also another useful option with EOS utils that lets you turn off the camera display during remote shooting.. I will try and have a go with some of the android phone/tablet software too. Alan

The scariest movie of all time, watched it as a kid and had nightmares for 40 years... Alan

Had a good look around the net but could not find this software????? Alan

Very nice image but I am confused as none of the kit in your sig would give that field of view unless heavily cropped.... I would much prefer the whole frame. Alan

I have been wondering if any astro software like APT/BYEOS or Sharpcap let you connect a Canon DSLR via wi fi for full control i.e. Live view and all settings? Alan

I have to admit that I am confused by the lack of interest by the scientific community in this phenomena, after all we have an object that.... Has a life of a few milliseconds up to many minutes. Has mass. Can defy gravity. Can move against a wind. Can bounce off certain objects yet pass through others unaffected. Yet we spend billions on colliders that will never be big enough to answer the questions we want answered. Alan

Dont think its fungus, looks more like moisture has got into a cemented element. I had a lens like this and put the element into warm soapy water for a few days and it separated, I then cleaned off the "cement" with some alcohol then refitted the lens assembly using a thin strand of copper wire around the edge to "air space" it, worked fine after.. Alan

I have almost hit the button on a 3D printer a few times but am waiting until they can print Bakelite or an aluminium type resin.... Alan