Jonk

So, April has been better, even though the nights are a lot shorter. I have noticed although clear, the skies have been milky at times so it will be interesting to see if this repeats year on year.

This is correct, you need to set a park position and park before you power down. On power up, as long as nothing’s moved, unpark and the mount will begin tracking and ready to go, knowing where it’s pointed. It’s easy to get wrong so if you do, the annoyance of another init will make you remember!

Here's a photo of my Sitech 1 (teaspoon for size comparison):

LIVE: SpaceX Crew-2 launches four astronauts to the Space Station! Launch is about 20 minutes from now (so 10:48 am approximately). Crew onboard, pre flight systems running, countdown on! Watch on Youtube NasaSpaceFlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygvK7LDXtIA or SpaceX Website: https://www.spacex.com/launches/ Or both!

Fixed, thanks.

According to the BBC (Light pollution: How lockdown has darkened our skies https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-56634629 ) it did by 10% according to the recent star count survey. Did anyone seriously notice a reduction? For me, not in the darkness of the sky during a moonless night but the absence of aeroplanes was certainly noticeable and most welcome!

Well, March has been a pretty poor month for long exposure imaging. So poor, I've dismantled most of the kit now ready to tinker with it some more.

True, but the mesu e200 does have axis locks. I suppose I should have said before adjusting the counterweights.

In theory yes, as you’re not driving against the servo. A word of warning though, you may find the DEC axis appears to be harder to move than the RA, don’t worry this is normal and may actually feel fine the more weight you put on it. Also, balance the DEC in all directions before adding counterweights to balance in RA. Otherwise, RA will never be balanced properly.

True that! Replay shows large orange flash followed by large pieces hitting the ground, meaning it likely exploded prior to reaching the ground.

I don’t think anyone knows where it is yet?!

Major failure, it either exploded in mid air or hit the ground. Pieces flying about, no one knows what happened yet!

Relying on telemetry, belly flop in progress but no one can see it from ground cameras. Onboard cameras showing the bellyflop.

Successful launch, too much fog for the cameras to see but Spacex have a feed from inside and outside the rocket.

Yep, looks like the tank farm has woken up (through the fog)!

Bookmark this page, it should help... https://nextspaceflight.com/starship/

I thought I'd missed it, but luckily no - the next scheduled Boca Chica road closure and village evacuation (and therefore likely test flight) is now on Friday.

Looks like this has been put back to this Thursday.

Here's the 3d model (2mm thick): ...and here's the .stl file. Aperture ring.stl You can get it printed at 3dhubs.com for example, although a 1 off may be pricey.

I can create an .stl file for you using those dimensions. How thick, 2mm?

SN11 test flight is due this Wednesday 3pm central, probably 7/8pm UK. Or it was last time I looked!

Looking good - you've used raw files instead of jpgs I'm guessing? Hence the bayer pattern. There are some hot pixels, which is enevitable unless a cooled camera is used, but you're definitely on the right track. What software did you use for this one?

If you're used to Canon and have other Canon gear and lenses, I would look for a used 6D. Full frame, large pixels, large dynamic range and if you're lucky, you can find one for even as low as £350 (around $500) which may be above your budget. If you get a 'cropped' sensor camera, I reckon the 6D will still beat them all quality wise, so perhaps save a little longer and buy better? I have a 6D (full) and 70D (cropped), also using 1100D, 450D, 30D (all cropped) in the past and the 6D is easily the best in this lineup. I also have a Samyang 14mm f2.8 and 24mm f1.4 and the 24mm is better for the Milky Way in my opinion. The 14mm is a bit soft wide open and a bit slow stopped down. If you're on a fixed tripod, this really matters but if you have a star adventurer or similar, then you may get away with the 14mm stopped down. Milky way shots are not easy, as I found out when I tried many times!

Nice - a dome will always cause reflections, even at night especially from the moon or local light sources. My clip above didn't have a dome, just the lens on top of a tripod, but ultimately I'll have a decent dome and also unwanted reflections. Is that the 178MC? What lens do you have?

Not sure I'm not at home to check, but I'm guessing around 10mb?