Stub Mandrel

You might want to try motion blur correction in Astra image. Works well for images with low noise and small, consistent blur. I suspect it would be best to correct the subs before stacking

Well done Nige, much better than my feeble efforts on this target for sure!

A pair of battery clips for my leisure battery (to replace existing croc clips with wires to more user friendly connectors). A SATA cable so I can add yet more storage to my computer!

My grandfather was a HAM, previously he was a radio operator on HMS Repulse and submarines and ended up teaching radar at Cranfield. My dad was more interested in radio control, starting by building bang-bang servos and valve transmitters/receivers. Now he uses gigahertz kit and despairs of some of today's RC'ers who don't even understand how a fuse works... I've got an SDR setup with a ~2m yagi for meteor detecting using Graves radar. I must admit I'm tempted to try using it to pick up slow scan TV from the ISS, apparently Russian crews set this up from time to time.

Which spurred me to say it had put me off installing Astronomy Linux. Ironically this got me to do it, it was tough and I think I might not have got there without help from this thread. I started on punched cards too, the first PC I used was a Sirius ?

Loose leaf format, some pages are A4, some foolscap, some US letter and all in the wrong order with no index... but each one is individually numbered and guaranteed to be different to every other copy. ?

NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Changing bits of Linux is exactly what I want to avoid! It's not slow, just no faster than Vista!

Dell Inspiron 1520, seems to be AMD Sempron 3600 with 2 gig of ram.

I suspect that some of the issues were because it wasn't really a blank install, I suspect what I have done is really uploading a mirror of someone else's system onto my laptop. If I did that with Windows there would be multiple issues (not least with licensing).

I've looked up sudo and grep but although I now know what they I can't say I grok them, especially grep which seems to be resistant to a simple explanation of its syntax, although I've found some GNU documentation. Sleeping on it, I am impressed by the relatively prompt returns from hibernation, although startup doesn't seem faster than windows. Window positioning and resizing seems hit and miss and I don't like losing two screen rows to status bars - why can't the be combined as one? On reflection, the main issue I faced seems to be that Linux likes a restart when something is changed. Windows used to be plagued by multiple restart requests but has got better. Linux seems to 'hope it works now', except it hardly ever seems to and a restart is what is needed. The chaotic approach to documentation is as I expected, with a lot of online advice being inaccurate at a mostly trivial level - referring to earlier versions of software or being plagued by dead links or changed target pages. A good example of this is searching for a utility (in this case terminal,a pretty basic requirement) (a) assuming you know which Joomla interface/style you have (It was pure fluke that I had discovered I have 'Gnome') (b) that where things are depends on the style you are using, not just the version of linux and (c) the utility wasn't even in the place it was supposed to be. Must admit I prefer the multi-use box in windows that emulate a command line but treats any unknown command as a search. It's clear that Linux is aimed at programmers and the command level interface is much more complex than that in Windows (in many ways just an MSDOS emulation). Windows give highly structured graphical interfaces, Linux does to but these are all 'aftermarket' and depend on the flavour of Linus you are using. My guess is that this effectively tie me into Ubuntu unless I want to do the heavy lifting and look under the hood. The downside seems to be that many basic activities seem to require looking under the hood - I had heard that loading a device driver in Linux was the worst aspect of the system, and my experience last night seems to agree with that! The biggest problem there was that installing the driver required (1) a custom package rather than using a standard installer common to all drivers (2) the driver was in a separate place to the installer (3) the documentation was opaque, but also out of date as changes to the one ahdn't been reflected in the other. Very different from my usual experience which is normally to open device manager and automatically search for a driver, or at worst provide it on CD or download it and point device manager at it. The Linux approach was OK once it became clear the 'package' installer could find the driver automatically, but if I had not been able to jury rig a wired internet connection I don't think I could have found the required files and transferred them - and there was no guidance on how to point the installer at them There seems to be a whole industry in websites that explain how to do things, but detail explanation is swamped by the same basic information over and again; it's odd that not all opensource is like this, finding Joomla help seems to be easy. It's a bit like searching for advice on making a spectrometer - you want real information, but it's swamped by cereal packet and drain tube designs that use bits of CD. Finally, not really an issue with Linux, but with the way Astronomy Linux has been made. It's clearly a snapshot of someone else's system. Stellarium appears to be preloaded with someone else's equipment and location. What other information is lurking to trip me up - will CdC and EQmod have incorrect equipment pre-loaded - only time will tell, but it is always harder to set up a system that's got wrong settings in it, rather than no settings! This also meant I had to delete the pre-loaded ethernet connection before mine would work. I suspect many users with non-functioning wifi would not figure this out - it was only because it was telling me the connection was last used five months ago(!) that I realised it wasn't my connection. I suspect the originator of Astronomy Linux may not realise this and perhaps they need to rebuild a vanilla install.

Just tried Stellarium - 'Your openGL subsytem has problems', works but hangs on exit. Completely locks the computer. That's enough stress for one evening ?

I copied both files to the desktop If I type it in terminal, it throws an error. If I double click a window opens, I click 'install' and nothing happens. Do I need to be internet connected? - Yes. Installed, but no internet. Had to fiddle with the Bios, Dell advise disabling the wifi switch. Yes telling me wifi available! One minor problem, the password entry window was off the screen to the right... discovered why Linux has a 'move' option... BIG THANKS!

Looks like it was trying to use the internet connection of whoever built Astronomy linux 'wired connection last used 5 months ago' I deleted it and a new connection immediately appeared and connected to the net. I typed lspci -vvnn | grep -A 9 Network Now I get: E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11:resource temporarily available) ER: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

But that requires an internet connection? "unable to locate package b43-fwcutter" (a) how can I find and download the package (I don't understand the download sites) (b) doesn't it need to be able to find the driver locally? (c) how do I connect to a wired internet connection?

I understand it now. If I can figure out how to run the package, as I don't have internet on the laptop I have to get the driver from a page. That page tells me the package will automatically find the driver on the internet. If I don't have internet I should refer to another page. That page is the first one that just tells me to go to the second one in an infinite loop. And I still can't make head nor tail of how to download the package. I found instructions for a run package but it appears to be three separate files, two of which are tarballs. HELP!!!!!!!

Well I found the | key. I hate that non-intuitive command. Why can't it be meaningful? Writing this here as a notepad: BCM4311 14E4:4311 b43-pci-bridge Can someone take a look at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#b43 - Internet access And explain what I need to do because it doesn't make any sense to me at all. How can I download a package from here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/b43-fwcutter and run it on the laptop? And I need the driver from here: https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 but I can't see it? And if I can find it, what do I do with it? >sob<

How do I look for a wifi network? It's decades since I had to do all this WEP WPA nonsense? I need beer... OK I've found instructions for finding a wireless driver if you haven't got direct access to internet. They tell me to type a complicated command into terminal to identify my chipset. A link that explains terminal sayst hat undfer Gnome (good job I accidentally discovered that this is Gnome Ubuntu...) I go to Applications --> Accessories --Terminal. Except it isn't there... Found it under system tools... So now I need to type: "lspci -vvnn | grep -A 9 Network" But despite setting up my English keyboard the "|" key gives me a greater than symbol. Any suggestions?

What a load of crap Linux is. It's installed, rebooted and stopped at the error again: So, I visit the website. It says: So I need to know what chipset I have AND let 'kernel' choose the right drivers for me. But Ubuntu won't start so I can't even use a cabled connection to connect to the internet. In short, it looks like Ubuntu has effectively bricked itself. EDIT: Restart and it seem to be loading now. I must admit though I am far from filled with confidence.

Right, 'starting the installer directly' I'm prepared to forgive and assume all these issues are because it's running of a USB key. Let's see how it goes... yes those errors again, too slow with the camera. Won't let me download updates while installing. I guess this means I'm going to struggle to get the internet working. I've checked install third party stuff, apparently that's what your supposed to do although it doesn't make it clear what to choose. Right I've told it to delete Vista. Now that's a leap of faith (it takes a whole day to reinstall and update it). I'll settle for an English UK keyboard... I hope this has a Helpful Paperclip Animation. I like Helpful Paperclip Animations. Oh no! It has a helpful 'features' presentation, just like Windows! Not quite like Windows ... it plays through but doesn't show me anything, just a series of blanks with back and forwards controls...

Wait, it's about five minutes after clicking all those things and a shaded rectangle has appeared! I was excited there, I thought something might be about to happen... I should admit I did get Firefox to open, but it was dog slow (typing a letter every few seconds in the task bar... then couldn't find a connection) Now it's 100% unresponsive, no icons or menus will do anything. Looks like the clock is stuck on 2:31 but the mouse pointer is still moving? Not really surprised that ctrl-alt-delete doesn't do anything. What's the Linux equivalent? Time to hit the power button again.

Claims to be EN according to the status bar... Where's the egg timer? I haven't seen the egg timer? Now I see why it's nice to have a 'don't worry I'm doing something indicator... Lesson learned. Don't click icons... or at least don't hold your breath if you click one. I can get the calendar and clock bit to appear. But no wireless connection, four attempts at clicking the edit network connections and nothing happens. No point trying to run a program... Is it really this slow and unstable or is that just because I'm running from a USB stick? I've double clicked 'install astronomy linux'. Perhaps if installed to the HDD it will work better? > Time passes ... ... ... ... Well looks like that doesn't do anything either. I can get lots of things up on menus buy they don't seem to open anything. In for a penny, in for a pound, I'll try installing from the USB key. (Yes I do have a Vista recover partion AND the original media AND (if I get really desperate) XP disks.

Wow that's not like Windows! I try and force it to power down and it fights back, end up having to do a full 8-second hold. ? The missing files seem to be something to do with ;'wireless kernel' so it looks like I won't have any internet... Keep trying! Now I have a mouse and I enter the password and... something happens. Spends a minute or so cycling between a blank desktop and blackness. Now I have a desktop with 'install astronomy linux' and a few things to click... Let's see what happens.... I click an icon on the toolbar and ... the toolbar disappears. Right click and it comes back, but now I've lost the install icon. Click wifi icon and everything disappears except the desktop. This time no amount of right or left clicking will bring it back?

I've (politely) asked for advice on the Ubuntu pages on Stackexchange. Sit back and wait to be flamed...

Apparently if the mouse doesn't move in Ubuntu 16.04 I need to try booting up with an older kernel...

Perhaps I need to solve those errors it flashed past me on the screen... if I do manage to take a photo of the screen and find the files it links, what do I do with them? HMM the tab key lets me select a footprint that then lets me choose two desktop environments. They appear to be identical and equally non-functional. I'll try another mouse.