Stub Mandrel

Yes, except it doesn't work, just flashes purple and makes a badoing noise... But it doesn't give me a wrong password message, just says 'guest session'. But with no mouse I have no idea if I'm in or not. It gives a bad password message if I type anything else. So what do I do after putting in the password. Is there a way to control it using keyboard shortcuts so I can activate the mouse driver (like I would in windows...)

Typical, you can get the password at Sourceforge.net, the Astronomylinux website doesn't say anything about it. What next joy or pain? Pain .. the password '12341234' doesn't work. Also it isn't recognising mouse or touchpad... (touchpad is probably broken)

More promising: And yes, it's booted. Now will it be pain or joy? Pain! A crop of errors telling me I must visit some long URLs taht only stay on screen for a few seconds. Now asking me for a password ... I remember seeing something about this, astonomylinux has a password... I saw something about this but I can't find it on the astronomylinux website...

Press F12 and I can choose a 1-time boot from USB or go into the BIOS settings and set it to boot from USB. Neither route recognises it as bootable.

Trying to write it using Rufus instead.

Ha. False News. Looks like that's an old version of Rufus so the options are completely different: Er... when it tries to boot from the USB key?

Well I've had another go. The computer says it's not a bootable disk. Does this look right (doesn't quite look right to me):

Not Windows fault. It appeared to burn it fine, all the files looked like they were there, it just wouldn't boot. I thought it might be corrupt but instead of the utility re-writing the key, it fubared it. It doesn't even show on disk manager as an unpartitioned drive ? <UPDATE> Saved by Windows. The problem was the single partition had become 0GB in size. The drive was 'there' but had size zero and wouldn't read, check, repair, format or allow me to open a file a manager window for it. What I had to do was use Disk manager to create a new fullsize partition. The problem was that it was not visible to Windows Disk Manager as a disk drive. I found it in disk manager, and had to 'populate' its statistics which 'found' the unused 14.83GB or whatever. This then allowed Disk manager to see the unpartitioned space and I could partition it. Side effect is that the drive now is now letter H instead of G, but I can live with that! Now if it had been a floppy for my BBC Micro I could have used the sector editor I wrote to manually repair it ?

Oh well. The bootable USB key wouldn't boot. I tried re-writing the ISO and now I have a dead 16 gig USB key. Thank you Linux, and goodnight...

Oh dear Oh dear... I have just tried to burn an Iso of Astronomy Linux onto a USB key. If only because I really am not going to do another 3.4GB download on my 2.8MB/s narrowband. The first site with an ISO handler caused my ISP to warn me it was virus-ridden. The second utility started promisingly - then told me I had to download two furtehr files in order to work with what I had, without telling me where to find the two files in question or what to do with them... Can I be ars^h^h^hbothered to try a third time?

See this is where I get lost. I am sure this reply is meant to be helpful. It clearly is more relevant to the point of this thread (encouraging newcomers to use linux for astro). I know Debian and Ubuntu are rival versions of Linux. But is Ubuntu Mate a version of Ubuntu or something that works with it?). I have guessed that Kstars is a bit like stellarium or ascom, or equmod... and so is INDI. But do I need one or both? And what are Stellarmate and ASIAIR? Are they versions of Linux? Are they programs? Do they include INDI or Kstars? Or both? Why do Linux users assume that you know what something is just by naming it? Yes I could use the power of google (sorry I suppose Linux users don't use Google) but I would have to search about seven things to properly understand that one post. Many of the posts on this thread I can't even follow whether some of the things being talked about are hardware or software. It's impossible to guess if some are operating systems, programs or drivers from the context. Life's too short to look it all up. At the beginning this thread encouraged me to look at setting up a linux laptop for astronomy. In the end all it has done is further entrench all my prejudices against Linux because those 'in the know' couldn't resist the temptation to start splitting hairs. If someone starts a thread on choosing a beginners telescope, you don't start arguing the toss between different types of ED glass - do you? Plug and Play to me means I can download something, run it, go through a setupwizard, and then start using it. If there is a way of doing this PLEASE point me at it using words I understand.

Why do I suspect that 's like asking about QGIS on Stackexchange. Any N00B who dares ask a question gets the response 'go and read twelve pages on how to ask questions properly, collect full data on your system including a detailed family tree going back at least fourteen generations and come back when you've solved your problem'...

No, I'd be equally disheartened if I was told 'you can learn to use a lathe in an hour' and then was faced by a ten-page discussion of parting off.

Out of curiosity, have any of us Windows users actually set up a windows machine as a result of this thread? The original posts said "look what you can achieve in just an hour" and I thought "great!" Ten pages of of posts later, despite downloading an ISO I am so confused and full of trepidation that I am just more convinced than ever that Linux is a 'hobby' in itself and not a means to an end.

Met office observations page - google 'met office rain radar' on a mobile or it will send you to the stunted mobile site with little functionality. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/observation/map Also meteoblue, but this always seems incomplete.

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It would seem so! Interesting that the change was from metal clips to silicone and not the other way around, and apparently from plywood to mdf for the construction.

The scope is no earlier than 1995 - the phone number is an '01XXX' code and PhONEday was apparently in 1995. Neil

For that money I'd expect a sedan chair, complete with minions to hold it at the right height for the scope ?

No way! They damage my brain. Either a fully corrected finder or a straight through one for me. The one I've made can be used as either as I have a 0.965 445-degree prism diagonal and crosshair ep AND a 25mm cross plossl fitted witha 1.25 to 0.965 reducer ? I have some relatively new 120 film for my Yashicamat I bought a tin today to touch up the scope but horrors! It is now proper blue, not the classic greeny blue. Someone must sell the 'real' colour as you can still get tools painted with it.

I feel a router project coming on...

I have the remains of a chewed dog-bed asking to become a heavy duty cover ? The only cleaning has been me gently with clean tap water to get the dust off. Thanks to the forum I've found a carayford, but I think the 2" EPs may have to wait a goodly while ? I had to look up TP2415, but I vaguely associate 'hypering' with extreme push processing?

Is there a way of dating the scopes? Mine seems to have a simplified lens cell compared to another "custom 10" dob" (no counterweight, mirror held on by silicone - in contrast to a counterweight and proper mirror clips). To me this suggests a different date, but which is earlier?

I din't know he was an upholsterer!

Clear Outside makes a rod for its own back by offering a week-ahead forecast. The very best on-the-night forecast is your own. Look at satellite images and see where the cloud is coming from and heading and combine this with your own assessment of sky quality.