Stub Mandrel

Caught the Antares. The Falcon was delayed from yesterday. Nasa are not good at PR - they show us a boring animation, then finally cut to the control room where you can see the ground crew watching live feeds from the spacecraft... Unfortunately SpaceX aren't planning a launch vehicle recovery today ? I see the smileys have had an update, you can type them in now!

Nah. They should be tak-tile. Do you guys actually look through these Taks, or just play dress-up with them as an alternative to Action Man? ?

I will post some comparable guiding graphs - once I have achieved more than 10 minutes of guiding!

Now I need another EQ5 tripod... or maybe an EQ6 2" leg one for the EQ5?

OK, I've now got an HEQ5 But to bow out on a high note, here's M3 from 19 May. 12 600s subs, guided on the EQ3. Updated - I excluded the three first subs that had a rather blue sky with the result the colour balance is far superior

You can see more stars in the mono one. Have you tried using it as a luminance layer over the colour version?

Still looks lovely, but not quite as cute!

Well that second image proves the bumblebees can fly...

I got my pre-publication copy of my 3D printing book today. Do you recognise this in figure 1.11?

One of Noel's actions. it applies some saturation boost as well.

Interesting video from Bangladesh. Clearly a country keen to shed its old image of poverty and sweat shops, but still worried by the spectre of extreme weather. Let's hope the satellite brings the hoped for benefits.

It's worked... so far! They need to get their webcams as reliable as their rockets. My daughter says 'why don't they use a drone camera'?

CO, Met Office and Meteoblue all help me plan ahead. CO is teh easiuest to use. The Alt-Cloud option may well prove useful as the existing one tends to be pessimistic. I use satellite IR + radar rain to do my own predictions on the day. Rarely wrong and I can even use it to work out when I need to start bringing things in as rain approaches.

This might be the easiest link to use, works for all spacex launches (on launch day): http://www.spacex.com/webcast

Reminds me - I have an STL for a small 3D printed adaptor that lets you use a cheap and easily available aluminium extrusion from B&Q to make a top brace like that. i have a guidescope mounted on the one on my 130P-DS, the other is a handy second 'grab point' on my 150PL.

Given the excellent condition of the 'seconds' I've bought off FLO, I think any concerns regarding condition of new equipment are unfounded.

Speak for yourself :-)

You might find the words 'fault' and 'flaw' useful. Fault affects function, 'flaw' is an imperfection that doesn't stop something doing its job.

This evening I set up in the front garden in the hope of getting venus... it eventually appeared, and if I had moved the scope so it appeared to be pointing at the next door neighbour's front bedroom I might have had 10 minutes on the planet before the tree ate it. Really annoying as it is fairly well up - tomorrow I might try driving to a flat field somewhere.

And behind the tree of doom :-(

Quelle surprise!!! Hopefully tomorrow evening I can make a start

I thought Who had a Tardis in his/her garden...

Funnily enough I had this problem a few weeks ago - the T-mount adaptor had been on my 150PL for a couple of years without being removed. I used a combined lubricant/cooling spray called 'shock unlock' sprayed on the internal part and it came apart easily. I don't believe their '-30 degrees C' claim and it doesn't work very well on steel, but it looks like cooler spray does work well on aluminium.

Even the best digital calipers are vulnerable to low batteries and especially dirt on the scale which need not be particularly noticeable to cause significant misbehavour. If find that a wipeover with methylated spirit is usually the most effective way of restoring order. Potentially even cheap ones are accurate, but pay more to get better finish/operation, better battery life and greater temperature stability. Best brand is Mitutoyo Absolute followed by Moore and Wright IMHO, I have both but still use cheapies for various duties.