skybadger

You are also assuming or requiring a very low read noise per pixel and almost zero dark current in order to get the stacking benefits and desired signal to noise ratio in realistic timescales. Fortunately this is possible from modern CMOS cameras now.

Vlaiv, the last para is all about the type of AI that is trained to be able to write the articles you are referring to. The training is not in the content but in the mechanism of producing content.

That depends on your purpose. Medical imaging builds data sets used for training. That doesn't take centuries. It takes days to weeks to months and it gets built and maintained as part of the overhead of maintaining the Ai. Nothing of quality is for free. captcha imaging ai gets you to do the work of image analysis for it. Amazon and azure provide massive data sets and pre-trained ML sets for image recognition, image to text conversion, language translation etc. They are managed and sold as such. ethical issues and bias need to be checked as traits in the data and in testing before release. Both are good examples of data filtered by researchers unconsciously which when trained provide poor conclusions. the ais we were discussing originally take syntax and grammar from language rulesets as training materials and assemble snippets from other online data feeds rather than using the data feed as a raw source of training material.

I'm not sure I agree with the last statement. The AIs I am familiar with are very carefully trained on the highest quality data the owner can find and also double checked for ethical and bias effects. That doesn't say anything about media generation AIs but why would they not point to a selection of native language online encyclopaedia as training sources rather than the general internet that they know rather a lot about the average quality and know it leads to reducing revenue. Unless you're a red top and generate pap all the time because there is no come back. Tomorrow's beast from the east forecast in the Daily Express is a great repeated example of pure tosh.

Sounds a lot like my obs , it's a 2.7m pulsar clone I raised on a decking because I didn't want to cut my 12" diameter pier again. The pier bolts to a concrete block in the ground, the decking is 2' off the ground and there is a cutout around the pier in the floor boarding.

If you compare this with the Mesu or Hercules, those mounts both use the drive system to hold the telescope where you left it. The mesu using direct friction drive, the Hercules using a belt, both against the bearing disks. I want this bracket to replace a wooden one I made which will use an inside out timing belt around the bearing as the drive and the brake.

Thanks very much. I got in touch with sales at that vendor and strangely they weren't much use so this is great.

Yep I guess that about does the trick.

I always had a hankering to design an essentially rack and pinion system that used three racks around a cylinder and the racks are operated by worms, one for each, and the worms are synchronised by a belt or large ring gear. The aim is to get positive lock and very fine adjustment without rotation of the cylinder over a decent strike range.

Done some more looking myself. Doesn't seem to be an authoritative convention on this other than for US 120v AC cabling.

Really, I've always treated the black cable as ground and the striped cable as positive.

Hi Francis, that looks like a good result. When you say 'modified' so you mean someone has stripped the Bayer mask off for you or something else ? I'm sure you can find a way to go longer with better adjustment. I'm heading the alt az and rotator route myself for now.

That looks fine to me It is a bit more complex than that to get full range of speeds and adequate slew rates.. I used onstep to do this. You already have half of the required kit. I heartily recommend it.

Aye, the first.

I think.... The top one is best for clarity and detail, the lower one looks over bright and washed out slightly.

Leaving springs under tension doesn't cause them to change over time, otherwise your car suspension would collapse . Have they corroded significantly or been over-tightened ? I have several telescopes with very old springs whic have held their collimation for years, so I don't understand why the springs are at fault.

My first idea is to put a thrust washer bearing on the central bolt to increase the pressure between plates while still allowing rotation. Those lazy Susan bearings are quite loose. There's another type I used for my son base which are more massively constructed. I got mine from eBay, they run smooth not not free. Really like the idea though. Where do I get a tripod like that ?

Interesting slide set. Thanks. I'd be interested in seeing your spectra. My lowspec has worked well with a 300 lpi grating but I haven't yet tried it with.a 600 lpi. I commissioned using my vc200l but put it to one side to get my dome automatio complete. What I'd like to do now is run the 12" with the spectrometer and 8" alongside for visual and try to do the impossible - exoplanet spectroscopy.

I must admit I've been printing rather a lot of things recently of the 12hour or more class but haven't experienced the extruder issues you describe. Much more issues with a poorly spooled reel causing snaps of the feed than anything else.

So a mak or similar of the 110mm region which could be mounted on a tripod or equatorial sounds like a good value proposal. The dob is also a sound proposal, even for kids. I leave it to you to determine whether adding electronics makes it more or less suitable for kids or adults.. You can at least take it outside, plonk it down and start observing with something that will show somethi g and is robust against kids handling. You can take planetary from the start and can also take deepsky by adding a base or goto with the right camera.

I've used the gamepad for a long time now. Makes life really easy except when the mounts don't support multiple rates. What I really like is the other app, ascompad, which allows the use of 2 focusers through the same gamepad as well but i find it quite unstable sometimes and need multiple launches. Someday I'll examine the source in the hope of finding the problem..

Thats actually a plus! I'm glad you mentioned it. When I finish the mirror box I'll be able to safely take pictures of the mirror on edge to work out its current state of figuring. Do you have a recommendation on how to form the lap - I could prop the mirror level for the radius of interest and then warm press on that (remembering I have a central hole to manage ) but there will be an underlying asymmetry in curve from that. I guess no greater from any moulded lap used off centre though. cheers

Are the optics actually damaged? Want to sell them if not ?

Very interesting. Tx

Hi all, I'm committing myself to figuring a mirror I've got hold of , a f/3.5 16". The mirror is already partially figured but needs completing. To get there I'm going to do a 12" first and I've already got a 6" on the polisher. My question for now is, the mirror is already pierced with a central hole. Does that condemn me to a half diameter lap at best or is there an established process to use a larger one. I recall texereau cut his plugs out and then reinserted using plaster but that was still at the rough grinding stage. The problem will appear when creating a new lap against the existing mirror, it needs a whole mirror to form the lap curve using plaster or cement and has the same needs to press the pitch to find the curve for polishing. It occurs to me I could use the 12" lap as long as the f/ratio is the same and I take the larger mirror back to rough grinding to take on any differences . Any other suggestions ?