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Narrowband

dobblob

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    astronomy, birding
  • Location
    Upstate New York

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  1. Very nice bug. It's difficult to combine the the two and in spite of the grain it's a fine artistic shot. I'm an expat from E. Sussex myself. Where are you from if it's not too personal a question ? Please ignore if it is.
  2. To be honest it's not stressy for me. It's more like futility. You know, like discussing with UFO believers or flat earthers. Under incessant clouds and nothing you can say will make them go away.....
  3. My anxiety is more like fatigue. I live on the second floor and had to tote all my AP gear up and down 15 ft of stairs out onto my back parking area. 1st carry---a fold out table and a chair. 2nd carry----heavy tripod. 3rd carry----AVX mount in box. 4th carry----2X 12 lb counterweights. 5th carry-----30 lbs of battery box of 3 batteries ( 2x 12 v--mount and camera supply/heater, 1x 6V autoguider) 6th carry---- all in one bag, camera, mask, intervalometer, headlight, cables, atlas, binoculars etc. 7th carry-----Scope 80 ED. In box. 8th carry----EP box. 9th carry-----beverages, nibbles, blankets. 10th carry-----everything else I forgot. So that's about 10X15 ft X2 = 300 ft. And the reverse to pack it all away again. = 600 ft. That's quite a hill to climb. Who needs to go to a gym? It can be summer sweaty heat or winter bone chill freeze. Spend about 1/2 hour cabling up, 1/4 hr polar align, and finally acquiring target. Aligning guide scope. May be 3/4 hr before imaging can commence. Start the imaging run. At this point it may become evident that there is something I have messed up. Often not. And before this just a glance around to see how the sky is doing under the growing light pollution. Then the cloud arrives. Then the wait for the will it/won't it clear, while the beverages are consumed rendering the packing away a little muddled. Sometimes I am tempted to just go to bed and leave it all outside for someone to steal and I will never see it all again. After my 72 laps around the sun you may assume that I have had enough. Good fun while it lasted. My last hurrah will be April 8th when the eclipse path runs right through my front yard. Expect a yard sale after that.....
  4. Never shop online for astronomical equipment after consuming a bottle of wine/six beers/ six double vodkas. Always have a responsible adult near by......
  5. Shredding? Don't get me started! Wife has about 10 years of assorted "confidential" documents that are easily dealt with by just ripping off or redacting things like name or address. Even Netflix envelope covers have to be shredded! The postman knows our address, so do all the people in our apartment block At one time she ordered a shredding company to visit to process just a few pounds of documents that she insisted watching through the window on the side of the shredding truck. Cost a fortune and "honey, how do you know they were our documents that you saw reduced to tatters ?" I volunteered to do it myself and in moments of idleness I sit, turn me off, switch on the shredder and spend an hour or two zoned out with shredding. I entertain myself by occasionally looking at what I am asked to shred. Bank statements or tax returns ? Fair enough. But letters to Aunt Maude, Christmas/birthday cards, store catalogs, flyers, ten year old receipts on expired credit cards or even cash etc? None of them have any info on them that could lead to identity theft. But she insists that every little bar code is a deep state attempt to monitor and manipulate us. I am glad she believes that as 70 year old very uninteresting retirees with not a penny to our names that we are under intense scrutiny by the CIA, FBI, MI5, Mossad, KGB, and that our phone is tapped. YEs, I am often asked about the clicks and buzzes she hears over the phone. I'm done. Back to the shredding......
  6. One might well ask why anyone needs a finder, a Telrad or setting circles? A laser is just another tool that helps us navigate around the sky. Many of us are getting a little long in the tooth and don't enjoy the pain of trying to crank our necks to view a red dot or straight through finder or dealing with the field flip and narrow views of a right angled or RACI finder. A laser pointer has definitely improved my star hopping experience. I gave up on my Telrad and finder. Of course I understand the dangers of LP's and those that use them stupidly or maliciously should be punished to the full extent of the law. But let that not condemn all of us as pariahs. We all own a knife or a hammer but we don't rampage through the neighborhood stabbing and bludgeoning people. We use them to eat or drive nails....... I use my laser to aim my scope....
  7. I saw the very first Starlink train in 2019. I was not expecting to see it as I didn't realise I was right under the trajectory but immediately it was clear what it was. Since then they are a regular occurrence and cause me no more concern. Processing them takes them out my images. Since Cov 19 normal commercial aircraft contrails are a rarer sight!
  8. I saw something exactly like this some years ago around noon on a clear bright very windy day. I only had a small cheap pair of binoculars in the car but they were good enough to reveal what it was. You have probably seen those used car dealerships with a fenced lot surrounded by the awful aluminum coated flag streamers flapping and twinkling in the breeze to attract our attention? And they do. A whole stream of them had obviously been torn away by the wind and become air born to some altitude to produce exactly the effect you image, even disintegrating as I watched. They would have looked the same even near darkness and without binos I would have been flummoxed ( and excited) as to what they were. So for me, alas, a potential UFO sighting seen to be an unusual but terrestrial used car phenomena. I want to believe!!!
  9. Fear not William. Dust (unless it is REALLY BAD) will have no impact you will notice. It never hurts to blow off what dust is accessible on outer surfaces but do it with a "rocket" blower not with canned air or from a compressor. Also, as is well known, NEVER inspect shining a torch down the OTA ! It will look horrible, even pristine surfaces will.
  10. Yeah, M 42 is a jewel. I have been looking at it for 45 years on and off and it never tires. Back then with young eyes I could see the greens and resolve the trapezium. Now I put a camera on it and discover the depth of the nebulosity, the colour and its surroundings. Yes it's "easy" but every session I take yields different results, all startlingly beautiful. I often wonder that if it wasn't for M 42, M 31 or M 45 few of us would take up AP.
  11. Yep, latest ST version is missing the banding module. I used it often and it worked well. I presume Ivo has something similar in there but you will have to ask him what and where it is. He is usually very responsive.
  12. I was just on the phone to my sister in the UK in Lincoln. As we started the conversation discussing our current weather (mine in the NE US) she remarked how fine it has been there and how Lincoln stays snow free. Within minutes she goes gaga and tells me there's a full scale blizzard starting! I tell her about the winters here.....
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