Mognet

Due to a distinct lack of standing stones, etc around my area I haven't been able to do pretty widefield starscapes. So I've gone for interesting instead.

These are all taken on the eastern edge of South Woodham Ferrers, and all show light pollution in various degrees, some of which explain why observation and photography from home got frustrating

All photos taken on a Nikon D3400 with the 18-55mm kit lens at 18mm F8, 30 second exposures, ISO 1600, between 2345 and 0045. Minimal processing and conversion in RawTherapee

The view north east. The light domes I think are from Witham, Maldon, Colchester, West Mersea and Clacton. Can't miss which one has LED lights

Southeast to the bright lights of Southend on Sea. Local lights are Hullbridge and Fambridge. The wooden structures in the water are the remnants of a sailing barge converted into a floating dock and what I assume to be the fixed part of the dock. Low tide reveals some thick horizontal beams that the barge could have been floated onto

Clements Dam West. The eastern one is twenty feet away and much smaller

The bright lights of Fambridge Yacht Haven two miles away. Nobody sails at night

The view south to the Southend - Basildon corridor. I usually only look at planets in this direction

I've found Sequator much easier to use than DSS and to get good results out of, even though DSS is more capable and the faster of the two on my laptop. It also has distortion correction and light pollution removal, both of which I've found very useful.

I haven't noticed any reduction in light pollution in the last year here. Have noticed that the skies are frequently rubbish even when they are supposed to be clear. Did the star count but didn't bother submitting it because of the sky condition

Looks like bits of a previous rocket didn't come back as planned https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-56541230

Rather unfortunate end after what was a fairly successful landing. Didn't think that small fire was a good sign!

My package from Spain finally arrived today. No damage or anything, so must have just been caught up in the backlog

4 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

desigual maybe

I had to Google them. Not Desigual, but Carles Marti Chapeaux

2 hours ago, Mick J said:

I have used Hugin and AutoStitch sometimes it seems a different programme will give a better result, I don't stich astro.

I'd used both of those and I think PTGui too, but not for years. ICE seems to be good for all panoramas, including astro. I never tried using the others for it

3 minutes ago, Andy ES said:

Got to stop doing this or I’ll be into Astro photography next which I said I wouldn’t do ! 😂.

I said I wouldn't do that too. Then I started with my camera on my tripod, just experimentally. Started thinking about mounts a couple of months ago, so it looks like I'm going over to the dark side! 🤣

Still waiting on my parcel from Spain. Two months now starts to feel like loss in transit rather than a delay. Is anyone else still waiting on stuff?

2 hours ago, Mick J said:

@vineyard  Found this thread, possibly same as @Mognet  - thread here - second  post down.

That's a different thread to what I found. Handy that they've provided the links there

We'll see what happens with ICE. It's a good product. When I found it some years ago it was way better than the others that I tried so I'd stuck with it

I can't find anything to say why it's not available. Doesn't seem to be available in their store either. Odd that the product page is still there. Also looks like they've disabled the ICE forum https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=ice No announcements on there either

A thread on DPReview says that it can be downloaded from the Internet Archive if you can find it on there

There also seems to be plenty of alternatives I haven't checked any of them out yet, although I do recognise three from before I discovered MS ICE

1 hour ago, paulastro said:

Well, I started this thread as it looked to be set fair for me on 10/11th.  As it turned out I had rotten skies and saw virtually no starlight.  Last night it was even worse.  I'll certainly not be posting any more weather forecasts, I should have known better!! 😁.

Blame the weather people for wonky promises? 🤣

3 hours ago, AMcD said:

I was born in Sudbury and grew up in Suffolk.  My parents still live there.  Very dark skies.

A large part of my family are still living in Sudbury and surrounding villages. Definitely good skies round there with none of the continuous sky glow round here. They might even have some decent clear nights too!

Wasn't as clear as I was hoping for. Went out to do the Orion star count and only managed eight with averted vision after adapting to the not very dark night here. Decided not to take the scope out after starting to feel the cold within ten minutes.

20 hours ago, AMcD said:

Suffolk.  My grandfather used to use the phrase regularly and my mother and uncles still do from time to time.

 

A

I was going to ask if you had a Suffolk connection when I read it. My parents, who were from Sudbury and Clare, used to say it

Not an astro purchase, but I'm still waiting on my girlfriend's Christmas present. It's coming from Barcelona, and the tracking info from the Spanish Post Office said that it left Spain before new year. Hoping it's just been caught up in a backlog and hasn't been squashed or stolen or anything

1 hour ago, Jonk said:

That has to be one of the coolest rocket photos I've ever seen. Probably not safe to launch them both at once though

18 hours ago, davew said:

Just remembered that someone said they used qDslrDashboard on a D3*** some time ago. There may be a thread on it.

I think it may have been this thread. We got DigiCamControl working with the D3400. Looks like it's Windows only. When I tested them a couple of years ago I couldn't get qDslrDashboard working with my D3400 even though the forum says it's possible. It could have changed since then, so I might give it a try later. qDslrDashboard can run on various systems, including the Raspberry Pi

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/329864-d3400-for-ap/

Guess that explains the dismal weather we've got 🤣

Looking forward to the unboxing

1 hour ago, CedricTheBrave said:

jumping on this thread what are peoples thoughts on the Creality CR-10S Pro V2?

looks like it ticks all my boxes 

I can't say much about the Pro V2 part, but I do have a CR-10S and it's a nice machine. The only advantage that I know it has over the Ender 3 is print volume. Most of the other parts are interchangeable with the Ender 3. Only time I've used the full size of the print bed was for printing visor frames as I could get four on at once. Haven't needed to print anything tall yet. As @vlaiv says, it depends on how large you need to print

36 minutes ago, jiberjaber said:

Looking forward to seeing that in action

Thanks. I'll publish it once I'm happy with it. The plan is to include an auto deploy script so it can be a single command install too, along with all the other improvements

I had to refresh the card in mine after it stopped talking to the network for no apparent reason, and since then I've made the capture code a bit more robust. I wasn't certain that it was adding every frame to the video before, but I'm pretty certain of it now. And I think I've cured the problem where it would create videos of several days or nights run together. It can now safely capture every minute in daytime and two minutes at night on a Pi Zero without getting tangled

Next job is to update the web interface so that every frame can be viewed, and several days (or more) history can be stored. The pages will also benefit from some common PHP and CSS code, which I think is tonight's job

Only dropped to -2 here last night, but it was enough to make wet patches of paths slippery and the grass crunchy.

But you know you've had a good night when you come in with frost on your scope and not minded

Good choice. They are easy to assemble and maintain, even for someone as hamfisted as me, and replacement parts are easy to get hold of if something goes wrong

Congratulations. The 200P is a good scope, and you'll get plenty of good views out of it. Clouds permitting of course!