Mognet

I got Making Every Photon Count, courtesy of my brother who'd asked me what I wanted :)

All I need now is a new job so that I can afford to fall into this money pit! 🤣

10 hours ago, Scooot said:

Despite the Police Report showing no evidence of increased crime and saving in excess of £300k per year, Essex Council abandoned their Part-Night lighting. When I complained Basildon Council told me they’d “campaigned on the issue of getting the lights back on to address the real concerns of residents who live here.”

 

I can see the sky glow along the Basildon to Southend corridor as a result of that. Fortunately my town comes under Chelmsford so we do get some darkness here

Just run across this video where a model builder illustrates some of the problems in controlling Starship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsEBiAahAYM

5 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

I thought the first stage would be mounted horizontal on a kind of sled on tracks, rather like a roller coaster 

Alan

That would explain the Fireball XL5 inspired design. Just need the space scooters now

That's the one. It's near St. Peter's church which is on the coast. You can see the lights of Brightlingsea and Jaywick from there, but they are not really a problem

When the local clubs are able to start running observing nights again they use places like Abberton Resevoir and Great Notley Country Park, but I don't know about non-club access (not been to any of the local clubs yet). And I believe there are a couple of other sites used

On 03/12/2020 at 17:43, Andy ES said:

Gfamily, 

Thanks for the link to the light pollution map.

looks like I’ll be heading for the Dengie peninsular in Essex.

I wonder if anyone knows any good areas in this location.

Thanks

The carpark for Dengie Nature Reserve is a good spot to go as there isn't much around it. Although if Bradwell B gets built then we are likely to lose that location.

Some of the other Essex members have spoken about Margaret Roding, but I don't know where in particular they go

That's an amazingly detailed image. Great work there

3 hours ago, Davey-T said:

I think they generally take off heading to the same orbit as the ISS, there are a few apps showing ISS orbits and visible passes from your location so if there's one for your location they should be following along behind.

Thanks. I did wonder if that was the case as they needed precise timing for the launch, but I couldn't find any specific information on it in a brief search. Plenty of stuff on boost timings and heights was available this time

Clear Outside doesn't list any visible ISS passes before Friday. There was a pass not long after launch, but it would have been low here

21 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Looks like it's heading too far south.

Dave

I was hoping to see it too as we have a clear night. Couldn't see anything though.

Any idea where I can find out the route for next time?

3 hours ago, johninderby said:

Or if you are realy desperate. 😁😁😁

Googling came upwith this.

https://www.wattpad.com/256438176-book-of-spells-sunny-skies-spell

Given the amount of time that water takes to evaporate, we'll have to start with a very tiny bowl if we want to stargaze the same night!

I'm always surprised at the amount of unnecessary light that I see at night, from bright porch lights on all night and curtains not drawn when the lights are on, to advertising screens and street lighting when there is no one around. People now think of darkness as something to be lit not loved

I came across this good piece the other day on the subject https://theconversation.com/cities-need-to-embrace-the-darkness-of-the-night-sky-heres-why-149129

Replacement camera has been in for a couple of days now and there hasn't been any return of the mystery white bloom, so it looks like it was a dodgy camera module

Now to learn some Python so I can work on my own version. And to source a dome so I can mount it outside instead of pointing it through the conservatory double glazing

This sounds like the same issue that I have with DSS and my Nikon D3100. I shoot widefields with a camera lens which has a subtle pincushion distortion. In stacking the images Sequator can be set to correct for it, but DSS doesn't have a similar setting. There was a recent post here to say that DSS can correct the distortion but I've never found out how

5 hours ago, pete_l said:

If you're up for a little experimentation I can send you the python code I use to handle my v2 camera on a pi-zero.

Thanks. That could be useful as I was looking at writing my own ASC software as I need the programming practice. Just read up on the basics of PHP for the front end and was about to start looking at Python for the back end

The mystery white bloom has suddenly returned again, so I'm going to order another Pi Noir camera to see if that's the problem. I've ruled pretty much everything else out except that and the Pi Zero I'm using

3 minutes ago, Chriske said:

How thick is the wall btw..?

The spec in the original post said 2.5mm

Would it be possible to repurpose an existing type of pipe? A quick look says that plumbing waste pipe goes up to 113mm. Not quite the 120mm diameter that was required though

I was wondering that last night after slicing it for my printer. At 0.10mm layer height it was saying 24 hours for the print, and 12 hours at 0.28mm

Stefan of CNC Kitchen has now done an analysis of the salt baking technique https://youtu.be/DyAKtS1b3SQ

There seems to be a fashion for these lights on houses now. I've recently spotted several houses round here with lighting in the eaves that seems to serve no apparent purpose other than showing off the outside of the house when it's dark. Those belonging to the neighbour of the OP do seem excessively bright though

Apparently print speed and temperature do also affect the strength of prints though I'm not sure I'd use PLA or PETG for anything that would need to be reasonably strong, even if it was annealed. ABS might be better suited

I'm a bit curious about this too. I was watching Stefan of CNC Kitchen do similar with plaster of Paris. His method is a lot more involved though and needs a few items of kit that we wouldn't normally have around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG8dlxTX3AI

There were the Soviet Vega probes in the 80s that lasted a couple of days floating in the Venusian atmosphere. And there is talk of possibly more https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-54151861

I'm still surprised that it's Venus given that is has an extremely hostile atmosphere

4 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Great capture, what telescope and camera did you use? Is this a single shot or stacked? Did you use RGB filters? 🤔

Single shot with my phone. They just popped over in their spaceship to pick up some supplies for the iron chicken 😉

3 hours ago, mikeDnight said:

Until I see a Clanger or a Soup Dragon with my own eyes, I'm having none of it!  

Thanks to some very lucky imaging...

The mystery white bloom reappeared again tonight. Wondering if it's from auto ISO and exposure time in darker conditions, so I've changed the night and day arguments to a fixed ISO value.

Daytime="-ISO 100 -awb  greyworld -n -w 820 -h 616 -ex auto -o /run/shm/$SCR.jpg"
Nighttime="-ISO 3200 -co 70 -awb greyworld -n -w 820 -h 616 -ex night -ag 9.0 -dg 2.0  -ss 6000000  -o /run/shm/$SCR.jpg"

It's back to behaving how it should with only a little glow on that edge again