michaelmorris

My understanding (i.e. probably incorrect) is that the current evidence points to the universe being of a finite (but unmeasurable) size and that it has been evolving since its creation 13.8 billion years ago. It will continue to evolve, with eventually every bit of energy and mass turning into a low energy state - the heat death of the universe. If correct, this would lead to the conclusion whilst the universe would theoretically exist for an infinite time and continue to expand at an ever-increasing rate, it could not play out all potential scenarios before the present star-forming stage finished. However, if you subscribe to the multiverse theory that we live in just one of an infinity number of possible universes, then there could be an infinite number of exact copies of our universe, and an infinite number of all other possible universes, duplicated an infinite number of times and that has always been the case! Of course, the problem with all of this is that, with the discovery of 'dark energy', it is highly possible that our current fundamental understanding/ideas of how the universe works, and indeed what it is, may well be completely wrong! Therefore, as any theory we have of the universe is provisional and possibly completely wrong, and the fact that I can only surmise that my existence is simply down to the consequence of a 13.8 billion year old chain of random quantum events, the best thing I can do is leave the theorising about the true nature of the universe to people MUCH cleverer than me and celebrate the wonder of my meaningless existence with another pint of Old Speckled Hen. Cheers

It's now in my electronic diary! Thanks for the heads up.

Here's a less ambitious second attempt, with fewer, wider field shots.

Thanks Okay, this morning I found the time to give this a go in daylight. It took a while for my somewhat elderly Windows 7 laptop to process it, but it seems to have worked in daylight at least. PS - Damn it! - just spotted one tiny triangle of sky I didn't get PPS - just spotted there are two suns!!! Maybe it didn't work as well as I first thought.

I would be highly unlikely to be buy any high value secondhand item without inspection. For all but trivial secondhand purchases I will only buy using Paypal (not friends and family). Saying that, I've never really had any problems buying secondhand gear on SGL or UKAB&S. I would be unlikely to buy from aboard as it's so potentailly difficult and/or costly to do anything should the item don't turn up, are not as described, or are faulty.

I'm giving a talk next week to my local astronomical society on All Sky cameras. I want to include cheap options as well as the Rolls Royce kit. Exploring this idea got me wondering. Would it be possible to create an all sky mosaic, by just taking pictures using the stock zoom on a DSLR and stitching the resultant images together in something like Microsoft ICE? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/image-composite-editor/ Has anyone tried this?

Signal is great as soon as you walk just beyond the top of the red field.

This one https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MJXKRTG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I'm probably going to get a cheap 12v to 5v converter as well so that I have the option of running it off 12v supply as well.

It's a great event and the site is very good. Depending upon your network, mobile signal tends to be rubbish/non-existent. As Owen said, ask your own society members!

Thanks I've just placed an order for the version that has three brightness settings + I've ordered a 3mm thick sheet of matt white acrylic to act as a diffuser.

Does anyone know if there are ASCOM drivers available for Canon DSLR cameras? (Don't ask why I want to know, it's too complicated!) Thanks

I had real issues getting my 120mc to work properly with all sky eye. Now it is working great. Here are my top three tips for using a 120MC/MM camera with Allskeye software. Use new, high quality USB cables Experiment with using the ASCOM rather than the native ZWO driver Create a bad pixel map. I hope this helps

I'm looking at making a more compact set up for taking flats and I'm considering getting a cheap A5 LED light box designed for tracing Aibecy Portable A5 LED Light Box Drawing Tracing Tracer Table Pad Panel Copyboard with Stepless Brightness Control USB Cable for Artist Animation Sketching Architecture Calligraphy Stenciling https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B075H8HDRZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_vFTHCb1DJFG6E Has anyone any experience if using these or similar tracing light boxes for taking flats? Is the illumination even? How well do they perform with narrowband filters? Thanks.

Your's is a lot better picture than mine. I think I need to have another look at my raw frames.

Sorry, missed this info off. 30 x 240 secs. Best 90% stacked in DSS, then processed in Photoshop. I think I'm now starting to get to grips with the 294. I requires a slightly different way of working than with my mono Atik 460EX, but I'm pleased with the performance. The differences you will notice if you use a cooled 294 when compared to your DSLR will be The smaller field of view You'll need to take more, shorter subs It's essential to take darks Once calibrated and stacked, how much further you can stretch the data I have both mono (Atik 460EX) and colour (ZWO ASi 294 MC-pro) cameras. When I switched from an astromodified DSLR, I bought the Atik mono camera so that I could get narrowband images from my light polluted back garden. This has worked well. I bought a full set of RGB filters to take normal RGB images as well, but to be honest, the amount of time taken to capture data and the paucity of clear nights I can spend away from my light polluted back garden capturing this data made me re-evaluate this approach. The ZWO colour camera fulfils my needs much better in this respect.