City9Town0

Thanks for this.

Fabulous... I've done that with Marianne's trip from Tromso and with others. Envious.

I love the aurora... Thanks for posting. I'm envious.

I did use the 'barn' at work, and very rarely the 'outhouse'... but we left the 'shed 'alone! Apologies for thread drift.

Thank goodness I was good at the 'rod-pole-perch' conversion!!!

Guiding (and expense) is the way forward!

From my HEQ5....

Modded my 450D a few years ago and it's been excellent.

Lovely... is any of this naked-eye?

I've just tried this on a 'soupy' sky and got this Canon 450D jpeg... looking at the line of bright stars running slightly left of centre of the galaxy it seems reversed compared with the above? Galaxy small and slightly right of centre...??? As a novice... Help!

Very nice... tempted to have ago at it.

I = nAve !!!!!!!!

Cartes du Ciel has Atlas position marked. I've imaged it near Gemini 21.00 in UK this week. GIF's in this forum

... and here we go... Two hour of Comet Atlas... not quite Tarantino or Spielberg.

Thanks Trevor... I tried again last night. After two hours it had moved a few pixels... may try another GIF... not sure if it's worth the effort. May wait for a cloudy evening to edit it; shouldn't have to wait long. Start and end files from a set of thirty-five, two hours apart... straight from camera, JPED'ed and resized. Comet in centre!

Small GIF from a half-hour...

Thank you. I'm chuffed.

Wow... I've just 'blinked my dozen or so images and the comet moves... I must try a GIF. I like this hobby when we get a clear night!

Having had to adjust my mount after 'bumping into it' whilst setting up Christmas lights on my garage I'd been waiting ages for a clear night. With none forecast I was surprised to look out at 8 p.m. yesterday and find it clear (but windy). I set up my ed80DSPRO and Canon 450D on my HEQ5 and set about calibrating PHD2 etc. I only have a small bit of sky available and drifting through Cartes du Ciel I saw that the comet Atlas was nearish to Castor and so should be above my garage and in a gap between trees. One 200 second 800 ISO image, Stretch via Pixinsight. No other editing. Uncropped. I hoped that the comet would be green(ish)! I believe that I was aiming OK; is it likely that the smudge is the comet?!

Nice... Suffolk was surprisingly clear last night...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwZnLkzNQlw&t=3526s I used this (successfully)... however it took a while getting the worm end floats correct. Good luck.

For me, one of the great things about this hobby is looking on this website (and a few others, inc. NASA) and seeing the beautiful images, and then trying to capture a few photons and making your own image. In the end as long as I'm seeing some improvement there is a huge 'buzz' just in seeing a bit of a smudge on APT etc. A two-hour clear spell!!! Just over one hour in 200 second exposures at 800ISO with ED80 DSPRO and modded Canon 450D on HEQ5. Bortle 4, next to a streetlight. There are even quite a few other galaxies amongst the mis-edited stars! For better or worse this is my smudge and I like it... but will hopefully improve further in the future should the clouds part again.

Hopefully it's warm so that the 'dark outside' can be shared!

CERN visits..... A physics teacher I know that took twenty CERN visits from the UK received this.... Dear Sir, How have you been? Hard to imagine it's been 10 years since I was at ******** for the exchange. I wouldn't hold it against you if you don't remember me. I was an exchange student from The S****** School, India, a tall fellow with a passion for physics. I remember I thoroughly enjoyed your classes. You encouraged me to ask questions and pursue physics in college and as a career. You had particularly encouraged me to apply to universities in the UK and elsewhere, and through to our interactions, I was convinced that it is important for me to be in an enabling environment to truly flourish. I remember that you showed me a picture of your students at CERN and I was astounded, to me the idea of going to CERN was like visiting Mecca, or even Narnia. I'm happy to inform you that I did end up visiting CERN, and not just for a day, I've had a permanent office there for the past few years. I will be defending my PhD in Artificial Intelligence for Particle Physics later this year and I just wanted to thank you for your encouragement back then. In the end, the universities in the UK were a bit too expensive so I studied in Mumbai and Paris, and from this October I'll be starting a postdoctoral fellowship at University of California Irvine and Berkeley (a joint position), working on various theoretical and experimental physics projects. I wonder if *********** students still visit CERN, it would be a happy coincidence to run into you. A strong positive experience often goes a long way, especially for a young mind. Recently I was moderating a science outreach event called Master Classes, and a young girl from a school in Sheffield later emailed me asking whether it's worthwhile studying physics and computer science. She loved both and couldn't decide which to study at university, so my field of AI for physics interested her. It was a wonderful feeling being able to give her some advice and encouragement. It reminded me of my interaction with you. Hope you've been well during these difficult times, and I hope you continue to get young students excited about physics! Best Regards, ********* It's worth it!

So the cloud in Suffolk is your fault!!!