DaveL59

ah-ha! We have an aspirational date of 14-Dec 22:16-00:16 🙂

Virgin Orbit: Date set for historic Cornwall rocket launch - BBC News

Now we just need the CAA to get their finger out and issue the launch clearance.

surprisingly still no date made known, but mr Angry mentioned that they've got clearances and he's hoping to cover the launch before he returns home on 16-Dec, so could be any day soon perhaps?

Was thinking to update the title to say now-Dec? but don't seem able to edit it for some reason 😞 

Nice video on these modified 747's 

easily done tho. I was fitting a new bath years back, prepped the space it would fit into and checked for fit in the undercuts in the wall then pulled it back out so I could drill for the taps that would be set into one corner. Late at night after a long day and so I marked up and cut the holes dead right, taps slotted in perfectly so fitted up the pipe tails etc.

Only thing was when I went to offer it back into where it'd sit... wrong corner. DOH!

The fix was to flip the bath lengthwise so the taps were in the far corner from the shower and run extra pipes. Just as I'd planned it all along of course  😄 

well no news on a date yet but seems the envir folks have decided to wade in...

Lets hope if they superglue themselves to the launcher they go ahead and send them on a free trip to space 😉 

Wonder if he'd also advise that post-60 it increases exponentially 😉 

32 minutes ago, apaulo said:

what i saw 2 nights ago passing under jupiter  was the space station.  i saw it again last night, so quite defo about it. 

which direction does it track? What I saw was traversing W-E or more NW-SE perhaps and left a long track. Not a plane as it was far too fast for a jet liner hence my thought it was a meteor.

out for a smoke and though it's quite cloudy I spotted a faint line track rapidly across the sky to my SW perhaps 45 degree elevation, headed SE-I'd say. 

Too fast to be a plane, so a meteor perhaps or some space junk?

Looks to have worked for you Ian, glad it was useful to someone rather than languishing in the spares bin 🙂 

Way "smaller" but also way cheaper, there's a Swift 20x80 on the bay of e at the moment:

Swift Vintage Observation Prism Binoculars 20x80 Extra Wide Field - with case | eBay

Seems the feeling is an early Dec launch for this one, fingers crossed this doesn't change 🙂 

wow that's gonna be a hard one to rule on. I assume the new one was properly witnessed else they may not have got to this stage, but sure adds to the intrigue that it just happened to be dictated to the beneficiary.

1 minute ago, FLO said:

Yes. It's been a long day  ☕☕☕☕☕

Can imagine. Was just funny following on from a thread in the lounge.

Mind you did have me worried for a moment thinking OH NOOO I have to work tomorrow?!? 😉 

Gotta love that you posted it just after Friday 9PM 😄 

using them for astro it's probably worth getting a waterproof pair, saves moisture building up inside them. Take a look at the binocularsky site as Steve has reviews on there that may help you with your selection.

18 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

Exactly, it's a celebration of simple Galileo type optics..where our great hobby first started..

I’m sorry but when I see a big reflector it always reminds of one of these..😊

they even put a ladder up the side on that one so you could reach the eyepiece 😉 

what's the diameter of the original ones and shape?

Amazon carry a few options, also AliExpress.

I had purchased some scope plossl eyecups in the past from AstroBoot tho us in the UK aren't able to order from them these days thanks to some idiotic decisions made over here.

That's a good point @Elp tho the tapped holes are more tricky. I just ran a tap back through after the paint had set before refitting the focuser etc.

Same, Peter. I refurb'd my Tal-M not that long ago, full respray and it is possible to get a good, if not professional finish. Thing is to not try for a good deep coat in just a couple passes. Several light coats as per the destructions on the can is the way and avoids runs due to excess paint. It does help to warm the object too, I just laid the OTA or pillar tubes on the warm radiator for a while before starting to paint which worked a treat 🙂 

3 hours ago, wulfrun said:

Don't think this a brand new idea but I found this on the Beeb. Who knows if/when it'll come to pass but it'd make the 1000s of satellites seem trivial. Power stations in space, beaming energy down to ground via microwaves:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62982113

yeah, might as well just go the whole way and plan for the dyson sphere, remove any view of the stars...

sounds like there's a few glitches tho, some RAM ECC events relating to the star trackers and something else being open uncommanded. Missed the start of their briefing.

hmmm will there be another SLS launch...

Just now, Ratlet said:

I was taught to count by Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition lol

oh I remember those, at way too many places I've worked at 😞 

5 hours ago, Ratlet said:

Linguistically this statement is fascinating.  You have said 4 words about the dob, but it implies far more about the other items. 🤣

technically, 5 words 😉 

2 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I used to work with an Ng several years back.
The company's IT system insisted that names had to have at least three characters, so he had to make something up.
I've seen a few examples of long names being truncated, but that was the only one I've come across that was too short.

 

yep, similar where I was too in fact