DaveL59

Sounds like there might be an update later today: (22:00 UK BST) NASA to Provide Update on Artemis I Moon Mission Status - SpaceRef and the blog from yesterday Artemis (nasa.gov)

SkEye does work reasonably well, but it needs a phone with good sensors, low interference of the sensors which can be problematic with a steel tube scope, electrical equipment etc. Often you can improve its effectiveness by doing the "swing the phone about in a figure-8" before using it. You can set it up to have the phone vertical to the OTA or laying parallel like the starsense (indirect mode) and I was playing with this before Starsense came along. You do of course need a suitable holder and mounting for it. Found the thread on it:

Hi Peter, if you take a stroll thru this thread it covers what John and I had done when adapting ours and then building our own mounts I blacked the prism sides as well as created and extended hood similar to the OEM mount to reduce any stray reflections and it works fine. Used a prism from a very old japanese 10x50 as its larger, the smaller porro prisms in something like an 8x30 were too narrow, tho perhaps from an old Zeiss pair that may work. Since the phone camera is only a couple mm from the prism edge, vignetting wasn't much of an issue, what there was didn't affect the ability to analyse the sky. John used a cheap mirror diagonal (poor memory as I thought it was a prism) on his.

Well is disappointing when they hit the same issue before and then again on the big launch-1 day but yeah is an iterative process, should be flying by take-6 or so 🙂

Thing too is that since they're going to need to build a new SLS for each trip are they going to be going thru all this failure/delay again and again? Can't say that SpaceX's starship impresses either, they may get it to land occasionally but that shape ain't exactly stable in flight so what's the odds going to look like if they do go forward with it. A good landing 7/10 times?

if it does get away, the interesting bit will be the reentry: wonder if they'll play that classic line by Kenneth Williams in the carry-on flick for the over-temp alarm: "frying tonight!" 😉

wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot less of a crowd next time, a long return trip to make for a no fly disappointment...

next window is friday 02-Sept if they can figure out which bit they'd fitted upside down

Pretty much all we know is engine 3 had an issue during conditioning, flow rates? They did say the earlier crack in the SLS was in the foam and not the main casing. Could be other issues that we've not heard of course. Kinda waiting for the secret whispers that China are imminent to launch their crewed mission to the moon's south pole. That'd maybe light a fire and up-speed getting the SLS off the ground leak or no 😉

ahh you mean this friday? 02-Sept was just muted so I'll be able to watch that for fail installment-2 as I don't start till the following week 🙂

they need that russian astronaut off the movie Armageddon, he knew how to fix US space tech IIRC

ack, I'll be in the new job then, tho might be better to check if it went and get it on catch-up rather than the long wait to see what goes wrong next time...

like I said earlier, FBH, sharp rap on the valve and off ya go... Oh well I guess HSE and such won't allow that these days tho 😉 Tho another commentary says one tank wasn't all the way full, so a leak, sensor failure, who knows.

so, scrubbed for today, oh well 😞

am thinking I didn't order enough popcorn 😢

well I guess they could fire it off and if unstable flight they'd get a chance to test the capsule escape system out and see if that doesn't work either 😉

ain't just NASA having issues today, seems our mega expensive aircraft carrier has broken down soon after leaving port too 🙄 UK's biggest warship, HMS Prince of Wales, breaks down off south coast shortly after setting sail for US | UK News | Sky News

on a countdown hold for the moment while they await a plan on the engine 3 issue

still struggling with the valve on engine 3 then, sounds like they need to get the FBH out 😉

surprisingly only 37K watching according to the counter, tho I guess more will join up as we get closer to firing. So a possible problem with one of the big rocket engines, still they've time to get the pipe cleaners out and rod it through 😉

Sadly here the cloud cover means no chance of seeing it go by, if that were even possible in daylight. Still, fingers crossed it get away ok 🙂

Guess player-1 in the POV shooter game won't be getting any points for missing 😉

sounds like we need @Chriske to get super busy with his 3D printer to pull ML2 and artemis 4 and beyond back on track 😉

Just did a quick forward scan of the TV guide on the sky box, nothing on this at all which was a surprise. I guess it has become like the norm or just no perceived interest. I suppose the news will show a short clip if it does get to go and scheduling anything on the basis of "it may - it may not" is a cost, but for the younger generation like my kids/nieces/nephews and their kids, well pretty much anyone born after the 70's this is at least a new endeavour. Oh well I suppose these gens all watch online rather than scheduled to-air broadcast these days. My guess is they won't even bother to cover the Virgin Cosmic Girl launch that's coming up either which will be heading off from Cornwall.

I'd have been very happy to end up with an image like that one, maybe one day I'll try hooking the dslr up to the TAL100RS, just haven't felt the motivation to do that so far and just enjoying the views instead 🙂