DaveL59

It's the same with camera lenses and also binoculars, but the thing to realise is that spores are everywhere anyway. As soon as you open a port (focuser, camera lens cap etc) then fungal spores can enter and probably have. The transference might happen if using an item that already has it but should be no worse. Keeping them clean and dry and storage with silica gel or other dessicant would slow the fungus developing, also treating with UV or dismantle for a full deep clean before using might be a good thing. There are anti-fungal sachets about that can be used in camera bags etc, tho not seen any for sale in the UK.

quite a few have posted up pics taken by phone or compact camera at the eyepiece. Can be tricky getting the phone camera well aligned but a bracket/holder helps a lot. If your phone can, then in manual/advanced controls set it to infinity focus and adjust the shutter speed and take a pic.

There's a section elsewhere in the forum about mobile phone/tablet imaging, could be a few pics and tips in there so worth a browse.

Imaging - Smartphone / Tablets - Stargazers Lounge

I've tried it a couple times but not so much to say I've gotten any good at it and my better phone is usually sat in the starsense cradle doing the guiding/directing these days.

19 minutes ago, iapa said:

I've read that one somewhere 

Didn't Niven also use that plot his 'Tales of Known Space' works.

 

Edit: A E Van Vogt's short story "Far Centaurus"

Dunno but I've used that line when meeting folks somewhere and getting there well ahead even after setting off later 😉 

8 minutes ago, iapa said:

generation ships for further outbound travel, and/or hibernation?

The drive isn't as much of a problem then, though by the time the destination is reached a faster method will have been developed.

I personally like the idea of reducing inertia.

For any improved drive system there would need to be consideration to the increased effect of friction, and also high velocity impacts. Could we get to speeds where individual atoms would have a noticeable effect on impact?

 

 

Can imagine a time when a generational ship already en-route say 3/4 the way there and then a newer faster ship is sent out, overtakes it and that crew is sat around drinking their coffee or whatever when the older ship arrives expecting to be the first. Conversation along the lines of "hey what took you so long..." 😉 

14 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

That's odd..it should just open up in English..🤔

If you look at the bottom left of the screen when you've clicked on the link it should say Italian or English..perhaps you inadvertently hit Italian by mistake?

Dave

came up in italian for me too Dave but was offered the translate option in edge/google that worked fine. I know a few words and can sometimes figure out the gist but in truth, me non parlo italiano, at least nothing I can repeat in here 🙂 

2 hours ago, iapa said:

It is interesting to read this thread to see how people convince themselves that they have not really spent as much as they have

plausible deniability, at least for those with better halves 😉 

If the NUC and laptop have a physical ethernet socket then a standard network cable between the two and manually setting the IP address at each end would allow you to connect directly. No extra devices or power requirements. So if you set the laptop to be say 192.168.1.1, mask 255.255.255.0, no gateway or DNS and then the NUC to be say 192.168.1.3 same mask etc., then on the laptop you'd connect to the NUC address (rdp 192.168.1.3) and away you go.

58 minutes ago, iapa said:

I just hope people do not stop buying FLO's stock.

Buy new kit, sell old.

ahh but someone has to buy your old gear and therein lies the rub... unless FLO fancy starting up a trade-in program and offering good/recon'd used gear alongside the shiny new stuff?

Wonder if they'd still include the "may contain clouds" sticker, surely they'd have already escaped? 😉 

6 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

I bought two of the entry level StarSense refractors and have made fitments to attach the system to 10", 17", 20" and 30" Newtonians.  Not had chance to try either yet but hopeful for the outcome.

The StarSense mirror is considerably larger than a prism from a binocular, I'm surprised that it presents enough of the sky for the app to obtain its "fix".       🙂 

seems to work just fine Peter, not noticed any real difference in time to get a fix. @johninderby used a prism diagonal on his DIY version and that also works well and a cheap alternative if you don't happen to have a bunch of spare/dud binos to steal parts from 😉 

Some on CN I believe even used shaving mirrors to good effect, I did try the long thin mirror that fell off one of those collapsible travel hair brushes and it also worked well but preferred the prism solution for neatness in the DIY carrier I knocked up.

I have the 30, 20 and 10mm NPL and find them all good and easy to use, fine also in the x2 barlows. My scopes are all long FL in the F10 region so can't comment on faster ones.

The phone isn't linked into the scope per se, but the holder the phone sits in has a mirror to allow the camera to see the sky so the app can analyse where it and the scope are pointed, then give you directions to guide the scope toward the target you want to look at next. You can do similar with another app, SkEye which doesn't use the camera to analyse so isn't quite as accurate, depending on phone and conditions. 

For the starsense one you do need the app unlock code for the feature to work and that's only available with a starsense scope. Several of us did go buy the cheapest one and either transferred the phone carrier over to another scope or DIY'd our own carrier to suit. In my case I used a prism from a dud 10x50 binocular rather than a mirror and it works just fine.

Seems we'll be monitoring this one from Cornwall too

Artemis: Cornwall's Goonhilly to support Nasa Moon mission - BBC News

15 minutes ago, iapa said:

 

Problem is there's still stuff not been out the box yet.

Time to hit for sale sections

is that to go get some more unopened boxes? 😉 

Was thinking too, for smaller orbital stuff, wonders if they can scale up something along the lines of the Jet d'eau on lake Geneva and hydraulically fling stuff up there rather than burning fuel? 😉 

While something like plasma or ion drive sound or can be made to sound feasible, seems to me there's still a source of 'fuel' of some form involved and that will eventually run out, perhaps long after the energy powering it (solar or whatever else). After all if you are continuously ejecting a stream of ion's or other matter, that's being taken from some component on your spacecraft, isn't it? Unless we can perhaps capture sufficient of the mythical space dust in the intake scoops and by charging them up then energetically eject them out the back to give us a push along toward the destination. Acceleration would sure be slow and of course so would being able to brake since we're talking miniscule mass vs the bulk of the vessel involved.

8 minutes ago, powerlord said:

I'll tell you what - I was on a roll - so I requested my order history from amazon and got the csv file...

I've been an amazon customer since 2000.

The total was.. well I'm not telling. Let's just say, it was more than my first house cost. 😶

now I'm defo NOT going there! or ebay for that matter!

That's the trick Gabby, I bought an extra set of tube rings dirt cheap so with one set above the focuser end ring on the mount you simply don't clamp the mount rings fully when using the scope and its an easy rotate to get the focuser in a comfy position when needed. I also use that ring to carry the starsense explorer retro-fit for easy locating of stuff on the EQ mounted scopes which works fine too 🙂 

does the loose end have a plug on it?

Best have that plugged into the IP6x socket while not in use to protect it from the weather with the cable running uphill to the plug so no unplanned water ingress 😉 

3 minutes ago, WJC said:

Please Help: I have tried to shrink the last few graphics I have posted. But each effort has failed! For example, that least image would do the job if it were 1/8th the size.

not sure Bill, was it from a picture you added or a snippy that you pasted in?

Generally I open a photo then size it to suit by adjusting the photo viewer window size and then use the snippy tool to grab the bit I want and paste that in. Saves messing with suitable formats if you don't happen to have jpg or other supported file types.

6 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I've been keeping a very complete spreadsheet of my spend since the start. The interesting (frightening?) thing is that the total is more than five times the combined cost of my three scopes.

 

As you mentioned this, I was already wondering - would contents policies usually treat a collection of astronomy kit as a single item, for the purposes of the ubiquitous clause "items exceeding £x must be listed separately"? I'm wondering because they often insist on counting coin collections, for example, as a single item, which means that they exceed the limit, even though all the individual items may be beneath it.

 

 

 

yeah all the little accessories quickly add up don't they 😞

On the collection vs individual I'm not sure. Talking to the insurer when doing the home policy and specifically around camera+lenses we decided they'd tally separately tho whether that hold should I ever need to claim who knows. I'd state the "camera" is the body plus the regular 50mm lens, other lenses are separate items and see how the argument goes. On the scopes again I'd argue they are individual and the huge box of eyepieces are shared between them in X:Y ratio, parhaps?

Good point tho, I ought to rename some of the tabs and my spreadsheet to say, for example, "List of binoculars" rather than "the binocular collection" to save future arguments 😉 

I think of the little setting circles on most scope are just trim pieces, for sure almost no useful value to the user 🙂 

First real scope I got was an EQ and its not so hard to learn IMHO, sure a bit fiddly to work out how to set up onto target the first few times but like driving or riding a bike you soon get the hang of it. Then you reap the benefit on non-goto's that its much easier to track the target just using the RA control or with a motorised RA, no intervention at all. No need for expensive wide FoV eyepieces if the target remains mostly centred either 😉 

7 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Yes, as the roofs slowly collapse the chairs need to get lower and lower...

lly

I'm sure you knew I was referring to the ennobling, kneel sir knight and all that 😉 

5 minutes ago, Mart29 said:

Collimation isn't a problem,  I do it every other session. 

Think I just liked the sound of full service.  

I thought there can't be much to service but thought I would ask incase I was missing something 🙃

Almost sounds like the annual service offering on a hot-air central heating system I had years ago. For the annual fee they came out, pulled the intake filter and washed it in the bath and then hoovered out the heat exchanger. DIY I also added a drop of oil to the big fan motor bearings as after a time those start to seize. Of course they didn't do that step, dismantling required so what was the benefit of the service...? 

Not sure what focuser you have but quite likely that can be DIY overhauled too and there's likely guides or destructions on here or elsewhere, that'd pretty much cover the whole scope and done for pennies 🙂 

I'd say learn it and with an RA motor enjoy the easy (lazy) viewing as it does the tracking work for you. But worst case, set the latitude to zero or 90 and use it alt/AZ, no other purchase needed.

PS - if you find it wobbly when focusing, you could try find a TASCO 1603EF motor focuser, I imported a couple from the US for £10 or so each a while back, no hand focusing, no wobbles 🙂 

6 minutes ago, M6RDP said:

Thanks Dave, it's enthusiasm from folks like you that keep beginners like me interested. I was tempted to give up with amateur radio not being able to put up technical equipment, but have had years of fun with just simple wire aerials and low power, so thank you for the  (much needed!) morale boost. Without other people it's easy to lose interest. I'll be back......! 

There's many here way more qualified than me on the imaging side, I'm pretty much visual but have a slight interest hence having the SPC myself. Might one day play with EEVA rather than imaging so having something to experiment with seemed worthwhile. Know what you mean tho, always nice to get encouragement esp when hitting a wall 🙂