Zermelo

A few sucker holes, more than likely.

I don't gamble, but I know there are online betting sites where you can "cash out" your bet on the result of a match in advance of the final whistle. Very useful if you've bet against Man Utd at home, for example. I want the same facility implemented on Clear Outside. I usually ignore any good news that's more than 24 hours ahead, as it almost always disappears in the interim, but it would be very handy to "cash out" on my current forecast for Saturday night:

It can be difficult to get the position right, and some eyepieces are more "fussy" than others. I have failed miserably, even using one of the (cheaper) phone holders. Others have reported favourably on this version, which is more expensive but gives you fine control in three axes.

Very interesting. I felt the Svbony generally outperformed the 4mm Nirvana when I compared them across a number of sessions. I also find my 16mm Nirvana does better than the 4mm, though I know others think the reverse. Can you recall using your 16mm for comparison?

Evidently CO is telling me to take up solar ...

If you want to try one, you could consider the 10mm BCO. It performs very well for its price, and the eye relief isn't too bad (not good enough for glasses though).

That's very impressive (and expensive). When I was at school, the Farad seemed to be a hopelessly optimistic unit. 100μF was a big capacitor! Most were measured in nF, or even pF.

I have this one from childhood, it's out of print now but comes up frequently second-hand: ISBN 0 600 00893 2, published 1969 with several reprintings. It's a nicely presented small format book, but shows stars down to mag 5 only, plus selected DSOs. Good for general browsing, but much less detailed than Norton, S&T Pocket Atlas, etc.

You didn't say which spreadsheet you had found on CN, but if it was Don Pensack's, he updates it annually. The 2023 edition is here, and it includes the Stellalyra LERs.

See this post for the actual vs nominal relief for the Morpheus range (and a few other premium EPs) https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/413521-what-would-the-“best-of-each-range”-set-be/page/4/#comment-4412436

Yes, I think that part of it is that the BBC forecast has different criteria. Sometimes it seems to say "clear" when there are no low clouds, yet there is widespread mid or high level mistiness. But recently, the divergence seems to have increased.

The BBC forecasts have been way too optimistic recently.

Will this be one that you won't be able to fit a Feathertouch onto, Stu?

You have found a hole in my filing system, Ivor. When I download a resource like that, I usually create a local URL link to the remote resource at the same time, but I didn't in this case. I do remember that I first saw the map on an SGL thread, probably within the last 12 months. The author may spot this thread and chip in. I've just done a conventional internet search and drawn a blank, but a reverse image search highlighted a few web sites that host that same image. Probably the most credible is the CPRE Dark Sky Diary (a good site to browse on this topic in any case). This blog credits the authorship of the map to the Commission for Dark Skies, and that wouldn't surprise me, except that I can't find the image on the CfDS site.

I was thinking about this recently: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/410435-light-pollution-maps-with-sqm-contour-lines I'm exclusively night-time visual. My take on it is that you want the best combination of dark skies and clear weather. The best information I could find was this:

The 30mm UFF will give a lighter background sky, and reduced contrast, compared with the 20mm XWA. Targets like fuzzy DSOs will be affected most. This will be worse if you're already observing from a light-polluted location. One crude way of measuring it is to go into a completely dark room, wait a few minutes, hold a ruler next to your face and take a flash selfie (but make sure the phone doesn't do a "pre-flash flash", or it won't work. Then compare the pupil size to the ruler in the resulting image. A better way is to see if the optician will measure it for you when/if you visit. Also, you might be interested in this https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/375282-eyepiece-selection-based-on-exit-pupil/

... but possibly not with Mr. Cox's budget - the episode on at the moment has him paddling down a canal with Dr. Becky, to illustrate black holes. Cox would surely have arranged a helicopter trip to the top of a volcano on a tropical island. On balance, I think I'd take Dr. Becky on the canal.

You beat me to it. The UFF performs very well, even in faster scopes. I compared it (actually, it was the Altair badged version) with the cheaper Stellayra Superview, here. The Superview did well enough in my Mak, but struggled at F/5.9. The UFF was noticeably better. Several recent mentions: https://stargazerslounge.com/search/?q=Stellalyra UFF 30mm&quick=1&updated_after=any&sortby=newest&search_and_or=and

I have previously had fast responses from app@skywatchertelescope.net, about different issues

I ordered one of these illuminators from Aliexpress, when it was linked to by @Stu a few weeks back. For under £9 posted, I thought it was worth having a spare, in case my current one ever gives up the ghost.

Better that way than leaving it too late.

Around 30 minutes to go https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/events/2023/9/24/asteroid-samples-return-to-earth-with-osiris-rex/

... but still look fabulous. And of course, if you're talking eyepieces, you'll need a pair (once you've made the mistake of getting a binoviewer)

I don't download the DSS images into SkySafari by default, because they obviously take up space, and some of them are pretty unenlightening. The ones I find most useful are open clusters, if they're located in a busy area of sky and I want to be sure I've found them.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-finds-carbon-source-on-surface-of-jupiter-s-moon-europa