skyhog

I remember disappointment well regarding eclipses. Booked a cottage for a week at considerable expense back in 99... Well you all know the story. Did get a glimpse of the partial phase after the main event, and a beautiful very dark night to follow for a fine view of the perseid meteors... 🙄

I had a subscription to sky and telescope in the seventies and remember it was under discussion in the magazine before it aired so maybe why I'm thinking late seventies perhaps.

Loved cosmos back in the seventies, be interesting to see it again to see how it has aged.

It's certainly available. The latest reprints have an afterword from Micheal where he airs his views on the present politics within NASA and his feelings of where the future of spaceflight is going. I think I bought it in 2019.

Yes, I'd agree. Hopefully we can add to that figure when we include those enroute to the moon in a few years and perhaps further afield in the decades to come.

That's very much arbitrary though...😉

It wasn't long ago I read that book after it had been on my must read list for years. It didn't disappoint. One of the most unassuming figures of the era and incredible to contemplate that level of isolation in the command module. To hear him talk of using a sextant out of the window to gain settings for guidance is unbelievable today. If anyone who is interested in the apollo missions hasn't read his book, I would strongly suggest you do.

But doesn't the ISS travel within the exosphere? Technically still in earth's atmosphere?

Could we not use a much longer timeline though and consider anyone within an aircraft? I suppose we would be getting into pedantry in our definition of 'on earth' here.

I'm recording this to watch, does that statement refer to the fact that the ISS has been manned for that length of time?

I built a roll off roof obsy nearly 17 years ago and it's still going strong. I built it with in lot of haste as I realised very quickly the 12 inch lx200 I'd bought was either going to be sold or used very rarely. The whole thing is wood. I did intend to use metal V track and so on eventually and had the intention of adding a motor to open and close the roof. The fact is that it worked fine and has done since I built it. The 8 large rubber wheels trundle up the square section wooden channel just fine. We are not talking fine engineering here, they find their own path and everything works out OK. I can supply a few pics if anyone is interested.

That's very very good. Nice to see someone with the patience to do these kinds of anims. I have a PST that I use every now and then and my brain tends to remember the sun as relatively static. Might have to have longer sessions now the action is building up.

Olly has just answered my question there. I think it's one of those occasions when technology becomes a hindrance. I turned off the GPS a few years ago when I grew tired of the "taking GPS fix" message appearing for an indeterminate time. I can input the time faster than the fix ever took, and on some nights it was a real pain.

Just as a matter of interest is the scope taking its time stamp from GPS?

No, the scope initialises via the handset first which as far as I'm aware I have set as on for daylight saving time. I then connect to the pc when I have slewed to the first star. My point was that the pc is always running with my local time which obviously makes sense.

I have an obsy mounted 12 lx200gps and daylight saving is always on. It's always yes as it goes through its initialisation. This makes sense to me as it follows the system time on the pc I have in there which always follows local time.

What was the capture file format?, I'm assuming raw?

Rather depressing. Unfortunately if you canvassed opinion on this, or any light pollution issue, I'm sure the majority of the public would be quite ambivalent. Just not enough of us out there I'm afraid. It's a rather sad fact that lighting something in the most garish fashion has always went hand in hand with human success. As mentioned, we are living through times where energy efficiency is the buzz word of the age which makes situations like these nauseating for me...

Definitely be back for sure. Bit of a novelty for folk like me whenever I travelled anywhere near the equator and day and night are a nice 12 hour split. I also spent a few years on an oil platform within the Arctic circle. Getting used to that took some doing!

I think this obsession with the moon is getting rather tedious to be honest. I started a thread along similar lines, the monthly rebranding of a regular full moon no less... When I think what I regularly see on this forum in terms of deepsky images, lunar, planetary or wide field... The media really need to catch up....

Yes, astronomy at certain latitudes is sadly seasonal. It always takes me a while to adjust to the fact when I travel. I don't think the long dark nights during our winter months quite make up for the loss of night during the summer. I have spent a while in Australia and will never forget some of the ink black skies over there. Fantastic memories indeed.

Amazing when you see a list of nightly events in any apps these days, you have to turn off satellite data to avoid page after page of starlink entries, and as pointed out, we are no where near saturation on this front. Not a great prospect to contemplate.

..... Just keep off the moors....

Sky news headline about the coming supermoon.... I take it every full moon now has to be of headline worthy significance....

Great report and nice to read when my sky won't get dark until the start of August... 🙄