globular

Late to the party, but had to give it a go… Thanks to @bosun21 and royal mail for their surprise sunday delivery.

The trouble (danger even) with AI in it’s current guises is knowing when you get a generally pretty good response and when it’s total nonsense. I’ve asked it many question about things I know the answers to and have seen responses that have surprised me in their accuracy and completeness, responses that have been totally wrong, and everything in between. But never has it responded, “I don’t know enough about this to be sure, but here is my best guess…..”. Instead every response reads as if they have total confidence in their answer. This makes it impossible to use for anything where you need to be sure you’ve got a correct response. And leaves it as a tool for producing fun content where facts are unimportant or independently checkable.

Calculating results in indivisible stochastic processes is not easy. Not yet anyway. Mapping into Hilbert space and using wave functions is still likely to be a good way of calculating stuff - just not a good way of picturing what is actually going on. Personally I’m more intrigued by indivisible stochastic processes that don’t map to a Hilbert space. Exploring those might lead to very new ideas…

I spent most of my career working with stochastic models and a fair chunk of it trying to keep everything divisible. I wish I’d questioned that now - it sounds like indivisible is where the fun lies.

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I have an XW 16.5 and love it. Wonderful immersive fov with stars sharp from centre to edge. I wouldn’t describe it as a small EP, but it is all relative I guess.

I’m not really qualified / equipped to contribute to this thread, but I do have a question. What does the speed of light c mean if there is no time?

Adding weights to tripods seems counterproductive if you've chosen a mount for it's lightness / lack of counterweights. It's a once only (very careful) check that you're topple proof - then just relax and use it.

Ah ok. Custom sounds like the only option then. Glad you got one sorted.

I think baader's solution is to fit the M84/ M68 adapter (that you have), then replace the S58 / M97 adapter that came with your steeltrack with a S58 / M68 one. This: Baader Adapter S58a to M68a - for all BDS Diamond Steeltrack | First Light Optics So it goes: Back of scope = M84 male, M84 female to M68 female adapter (#245840), M68 male to S58 adapter (#2957206), S58 steeltrack focuser. Your custom M84 to M97 is a good solution too - if you have someone who can make you one.

Could you list the adapter(s) you used to achieve this. It might help someone trying to do the same thing in the future.

I changed the nosepiece and eyepiece holder on my 2" mirror diagonal, with some strategic jiggery pokery too, so that it is now parfocal with my 2" prism diagonal. The other night I was trying to switch between the two to try and determine which diagonal type is better for which types of targets (in my scope in my skies). I had some success, but refocusing between changes, especially on dim dso targets, made it hard to be definitive. It will be easier next time now they are parfocal and I can swap them willy-nilly.

Explore Scientific 92° series. Both the 12mm and 17mm are 187mm tall and weigh 1.1kg (2.43lbs). Wonderful eyepieces.

Now they are out and 'in the field' do you know the answer yet? And if they do work with the StarSense unit, do you need the unit only or the extra adapter with the SkyWatcher version? Thanks @FLO

I think the idea is that when you nudge the scope a lot of the force goes into the vibration pads rather than the rigid equipment - so you set the pads off vibrating rather than the scope/mount/tripod. (Or more correctly the tripod and its load moves from side to side on the pads rather than start resonating itself). And the pads are designed to dissipate their vibration more quickly than resonating tripods. Either that or it's magic pixies, I always get them mixed up.