Ags

Here is the latest iteration of my AZ GTi setup. C6, 2kg counterweight, and light eyepieces or camera.

I'm sure the pictures it makes will be set to stun(ning)!

Er... Japanese now. Softbank bought ARM a couple of years ago.

The scope looks awesome by the way. I love the rounded details on the scope, very distinctive.

From the photo it looks like you are shaking with excitement 🙂

The cheapest 1kg counterweights in the world arrived today. My kingdom for a can of black paint! 😁

I didn't expect Belgium somehow - not too far from me!

I'd like to see a pic of your local observatory, it sounds like an interesting place!

Very nice! So compact and oordinated... I do think the asiair looks a bit spiderman though 😀

Buying that gear would make me happy!

Close but no banana. I'll give you another clue: it does not contain any glass.

My holiday compensation was a Dell G5 laptop! Six cores with hyperthreading! I should have a new astro item by this friday, and it's bright yellow 😀

Firstly I am scrupulously open with my partner about what I am buying and discuss all purchases before buying. If my partner says it's no it's no. I'm reluctant to spend anything over 100 euros and left to my own devices tend to buy cheap and then regret it. Actually most of my bigger purchases have been when my partner suggested out of the blue that I should get something really good. I am always thinking of the next purchase, but it is mostly to extend what I have not to replace items with "better" ones. I keep a list of stuff I am dreaming about, and it is humbling to see how this list morphs over time. It makes me more cautious about buying anything as I can look back at all the "must haves" that have been dropped from the list after lengthy consideration. I find a steady trickle of new bits keeps me excited about going out in the Winter cold or past midnight in the Summer months. So I try not to buy too frequently or too much at once, so I can enjoy each new item properly.

Microprose went bust? The name makes me think back to happy times with my 486...

It's been a saga, but my counterweight bolt arrived today. Now need to get a 2 kg weight for it. This is strictly for AZ mode, hopefully balancing the ALT gear will stop it slipping. Note the bolt is proper Astro black!

Well, actually investing £10 would be even better!

I am working on a little website for online science fiction role playing games, and have been trying to find a format for displaying the millions of star systems in my map. This is my effort so far, showing the Lava/Hot Zone (red), habitable Zone (Green), Cold Zone (where a small body like Titan can still have an atmosphere) and the Outer Zone. You can see rocky bodies, gas and ice giants, a habitable world and habitable moons, and asteroid and dust belts. This is just a screen capture, the original is coded in SVG and Javascript. Only habitable planets get proper names, Nimerigar is a gas giant with two habitable moons; the next planet out has a ring system. In the interactive online version (not deployed yet) you can click planets and moons for more details. The moon Nimerigar/0 is currently clicked in the screen capture.

But dreaming, shopping and buying is half the fun! Also, even if you somehow get it perfectly right and you have an ideal setup, it can't cover all the bases and you will inevitably need to do a bit more buying 😀

I know NASA has been doing some research on hibernation - not the same as suspended animation but along the same lines. If you can keep the astronaut still for the entire trip, then you can pack shielding around them. If they are awake and moving around, the mass of the shielding becomes prohibitive.

Came across this tonight, it is a very pretty image planner / photographic sky map. It uses a couple of publically available databases, but it is nicely done. http://www.blackwaterskies.co.uk/imaging-toolbox/

Dell G5 series laptop arrived today. The laptop is for general purpose use, from mount control and image capture to processing. Has a 2.5 TB drive which I need for lucky imaging. The G5 is supposed to have good battery life out of the box, but I think I might downclock the CPU to get a little more. It's an RGB backlit keyboard but it seems stuck on green, I need the night vision friendly red... Also the laptop has ports at the back like an old-skool laptop! EDIT: Keyboard is now night vision red. But DELL do not make it easy!

I am getting there, I am working to a 10 year plan (I am currently in year 12 of the plan ). What I have already (from the ground up): Berlebach Report 112, Berlebach Castor, Celestron C6 with 6.3 reducer/corrector, ST80, Nirvana 16/82, ES 6.7/82, Speer WALER 10/82. To complete the ideal setup: TS Photoline 80 F7 (to replace the ST80), a few more light 60° eyepieces and a Nirvana 4/82°, a Q Turret (or two!).

I have the 6.7 mm ES too and it was a nice high power eyepiece in the fast 6 inch Newt I used to have. Regarding @vlaiv point about moderate magnifications showing everything there is to see: my own personal experience is that a magnification roughly equal to aperture in millimeters shows the best view of planets for me. At that magnification I am not struggling with floaters, colors are richer and detail is all there. The Moon and doubles can benefit from more magnification.

It was going so well!

I don't know about your zebra, but I'm currently unable to prove there is still a mouse in my kitchen.