Ags

I am looking for targets for my camera lenses. They need to be north of Orion. I know about North America Nebula, California Nebula, the Veil, the Pleiades, Heart and Soul, M31... But what else covers a few degrees of sky?

Sorry, I have been using it for months exclusively with sharpcap, and I've never noticed what happens when I cancel a capture. But I have never gone over 30 second exposures.

I have used 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 (the latter particularly for EEA). It works very well indeed. But I don't know what trigger mode is... The 178 is a spectacular little camera. I have the non-cooled version - darks are not optional!

APOD!

I think the stars would be better in my Pleiades picture if i had used an IR-cut filter.

I am using the T2 converter from TS. FLO are selling it too now.

In addition, the long photo-thread bolt counterweight on the back of the camera is really great for sighting alignment stars. Not quite as good as an RDF but still pretty nifty.

To my great surprise, my ASI178MM connects to my 100mm macro lens, and I got the spacing correct, and it comes to focus!

Anyone know when SpaceX Starship is taking its next test flight?

In the end I did this. €140 all told. The counterweight is temporary and too light, but it fits into the "budget" category and I think it will double as a neat sighting bar (in the absence of an RDF). Gotta paint that wall one day...

Informative, friendly, surprising.

I got a Canon lens to T2 adapter today, with two 5mm T2 tubes, two 1.5mm tuning rings, and two 0.5 mm tuning rings. Initial impressions are it is really solid and seems to hold my heavy 100mm macro lens well. https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p7835_TS-Optics-Optics-Adapter-for-Canon-EOS-Lenses-to-T2-for-CCD-cameras---with-1-4--photo-thread.html I actually made an error in my order and only ordered one 0.5 mm ring, but the Teleskop Service people threw in a second one for free! I also got a T2 to 1.25" adapter to turn my macro lens into a spotting scope. With a barlow lens screwed to the front of the mirror diagonal I could focus out to about 10 meters. The views were very good indeed - all I need to do is get a prism diagonal to shorten the optical path and I should have enough back focus! Another thing I need to get eventually: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5547_TS-Optics-T2-Thread-360--Rotation-and-Quick-Changer---5-5mm-short.html

Why not use the local temperature gradient caused by radiative heat loss to charge your phone? These researchers turned the cold blackness of outer space into more light pollution: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190912111015.htm

It is the KELT (Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope) in the Karoo, South Africa.

This is a very serious telescope:

Actually it might not work so well as the structures can be quite small: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap191002.html These are only light months across - not many stars in front or behind?

Dark nebula don't block all light. so Stars behind the nebula are visible in near IR. So you can get distance to the stars in front of the nebula and distances to stars within and beyond the nebula, which surely gives us the distance to the nebula? I don't know if GAIA measures distances in Near IR however.

Yes, PNG is much better than JPG format. PNG was actually invented to replace GIF and JPG formats.

I find when I am doing a visual session, I wish I was doing imaging, and when i am doing imaging, I really regret it and wish I was doing visual 😃

Yeah, but how big were the photosites? I'm guessing you could land a helicopter on them... 😀

I like that the Starship is made of steel. Proper ships have rivets! Musk claims he can expand annual launch capacity by a factor of 1000 with this system. It is hard to imagine demand at that level. But maybe the Japanese can finally build the orbital solar power arrays they have been talking about for decades? Forget James Webb Telescope. This thing gonna put up the the BFT (Big Falcon Telescope) 😀 Also, regarding the famous SpaceX graphic showing four stages of Mars terraforming - in my opinion if they get to stage 2 (significant bodies of liquid water) they can say "job done" already. No idea what kind of tech could get us to stage 3 or 4...

The first prototype of this rocket exists and is sitting under the Texas stars right now.

Updated time: midnight UTC. And there is a live stream: https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

Elon Musk is giving his annual Starship update tonight at 18.00-19.00 EDT. (midnight here in Holland) There is no link for a live stream yet.

Yeah, I have heard that trick works well - but it doesn't have the aesthetic refinement I require from my setup 😃