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LongJohn54

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    http://www.flickr.com/photos/53011089@N04/sets/

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    Kirkintilloch

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  1. That's quite an ordeal David. It's great that you are in better health post-op than before. Hopefully your strength and fitness will continue to improve. I'd nursed an aneurysm for 50 years (first noted in Great Ormond Street as a teenager). It had been stable at 42mm (instead of the normal 30) but then began enlarging in 2016. By 2018 it was 52mm and in danger of going pop. At the same time the aortic valve was beeing stretched and wouldn't fully close leading to low blood pressure and feeling light headed if I stood up quickly. All my tests were done at Stobhill or the Golden Jubilee apart from one consultation at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital. When it comes to big operations like this the NHS is really on the top of its game. πŸ‘
  2. @Skipper Billy Late last year I was shown a post on Facebook where you said you would be away for a while for medical reasons and added an image of the Heart Nebula (which was a pretty big clue). I'm guessing you spent some time in the Golden Jubilee? I was in there in 2019 for a replacement aortic root and re-model of my aortic valve. They had a good team then and I hope they still do. Wishing you good health and a successful rebuild of your obsy.
  3. Last March I was looking for a new scope/camera combination and had pretty much decided on the Askar 107PDQ and a ZWO cmos camera. However, I saw the Askar 130PDQ and spotted a review at the bottom of the page by someone called Lee who I discovered was @Lee_P I had a read (excellent review) and looked for images here and on Astrobin. I found some great images and most (at the time) were taken with the ZWO 2600MC camera. So, a change of plan. I bought the bigger scope and priced up the camera, OAG and guide camera and set about getting the extra cash needed. Whilst saving I noticed ZWO had released a new camera, the ZWO 2600MC Duo with a built in guide camera. Wooo, interesting. 😁 Another change of plan. The only problem was there were none available. FLO showed out of stock all summer and into the autumn. Then FLO/ZWO had a black friday sale. £250(ish) off. Can't ignore that so I hit the buy button and sat back and waited. And waited. On 8th January I emailed FLO asking for an update and within the hour had a reply from Grant. (Excellent response as usual). There were manufacturing delays on anything with the 2600 imaging chip but the camera should be arriving soon. No snow 🀣 but hiding underneath was a very smart box. Inside the box was (after carefully opening and unpacking) Am I excited?
  4. I can now talk to myself (even more than usual) and then write up my notes later. It saves going into the warm room to type up notes as things happen and lose some dark adaption. Then again I lose the chance of a quick warm up. Hmmmm, have I done the right thing? πŸ˜‚
  5. It's really nice to see Maggie Aderin-Pocock being made a Dame on top of her 2009 MBE. Well done Dame Maggie.
  6. See your messages. I've added a link to my dropbox with the original driver CD and all driver updates and instructions. QGVIDEO included. Hope this helps. Let me know when you've got it. πŸ‘
  7. I've been getting Aurora alerts for the last 3 hours. With the almost full moon up I doubt it'll be visible here but there's no harm in trying.
  8. @Stu Yes, it was great to see. I followed Ganymede all the way across, never losing sight of it. I missed the shadow transit. I was getting pretty cold and there was some light high cloud approaching so I packed up soon after. There will be other and hopefully better chances to see it again.
  9. After so many cloudy nights I wasn't going to let last night get away. With an almost full Moon and Jupiter close by the choice of what to look at was pretty obvious. I would sit at the eyepiece for about 20 minutes at a time then go into the warm room for a heat and to type up some notes. The transit of Ganymede was a real highlight. Not seeing the Red Spot was disappointing. Heres my raw notes of the transit attached.
  10. Great video. Using a microscope to demonstrate the effect that aperture has on the view was enlightening. I've always had the simplistic thought that more aperture = more light = clearer/sharper view. Having a technical explanation as to why this happens was worth watching. See, I know now why I want an Askar 185 APO. 😁
  11. It will perform as good as it looks and it looks fabulous! Congratulations on your purchase.
  12. @mikeDnight I'd arrived at Dunstable Downs well before 4pm as I wanted to catch the comet as early as possible. I took a photo every couple of minutes until I saw it. This is my 'discovery' image. I've attached its Exif as well. Just 6 minutes off from your sketch. 😁 It's pretty faint but the comet is to the left of the wispy cloud in the top right third of the image. The tail was much more vertical then so I think your sketch would be pretty accurate at the time. πŸ‘
  13. That's a lovely sketch. Here's my image taken 10 Jan 2007 at 17:06 of the Comet and Venus. I was resting the camera on a cushion on the top of my car in a car park at the top of Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire. Once the comet disappeared behind the clouds and reappeared it was far too dark for my camera to register anything. No snow but pretty cold and windy.
  14. Sadly, the clouds failed to part and I saw nothing. Some nice images above. πŸ‘
  15. On the website if you click HD in the top right corner you can see the map full size in your browser. Don't forget to disable location (or set it elsewhere) or you'll get a big blob covering the area you really want to see.
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