Ouroboros

I did at first but then came to like the red. More detail.

Very nice image. This object had escaped my attention too. I doubt my equipment would do it justice. It's well placed at the moment too.

I am trying out KStars on my MacBook. I want to see if I can use it to run my equipment instead of using EQMOD + Cartes du Ciel + PHD2 + EOS BackYard running in Windows7 in a virtual machine on my MacBook. So far so good. It's been a bit of a steep learning curve. Nevertheless I've got it controlling my mount. It talks to my Canon 450D and my guide camera. The specific problem I'm having is getting KStars/EKOS it to work with the gamepad I use to control the mount at the telescope. I understand I have to connect the gamepad to the mount in the Device Manager as described here: https://indilib.org/support/tutorials/135-controlling-your-telescope-with-a-joystick.html#h2-go-to-device-manager-under-the-tools-menu-gt-devices When I do this I get the error message: " ... make sure the package that provides the indi_joystick binary is installed." Any suggestions how I do this?

50 hours is an unimaginably frightening amount of time to a dabbler like myself. If I get 5 to 10 hours decent imaging in during the course of the astronomical "season" I'm doing well. Presumably you leave the kit all set up to go when the opportunity occurs. Do you concentrate on the one object over the course of many nights, or might you image different objects?

Cracking image that! Cracking object actually.

Wow is the word! Amazing image.

I see! A bit of a red light district then. I'll rephrase that ..... 😉

Lovely that! I'm trying to work out why the rocks are red. What are they lit by?

I like that. It's like a pair of misshapen legs.

I notice there's an Astrophysics: A Very Short Introduction book amongst the Very Short Intriductions series published by Oxford University Press. I have not read it but I have read quite a few of the Very Short Introduction series and think they're usually very good. Lots of subjects from quantum physics to Homer covered. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Astrophysics-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0198752857

Chuckle. So, they're not all extinct then! Nice image.

I doubt complaints from amatuer astronomers will make much difference. But what about professional astronomers? Most of their work involves imaging. How do they feel about it?

Impressive none the less.

That's amazingly good isnt it! How have you attached the phone? Have you processed the photo at all?

To know that our solar system was a created artifact wouldn't we either have to find some exceptional evidence to support that idea, or know almost for certain that our solar system as it is now could not have formed by natural means? I tend to the view that it's usually best to stick with the simplest explanations unless the evidence suggests otherwise. i.e. The solar system although perhaps unusual is probably natural in origin. Anyway, with so many billions of solar systems across the galaxy, let alone the universe, some unusual ones are bound to occur. They're just rare.

Thanks. That link doesn't seem to work on my iPad. Nevertheless going by your quote I am surprised that the axis of rotation is not the same as the axis around which the mass is balanced.

Would someone explain the concept of the earth's figure axis please. The term came up in a forum discussion elsewhere about the affect of the tsunami that hit Japan a few years ago that supposedly shifted the earth's figure axis by 8 inches. I googled but didn't find much. I understand it's to do with the earth's distribution of mass. I can see that if the earth's mass shifts, because of an earth quake say, then the centre of mass can shift, and therefore the axis of rotation can shift. What surprises me is that the shift is expressed in units of distance not angle. So is the earth's figure axis parallel to the earth's north south axis through the poles?

Or there is a book entitled The Little Book of Stars https://www.amazon.co.uk/Little-Book-Stars/dp/0387950052

It wasn't Harmonices Mundi was it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonices_Mundi Maybe there's an English translation from the Latin.

Sounds good! Excuse the pun. We're bound to hear the wonderful Sprach Thurathustra and maybe the Blue Danube?

Excellent image. Sorry but the road is what makes the shot special. 🙂

@stash_old thanks. Interesting to find out how it works. I seem to have managed so far without it. 🙂

With the plate solving methods do you have to be connected to the Internet for it to work or is the star database downloaded to your computer as part of the plate solving application?

Presumably there's the advantage of doing all the alignment at the computer screen. Whereas I'm doing it by eye at the scope and then coming back to the laptop (albeit only 4m away) to click the sync button before slewing to another star and walking back to the scope to align on that one. Lot's of ways to skin a cat as they say.

It was the thought of manhandling an unlocked mount whilst trying to delicately centre a star in the eyepiece within a fraction of a degree that threw me. But maybe I misunderstood the procedure being described. 🙂