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EP4 - Sunday, 14th June 2020 7:30pm BST - Ten Ways the Universe Tried to Kill You by Steve Tonkin

Grant

By Grant
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Grant

Grant

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This Sunday at 7:30 we are joined by Steve Tonkin ( @BinocularSky )  of http://binocularsky.com/ and https://astunit.com/. Steve has been using binoculars for astronomy since the mid 1960s and, as his main observing instrument, since 2002. He is also the author of the book Binocular Astronomy.

Steve isn't going to be talking about binoculars (this time) but instead, we thought something less practice and more entertaining would make a nice treat so he will be giving his talk 'Ten Ways the Universe Tried to Kill You':

From gamma-ray bursts to asteroid impacts, an overview of cataclysmic events. This light-hearted but scientifically robust approach incorporates a lot of fundamental cosmological processes, from stellar evolution to galactic interaction. It is appropriate for both beginning and intermediate amateur astronomers.

We look forward to seeing you Sunday, at 7:30PM. Zoom meeting details will be posted here Sunday.

Meeting details:

Topic: StarGaZine Episode 4 - Ten Ways the Universe Tried to Kill You by Steve Tonkin
Time: Jun 14, 2020 07:30 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/97192642655?pwd=eHZKNUVkeVBRenU1bnpoQXM3anZ1UT09

Meeting ID: 971 9264 2655
Password: 491339

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barkis

barkis

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A frightening title, and ought to give us food for thought.

Plus,  Steve's passion for perusing the sky with Binoculars will hopefully 
provide the inspiration to more folks to adopt this very rewarding method of
sky surfing. Telescopes are great tools, but binoculars bring so much more to the eyes 
in any one place in the sky, giving a true impression of the immensity of the Universe.
Ron.

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barkis

barkis

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The Universe looks so serene from here, but it really does include some deadly and dangerous inhabitants. Steve T. gave many frightening scenarios In his talks.  Fascinating, but fearful too.                                                    Ron 

 

Edited by barkis
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Tenor Viol

Tenor Viol

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I think I might have heard an earlier version of this - but it must have been more than 10 years ago as until recently and using Zoom, the last time I would have attended a lecture would have been an FAS convention around 2006...

Very interesting, I missed some of it unfortunately due to my brother deciding to ring...

I know that some people commented on the audio quality. Unfortunately, there are a number of issues that affect this: there is the bandwidth of the various parts of the chain which can compromise the signal; the quality of the mic - some laptop/PC mics are awful and very compressed; the quality of the sound card at sending or receiving end; the quality fo the speakers used to reproduce the sound at the receiving end.

I do a lot of music related stuff and you'll get people passing comment on the sound of something based on listening to their phone or their laptop. From a sound production perspective, these are highly compromised, highly compressed, and generally poor quality. 

I improve the sound out of my Mac by having a Bluetooth connection to my hi-fi system. I have a Logitech Bluetooth receiver which costs about £25 and that becomes one of the inputs on the pre-amp of the hi-fi system (I think it's connected to "tuner"). The sound output gets routed to that and it makes a big improvement, partly because it produces more mid-tones. When used with my iTunes library or Spotify the sound quality is quite good.    

 

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BinocularSky

BinocularSky

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1 hour ago, Tenor Viol said:

I know that some people commented on the audio quality.

Thanks for your input on that. Did some tests on my microphone this morning, and I think it might be on the way out. Just ordered a decent headset which I hope will improve things (I have talks coming up tomorrow and Wednesday!), and I've also just tried out our club's wireless mic which is also an improvement -- too late for last evening, unfortunately.

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Tenor Viol

Tenor Viol

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39 minutes ago, BinocularSky said:

Thanks for your input on that. Did some tests on my microphone this morning, and I think it might be on the way out. Just ordered a decent headset which I hope will improve things (I have talks coming up tomorrow and Wednesday!), and I've also just tried out our club's wireless mic which is also an improvement -- too late for last evening, unfortunately.

Sounds like a plan. For me, the sound was OK, but I accept I was playing the sound back through Naim amplifiers and some very neutral hi-fi loudspeakers, so the sound was reasonable - I have experienced much worse on Zoom!

Enjoyed the talk.  

Edited by Tenor Viol
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