How talented is astrobiscuit?

[LondonNeil]

As a potential newbie doing a bit of research I stumbled across Rory on YouTube.  He's a fabulous YouTuber, well crafted content that entertains and educates, but I am interested in your views on his astronomy skills.  To me, he seems to have a phenomenal skill set no doubt gathered through many many years/decades experience, but. Am I wrong?  

[Stu]

1 minute ago, LondonNeil said:

As a potential newbie doing a bit of research I stumbled across Rory on YouTube.  He's a fabulous YouTuber, well crafted content that entertains and educates, but I am interested in your views on his astronomy skills.  To me, he seems to have a phenomenal skill set no doubt gathered through many many years/decades experience, but. Am I wrong?  

Ooh, he’s on this forum so I wonder if he will comment himself 🤣🤣

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Blatant plug? 🙄

[LondonNeil]

It's he?  I guess the amateur astronomers world is small  (yet massive and expanding?)

 

No not a plug, although first post from a new member i can see it looks possible.  I'm just a potential newbie.... If an eBay auction goes my way today I'll have a 8" dobie to play with.  My main interest is in showing my kids assume stuff and seeing their faces 😊

[Astro Noodles]

14 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

Blatant plug? 🙄

Maybe. 😄

In my opinion, Astrobiscuit is very talented. He achieves remarkable results with very unpromising equipment. Please be aware that it is not as easy as he makes it look. Astrobiscuit has a considerable ability with processing software which you don't get to see.

Also, I wouldn't chop up telescopes and cameras like he does unless you are very confident you know what you are doing.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Astro Noodles

[adyj1]

8 minutes ago, LondonNeil said:

It's he?  I guess the amateur astronomers world is small  (yet massive and expanding?)

 

No not a plug, although first post from a new member i can see it looks possible.  I'm just a potential newbie.... If an eBay auction goes my way today I'll have a 8" dobie to play with.  My main interest is in showing my kids assume stuff and seeing their faces 😊

So I guess if your question is "I've seen this guy on the Internet who says he's an amateur astronomer and his YouTube vids looks really good - does he seem to actually know what he's talking about?" 

Yes. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

18 minutes ago, LondonNeil said:

It's he?  I guess the amateur astronomers world is small  (yet massive and expanding?)

 

No not a plug, although first post from a new member i can see it looks possible.  I'm just a potential newbie.... If an eBay auction goes my way today I'll have a 8" dobie to play with.  My main interest is in showing my kids assume stuff and seeing their faces 😊

😀 See Astro Noodles' comment. Turning those captured photons into a great image takes considerable work.

Rory is undoubtedly talented, however a year ago I unsubscribed from his channel and stopped watching. It would be pointless to go into reasons here, so I'll leave it there.

This very laid back chap below shows in great detail how to achieve fantastic results:

https://youtube.com/c/NebulaPhotos

Enjoy the 8" dob. There's plenty of advice here from very experienced amatuers should you need it.

Edited September 19, 2021 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[adyj1]

And just in case Rory is ever giving away freebies in the future when he becomes an 'influencer' - yes, and subscribe to his channel 😂 

[saac]

5 hours ago, LondonNeil said:

As a potential newbie doing a bit of research I stumbled across Rory on YouTube.  He's a fabulous YouTuber, well crafted content that entertains and educates, but I am interested in your views on his astronomy skills.  To me, he seems to have a phenomenal skill set no doubt gathered through many many years/decades experience, but. Am I wrong?  

Yes Rory is definitely very talented, entertaining and informative; I love his videos.  And if it is talented people you are looking for then you have come to the right place as this place is full of talented people and I mean seriously talented people across a wide range of disciplines.  We also have some professionals from the fields of cosmology, astronomy,  particle physics and related fields.   This really is a fabulous community , enjoy. 

Jim 

Edited September 19, 2021 by saac

[LondonNeil]

Thanks, if I get the telescope I'm sure to have many many questions!  And many many others if I don't 

[LondonNeil]

I can see he is doing a lot of stacking, image processing is I guess as much a part of astro photography as the rest, probably far more than the 'pointing a telescope' bit these days.  Actually that begs a question, he hasn't costed his computer or any software in his '£600' or '£700' set ups, if the requirements there are costly then that is misleading.

 

 

[Astroscot2]

Youtube is saturated with astrophotography channels,  if you look around you will find some good grounded imagers looking to share information,  I followed a few during lockdown which kept me sane however it starts to become a business for some of them and the pressure to put out regular videos becomes obvious with unboxings and kit reviews that they never use.  I stopped watching channels that ask the viewers outright for money, why anyone with spare cash would give it to a youtuber rather than a good cause is beyond me, crosses a line for me, though plenty of viewers seem to get suckered in.  Lots  of other other channels out there, have a look around.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Astroscot2

[LondonNeil]

1 hour ago, adyj1 said:

So I guess if your question is "I've seen this guy on the Internet who says he's an amateur astronomer and his YouTube vids looks really good - does he seem to actually know what he's talking about?" 

Yes. 

Not quite, it's evident he's very good and evident he 'makes it look easy' so only a fool would think they could replicate him being fresh into the hobby.  I guess my question is more like, how many amateur astronomers are at our above his level?  30%? 3%? 0.3%?  Could a newbie get similar results in a year of practice? 3 years?10?

[AMcD]

I get a lot of assistance from Trevor Jones on his Astro Backyard YouTube channel from Canada (AstroBackyard - YouTube), both with respect to acquisition and processing.  I get a lot of amusement and some valuable tips, again on both acquisition and processing, from Dylan O'Donnell on his Star Stuff channel from Australia (Dylan O'Donnell - YouTube).

[Astro Noodles]

I would imagine that he is in the 10 years plus bracket. 

It is difficult to determine how long it would take a newbie to get similar results because it depends on so many factors.

Weather

Location

Budget

Equipment

Commitment

Affinity for software

Changing technology

And so on.

For most newbies, the best thing is to measure progress against your previous efforts and not to worry too much about what others are doing.

What telescope are you hoping to get? I assume that you focus is going to be on astrophotography.

[LondonNeil]

No just observing.  I'd like to take some photos as you can get so much more detail and I love the DSOs but the extra cost, and the extra time needed (with 3 young kids time is singing I don't have in abundance!) So observing really, and see if I can excite the kids.

[Astro Noodles]

If you are successful in acquiring the 8" Dob, I would recommend the book 'Turn Left at Orion'. It is excellent at suggesting targets and really helps in locating them.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/turn-left-at-orion-book.html

[adyj1]

57 minutes ago, LondonNeil said:

Not quite, it's evident he's very good and evident he 'makes it look easy' so only a fool would think they could replicate him being fresh into the hobby.  I guess my question is more like, how many amateur astronomers are at our above his level?  30%? 3%? 0.3%?  Could a newbie get similar results in a year of practice? 3 years?10?

Ahhhh - I didn't get that from your post 😉 

In which case - who knows?!? All I know is that I'm firmly in the (100% - his percentage) 😁 

Some good advice on your dob being given in this thread  tho 👍 

[Chris]

Rory's great! He makes TV programs for a living and is clearly talented, passionate and creative, His videos are on another level as far as I'm concerned.

As others have mentioned, there are also plenty of talented SGL members with a vast amount of knowledge over many areas of astronomy, so it's well worth spending some time here as well as on Rory's channel

Rory has had to go back to his daytime job for a while, but hopefully he'll be back soon when he's able to afford to spend the thousands of hours and resources needed to make his level of content. I honestly don't know how he managed to live off Youtube money for as long as he did when he pays London prices and has a family to feed? It must have been stressful, but he's that passionate about sharing and promoting astronomy that he just does it when he can : )

As you can tell, I'm a big fan

 

 

 

 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

1 hour ago, LondonNeil said:

Not quite, it's evident he's very good and evident he 'makes it look easy' so only a fool would think they could replicate him being fresh into the hobby.  I guess my question is more like, how many amateur astronomers are at our above his level?  30%? 3%? 0.3%?  Could a newbie get similar results in a year of practice? 3 years?10?

Impossible to quantify.

There are people on this forum who a year in, have built their own astrophotography rigs on the cheap (relatively speaking...) and are producing excellent images.

There are people twenty years into the hobby who have not touched a camera, only occasionally observe for enjoyment's sake and hardly read an astronomy book. The "stargazer" archetype.

Then there are those with 30 or 40 years in, with home observatories who pretty much know everything one needs to know about observing techniques etc.

A person with three years into the hobby who's digested several books, completed a short course or two, hung out with experienced astronomers and got out observing as much as possible could hold a conversation with someone twenty years in and they would likely learn something from each other. That's one of the great aspects of astronomy - "space is big" and there's always something new to learn. Another fantastic feature of the hobby is the respect shown for people with less experience by old timers.

 '0.3% are at skill level X' isn't possible to measure as the skills, aptitude, motivation and areas of interest demographics are so wide.

Edited September 19, 2021 by ScouseSpaceCadet

[Tiny Clanger]

YouTube has a huge range of  stuff , from the technically inept to near cinema production values , from vid.s intended to entertain to those which simply aim to inform, from the exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger effect to the genuine expert.

I'd say astrobiscuit has good production values, and knows his stuff, also is a personable guy , witty, an enthusiast , and a cogent explainer. I enjoy his vid.s , but see them as being more entertainment and inspiration than information, Not a bad thing, just that's where he has pitched his channel.

I've zero interest in astro photography, and little idea how long/how expensive/how much study would be required to reach his level, apart from a suspicion that all three factors would require quite a lot of input

Heather

[markse68]

I don’t think Rory claims any great ability  himself though he obviously knows a thing or 2! What he does seem to have is loads of enthusiasm and an inspirational think outside the box attitude which gets him in trouble sometimes but is exciting and great fun to watch. That and the high production quality of course. He’s doing interesting things with the community via his Discord server too 👍

Mark

[Jamgood]

I think Rory once mentioned in a video that he'd been doing astrophotography for 4 years? So probably 5-ish now.  Don't quote me on that though, I may have dreamt it.

[LondonNeil]

@AMcD. Are you astrobiscuit?  , If so I'd like to say I've thoroughly enjoyed several of your videos, excellent and inspiring. I hope you are able to do more. I have an idea for a video, how about a help a newbie/ newbie with astrobiscuit mentor Vs a pro?  I know a newbie in need of help🤣

 

Yes I get all the variables so to say a newbie could be as good, or Rory is in the top X is silly, it was just a style of question to get an idea.  I suspect I'd fall into the archetypal stargazer but who knows, if one of my kids gets inspired it would be fun to do together.

I've ordered TL@O, and a couple of other cheap beginner books to read through.

 

Missed out on the 8" dobsonian.  Skyliner with 5 EPs across London and I was the only bidder at £155 until the last minute, outbid by one person.

The search goes on.  I've been considering a 10" skywatcher on a manual eq mount in Chiswick, and the guy a few questions and he seems very genuine and helpful.  2.5 times the price though so I'm unsure, might, but might wait for another bargain dobie.

[Tiny Clanger]

1 hour ago, LondonNeil said:

@AMcD. Are you astrobiscuit?  , If so I'd like to say I've thoroughly enjoyed several of your videos, excellent and inspiring. I hope you are able to do more. I have an idea for a video, how about a help a newbie/ newbie with astrobiscuit mentor Vs a pro?  I know a newbie in need of help🤣

To save you any more wondering, here he is

https://stargazerslounge.com/profile/45149-rorymultistorey/