Sky at Night, Monday 12th

[DaveS]

BBC 4 at 10 o/c.

An Astrophotography special.

I can already hear the howl of rage from those who merely *look* through their telescopes.

[russ]

Don't image but will still look forward to it.

[Zermelo]

It's likely to be at a very basic level that a visual-only bod like me will understand, so I'll certainly have a look.

[Jiggy 67]

I’m a visual observer who has just bought a DSLR to give AP a go so I’ll watch but no matter what visual observing will always be my first love……I do hope they explain in very basic English though 🤣

[Ratlet]

10 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I’m a visual observer who has just bought a DSLR to give AP a go so I’ll watch but no matter what visual observing will always be my first love……I do hope they explain in very basic English though 🤣

I'm the opposite lol.  I started of chasing astrophotography and realised there is nothing to do whilst the rig does its thing so bought a visual setup to keep me occupied.

Now I'm just greedy.  It's like a full meal of observation and sketching and then in the morning I get to look at the data the astrorig pulled (and then try and diagnose what the hell went wrong with it)

[saac]

23 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I’m a visual observer who has just bought a DSLR to give AP a go so I’ll watch but no matter what visual observing will always be my first love……I do hope they explain in very basic English though 🤣

It easy, you just stick a camera at the eyepiece end, point telescope and shoot. Then spend a fortune and a lifetime getting better at it  

Jim 

[Jiggy 67]

10 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

I'm the opposite lol.  I started of chasing astrophotography and realised there is nothing to do whilst the rig does its thing so bought a visual setup to keep me occupied.

Now I'm just greedy.  It's like a full meal of observation and sketching and then in the morning I get to look at the data the astrorig pulled (and then try and diagnose what the hell went wrong with it)

I know what you mean. I’ve been visually observing for years and find that I’m busy all night through every session….observing, finding, planning, Star mapping, changing eyepieces and filters to mention just a few of the jobs. I can’t imagine AP being like that

[JeremyS]

Sounds a good topic 

Actually, any topic about practical amateur astronomy is to be welcomed on this tv prog.

Edited September 6, 2022 by JeremyS

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

On 06/09/2022 at 17:53, DaveS said:

BBC 4 at 10 o/c.

An Astrophotography special.

I can already hear the howl of rage from those who merely *look* through their telescopes.

The resident 'proper' amateur astronomer, Lord Pete Lawrence takes up the reins so this should be a good one. 👍

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by ScouseSpaceCadet
reins!

[markse68]

On 06/09/2022 at 21:12, Ratlet said:

I'm the opposite lol.  I started of chasing astrophotography and realised there is nothing to do whilst the rig does its thing so bought a visual setup to keep me occupied.

Now I'm just greedy.  It's like a full meal of observation and sketching and then in the morning I get to look at the data the astrorig pulled (and then try and diagnose what the hell went wrong with it)

I think this is the best way- it’s really exciting to pull images from the noise- images you just cannot see with amateur scopes, but it’s pretty boring capturing it 🤣 Observing is a special pursuit- quite meditative really. And sketching helps you see so it’s all win-win

Mark

[DaveS]

Well, while the main telescope is capturing it's 10 or 15 min subs I grab a pair of bins for a bit of eyeball+ astronomy. It helps that I have Bortle 3 skies.

[Pixies]

I will listen to it, on the radiogram!

[Steve Ward]

Thoroughly disappointing episode to be perfectly honest ... 🙄

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

I quite enjoyed it. Well done Peter Lewis you may have inspired a few people to point their phones at the sky. 👍

[skybadger]

8 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

Thoroughly disappointing episode to be perfectly honest ... 🙄

I thought that too. A waste of time  watching presenters watch old clips on their laptops on the program. Could have been much better and covered the basics better. Turned it off. 

[DaveS]

Oh dear. Actually I missed it as I was watching the NASA Spaceflight livestream of SpaceX testing Booster 7.

Will pick it up on iPlayer.

[malc-c]

3 hours ago, DaveS said:

Oh dear. Actually I missed it as I was watching the NASA Spaceflight livestream of SpaceX testing Booster 7.

Will pick it up on iPlayer.

Same here... 

[DaveS]

12 hours ago, Steve Ward said:

Thoroughly disappointing episode to be perfectly honest ... 🙄

 

4 hours ago, skybadger said:

I thought that too. A waste of time  watching presenters watch old clips on their laptops on the program. Could have been much better and covered the basics better. Turned it off. 

Regretfully I have to concur. I just watched it on iPlayer and found it very thin, as though they didn't have enough material and were trying to eke it out.

Could have been much better. 

[Laurieast]

The monthly Sky at Night on YouTube is great, with Pete Lawrence.

This is just disappointing every time, the presentation is awful, the graphics are from the 60's. 

I expect I will watch the next one, but after each next one I think well that was a waste of time. 

The only one I have recorded and kept was the one with the Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Laurieast

[DaveS]

Next month's is their 1 hour Q&A session, so hopefully not quite so dire.

[Laurieast]

40 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Next month's is their 1 hour Q&A session, so hopefully not quite so dire.

Q: Can we have a new production team, editor, presenters, ideas?

A: BBC, no.

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

25 minutes ago, Laurieast said:

Q: Can we have a new production team, editor, presenters, ideas?

A: BBC, no.

Everyone knows the BBC has had to rationalise, so I'm just glad Sky at Night is even on the telly...

Bearing in mind the short time they have for most episodes, I get the feeling some people were expecting an astrophotography showcase and tutorial...

Maybe they could have missed out some of the reminiscing but in the remaining time they did impress on the audience how easy it is to get started, and in comparison, showed how professional astronomers do things. So all things considered not that bad surely?

[DaveS]

I certainly wasn't expecting a "how to" astrophotography tutorial, but would have like a bit more on how to get started, and showing what amateurs can do.

[catburglar]

I too was disappointed…I think there was no value in the bits about professional astrophotography- they cover that sort of stuff in almost every other episode and similarly reviewing old clips of Pete Lawrence was a wasted opportunity.

It’s impossible to include everything in a single 30mins show, but I think they would have been better to cover two complementary or contrasting aspects in more depth.

I think it’s right to cover smartphone and afocal photography- that’s perhaps how many people start. But they didn’t really give anybody a clue as to how they’d go about it other than ‘hold your phone to the eyepiece’.
 

I think they  could also have covered one of the following:

something about star trackers or lightweight driven mounts as the next step into more complex imaging setups

something about planetary imaging- it’s perhaps a bit easier to get started in this sort of imaging compared to deep sky setups. They showed some great pictures of Jupiter and again didn’t give any clues about how to get them

something about long exposure imaging with dedicated cmos/ccd cameras to show the sort of setup that’s needed to get the sort of pictures that everybody has seen all over the internet.

Whilst they couldn’t go into full detail, these last two aspects get a bit ‘geeky’ quite quickly and if they’d spoken about some of that there’s a chance they’d ignite a spark in someone who is already interested in tech/space/science or just a ‘tinkerer who wants to make stuff work’ to take their first and second steps…

[JeremyS]

You are a harsh lot 🤣

I thought it was pretty good. In fact the bits about Pete L were a fine tribute to the man. Loved seeing his scopes set up in his garden, especially his Tak Epsilon 130