What have you been up to lately?

[Nakedgun]

It's 5:00 EST here, wifey is officially retired!!!

*

Uh, oh! Now she'll know what you're doing at all times.




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[Lady Fraktor]

Leaving for Wacken music festival at 03:00
It should be 4 days of great music and little sleep!
https://www.wacken.com/en/program/bands/#/bandfilter

[Graeme1858]

Have a great few days Gabrielle!

Looks like a good line up. Die Andersons look like they're at the wrong gig!

Regards

Graeme

[Ylem]

We have been unpacking at the new house.

The scopes will finally get out of their containers this week

[Ylem]

It's 5:00 EST here, wifey is officially retired!!!

*

Uh, oh! Now she'll know what you're doing at all times.




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Or rather what I am not doing

[SkyHiker]

I ordered a QHY5-III 200M guide scope to replace my ASI120MM. The ASI120MM only has USB2, is a bit noisy and samples oddly at 2 seconds, under Ekos. It's still great value for the money and performed well but I could use something that knocks the socks off it. It has a mini form factor so it can fit next to the filter wheel, and also works in an IR range optionally. It's supposed to arrive today.

[DeanD]

It's 5:00 EST here, wifey is officially retired!!!

*

Uh, oh! Now she'll know what you're doing at all times.




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Or rather what I am not doing

Want to bet?

[SkyHiker]

I ordered a QHY5-III 200M guide scope to replace my ASI120MM. The ASI120MM only has USB2, is a bit noisy and samples oddly at 2 seconds, under Ekos. It's still great value for the money and performed well but I could use something that knocks the socks off it. It has a mini form factor so it can fit next to the filter wheel, and also works in an IR range optionally. It's supposed to arrive today.

It arrived and works under SharpCap but not in Ekos, bummer. QHY makes drivers for SharpCap and ASCOM just not for INDI. While INDI supports an impressive range of devices, it depends on volunteers and will always be slightly behind. It does have support for the QHY5-III 200 but its device ID is not the same as that of the model that I received. In other words it's a new model that is not yet supported in INDI. I'll shelve it for now and keep using the ASI120MM, and await a response of the INDI forum.

[pakarinen]

Ordered an Oberwerk cranky tripod (and head). Series 5000 I think.
I had a Manfrotto 475B but sold it, thinking a CF pod would be a lot lighter and I didn't need an elevator column. Bzzzt! Half-wrong answer! My CF Innorel is super light, but the 475 crank column made things a lot easier when adjusting EP height and removed the need to keep changing the height on my observing chair. Live and learn...

Maybe it'll be good for binos also.

[Don Alvarez]

Bought a home recently. Figured if I was going to be paying as much as these South Florida rents, might as well own the home I'm in. The last few months been a very frustrating time wrangling with banks and insurance companies just getting them to do what they needed to do (does ANYBODY have GOOD customer service anywhere anymore?) followed by the moving in period, getting stuff in order the way we want it. After 5 years I finally have my own back yard again, I really need to get my ass back out under the stars.

[Graeme1858]

Congratulations on the new home.

We look forward to reading your first light report!

Regards

Graeme

[DEnc]

I know of plant propagation through cuttings, but someone is taking this a bit too far! (Redwood logs)

[Nakedgun]

I know of plant propagation through cuttings, but someone is taking this a bit too far! (Redwood logs)

Picture1.jpg

~

Some plants will grow almost anywhere.
I've had weeds sprouting up in the bed of my pick-up truck, on occasion.


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[DEnc]

Just to clarify, these are new branches sprouting out of the cut (yet still living, for the moment) log.

[a100171]

I can't believe how much harder this logging thing has gotten over the last year. I have landed more than a few 100'-plus trees in between rain storms this summer. But everything involved in processing them has been taking a physical toll.
The skyline has vastly improved though, which really became noticeable looking to the east last night. Clear shot to Polaris for polar alignment. Once I land a couple more of the huge ones to the west,I should be able to finally get my observatory installed. Hoping to get it done before winter sets in.

[SkyHiker]

I can't believe how much harder this logging thing has gotten over the last year. I have landed more than a few 100'-plus trees in between rain storms this summer. But everything involved in processing them has been taking a physical toll.
The skyline has vastly improved though, which really became noticeable looking to the east last night. Clear shot to Polaris for polar alignment. Once I land a couple more of the huge ones to the west,I should be able to finally get my observatory installed. Hoping to get it done before winter sets in.

There are programs that can do quick plate-solving based polar alignment without seeing Polaris. I use Ekos for this, but Nina has it too. And of course, drift alignment doesn't need it, which you may do one time once you have your observatory.

[a100171]

They say always sacrifice North for a better Southern view, but there was little possible improvement to the Southern view with the neighbor's trees. I am moving the observatory sight considerably northward, where many of those trees had been stunted by poor sunlight penetration (and the monster trees I am cutting now).
I am probably installing a good 50' north from my original location, and hopefully a couple feet in elevation higher once I get some fill brought in. That will do quite a bit to help the southern view. But we are talking more than a couple truckloads.
The back yard is like a war zone, with trenches and uneven ground, etc. with all the stumps pulled and ledge-areas figured out. Giant boulders moved. Drainage paths cut-in. It is a lot for one old dude.

[Ylem]

Still unpacking here at the new house.
Its a bit smaller than the old one back in NC, still may need to donate some more household stuff.

I've got decent views of the southern skies and reasonably good views to the east and west. The north has sky glow but is blocked by trees anyway.

Life is good

[pakarinen]

I've got decent views of the southern skies and reasonably good views to the east and west.

.

[SkyHiker]

I ordered a QHY5-III 200M guide scope to replace my ASI120MM. The ASI120MM only has USB2, is a bit noisy and samples oddly at 2 seconds, under Ekos. It's still great value for the money and performed well but I could use something that knocks the socks off it. It has a mini form factor so it can fit next to the filter wheel, and also works in an IR range optionally. It's supposed to arrive today.

It arrived and works under SharpCap but not in Ekos, bummer. QHY makes drivers for SharpCap and ASCOM just not for INDI. While INDI supports an impressive range of devices, it depends on volunteers and will always be slightly behind. It does have support for the QHY5-III 200 but its device ID is not the same as that of the model that I received. In other words it's a new model that is not yet supported in INDI. I'll shelve it for now and keep using the ASI120MM, and await a response of the INDI forum.

It is now what... day 5 of trying to build KStars/Ekos/indi/indi3rdparty from source code? It's as if I am still working!

My first try was on 32-bit Raspbian Buster Linux 10 using the AstroPi3 script that worked last time for building the libs and drivers. This time, nope. After consulting the INDI forum, I found someone who built on 64-bit Raspbian Bullseye Linux 11. I wiped my Pi and installed Bullseye. Then I got distracted by something that looked like a 64-bit astroberry release on the astroberry site. Unfortunately, there was a certificate problem with that site and Bullseye refused to work around it. Then I followed the plain github instructions for indi and ind3rdparty, and this time they worked flawlessly.

Building KStars/Ekos and its prerequisites was difficult from github. Someone on the Losmandy Hackers IO group gave me a link to a very good script that runs everything at once. The Pi crashed once presumably from overload (heat, memory?). I am resuming it now and it skips everything that was built as it is supposed to.

It looks like I am about to cross the finish line. After searching the entire internet for a script that works! I am deeply grateful to all the good people and developers helping out. Fortunately, looking at the INDI forum, I am not the only one looking for these types of solutions.

Oh yea, it was all about that new guide camera, I nearly forgot about that.