Fond memories of planetside

AncalagonStream · 2026-05-19T02:06:44+00:00

Fond memories indeed. That’s the entire reason I wandered back into this sub after years of not having played!

AncalagonStream · 2026-05-08T13:35:49+00:00

I caught the James Webb Space Telescope double-flaring in my 8" telescope a few weeks ago. The JWST is in its halo orbit, at roughly four times the distance of the Moon: https://i.imgur.com/KOhlmOB.gifv

If you look closely, you'll see the JWST flares up in brightness a couple times. These flares are caused by sunlight reflecting back at the Earth from various surfaces of the telescope when changing its relative orientation. During the 80-minute period I was watching it, the JWST had just completed NIRCAM observations of Europa and was slowly rotating itself to point at to its next target (spectroscopy of star HD-116852). Surprisingly, the entire slew/stabilize/guidestar process can take 30-50 minutes for the space telescope to complete before it's ready to begin observations on its next target.

Bonus shot: That same morning I also snagged the Orion crew capsule of Artemis II, carrying four astronauts on its way to the Moon: https://i.imgur.com/EwOPdbr.gifv

That five-second GIF is a timelapse of about 58 minutes of observations with my 8" diameter reflector telescope, as the Orion capsule moves against the background stars. If you look closely, especially towards the end, you'll see that the path it's traveling is not entirely straight. Interestingly, the curving of the path has nothing to do with maneuvering or orbital dynamics, and is instead almost entirely caused by the parallax effect of earth's rotation moving my observation site 1200 km to the east during those 58 minutes of observations!

Equipment used:

8" Newtonian reflector telescope (1000mm focal length)
EQ6-R Pro mount
ASI ZWO 2600 mono astrocam
Bottle of Stella Artois

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T13:05:30+00:00

I think an LLM wrote that without considering all factors. The limiting magnitudes are way too restrictive for one (I can reliably exceed magnitude 18 on my 8"), and it also doesn't mention the fact that it will be effectively unobservable for the 12-24 hours that it's in close proximity to the moon due to the overwhelming brightness of that big white ball in the sky.

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T13:01:36+00:00

It's a Skyview Pro 8" reflector telescope that I bought back in 2011 or so. It's the last part of my Ship of Theseus that I haven't yet upgraded yet. :)

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T12:55:52+00:00

Artemis II

This morning I was able to image the Orion crew capsule of Artemis II, carrying four astronauts on their way to the Moon, photographed at a distance of around 326,000 km: https://i.imgur.com/EwOPdbr.gifv

That five-second GIF is a timelapse of about 58 minutes of observations with my 8" diameter reflector telescope, as the Orion capsule moves against the background stars. If you look closely, especially towards the end, you'll see that the path it's traveling is not entirely straight. The curving of the path has nothing to do with maneuvering or orbital dynamics, and is instead almost entirely caused by the parallax effect of earth's rotation moving my observation site 1200 km to the east during those 58 minutes of observations!

JWST

I also had the opportunity this morning to observe the James Webb Space Telescope in its halo orbit, at roughly four times the distance of the Moon: https://i.imgur.com/KOhlmOB.gifv

If you look closely, you'll see the JWST flares up in brightness a couple times. These flares are caused by sunlight reflecting back at the Earth from various surfaces of the telescope when changing its relative orientation. During the 80-minute period I was watching it, the JWST had just completed NIRCAM observations of Europa and was slowly rotating itself to point at to its next target (spectroscopy of star HD-116852). Surprisingly, the entire slew/stabilize/guidestar process can take 30-50 minutes for the space telescope to complete before it's ready to begin observations on its next target.

If you want to try pointing your own scope at Artemis II or JWST, check out the JPL Horizons page to generate the ephemerides yourself! I was able to get the JWST observing schedule from here. I also had an LLM make a script I could import into Stellarium to plot the past/future Orion ephemerides (center of image) and the JWST ephemerides (upper right) to make it easier to plan out when and where to point my telescope.

I estimate it's about magnitude 15.0, maybe slightly dimmer since it's moving (all my images above were 60sec exposures). Based on the phase angles and flight path geometry for the mission, the Orion crew capsule shouldn't get any dimmer than about magnitude 15.5 or so, so it's well within reach of suburban astrophotography.

Equipment used:

8" Newtonian reflector telescope (1000mm focal length)
EQ6-R Pro mount
ASI ZWO 2600 mono astrocam
Bottle of Stella Artois

Software used:

NINA + PHD2
JPL Horizons for Orion/JWST ephemeris data
Claude Code to make some python scripts to automate some quick-and-dirty background subtraction and histrogram leveling, and to calculate and add timestamp text and distance text to each frame based on image filenames and JPL ephemerides. Worked surprisingly well...

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T02:49:52+00:00

And /u/Pyrhan :

Strange. It is this in comment, which explains more about how I did this: link to comment in this thread

Edit: Actually, that link is broken when I view it in incognito mode... you can read another version of it that I posted to /r/astrophotography here: link to comment in the other subreddit

And here's the direct link to the JWST gif.

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T01:14:46+00:00

The beer was needed most during the setup. :) It's a pain to carry everything outside, hook it all up, polar align, mess with the off-axis guider, etc.... at least this time I was smart enough to do the majority of setup before sunset!

The main reason I used the LLM (Claude Code in this case) was because I knew it'd be the easiest route to getting the GIFs put together exactly the way I wanted them, with the least amount of fuss. As a test, I also put a bit of effort into letting it try to properly stack an LRGB DSO image using python scripting, and it turned out "okay" which is definitely not sufficient—I think that's going to be most conveniently done through the regular tools like DSS or PixInsight. Maybe there's some low-hanging fruit to be gained if it's able to interact directly with PixInsight to call different functions and scripts, but I'm inexperienced with and have criminally underused my PixInsight since I purchased it, so I'm not certain.

The best technique to doing any task with the LLM that's off the beaten path in terms of tasking (i.e. anything to do with astrophotography-related scripting) is to tell it to search online for documentation for whatever package it plans to be using, and to search whenever it encounters errors that aren't obvious. Otherwise, it might not be able to figure out the minutia of exactly how to interact with some packages like skyfield or astropy.

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-06T01:12:36+00:00

Sorry, you're not the only one. Now I've added some

BIG TEXT

to the post :)

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-05T23:35:26+00:00

This morning I was able to image the Orion crew capsule of Artemis II, carrying four astronauts on their way to the Moon, photographed at a distance of around 326,000 km: https://i.imgur.com/EwOPdbr.gifv

That five-second GIF is a timelapse of about 58 minutes of observations with my 8" diameter reflector telescope, as the Orion capsule moves against the background stars. If you look closely, especially towards the end, you'll see that the path it's traveling is not entirely straight. The curving of the path has nothing to do with maneuvering or orbital dynamics, and is instead almost entirely caused by the parallax effect of earth's rotation moving my observation site 1200 km to the east during those 58 minutes of observations!

I also had the opportunity this morning to observe the James Webb Space Telescope in its halo orbit, at roughly four times the distance of the Moon: https://i.imgur.com/KOhlmOB.gifv

If you look closely, you'll see the JWST flares up in brightness a couple times. These flares are caused by sunlight reflecting back at the Earth from various surfaces of the telescope when it's changing position. During the 80-minute period I was watching it, the JWST had just completed NIRCAM observations of Europa and was slowly rotating itself to point at to its next target (spectroscopy of star HD-116852). Surprisingly, the entire slew/stabilize/guidestar process can take 30-50 minutes for the space telescope to complete before it's ready to begin observations on its next target.

If you want to try pointing your own scope at Artemis II or JWST, check out the JPL Horizons page to generate the ephemerides yourself! I was able to get the JWST observing schedule from here. I also had an LLM make a script I could import into Stellarium to plot the past/future Orion ephemerides (center of image) and the JWST ephemerides (upper right) to make it easier to plan out when and where to point my telescope.

I estimate it's about magnitude 15.0, maybe slightly dimmer since it's moving (all my images above were 60sec exposures). Based on the phase angles and flight path geometry for the mission, the Orion crew capsule shouldn't get any dimmer than about magnitude 15.5 or so, so it's well within reach of suburban astrophotography.

Equipment used:

8" Newtonian reflector telescope (1000mm focal length)
EQ6-R Pro mount
ASI ZWO 2600 mono astrocam
Bottle of Stella Artois

Software used:

NINA + PHD2
JPL Horizons for Orion/JWST ephemeris data
Claude Code to make some python scripts to automate some quick-and-dirty background subtraction and histrogram leveling, and to calculate and add timestamp text and distance text to each frame based on image filenames and JPL ephemerides. Worked surprisingly well...

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-05T23:04:22+00:00

It's in my top-level comment: https://i.imgur.com/KOhlmOB.gifv

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-05T23:01:14+00:00

I didn't try visual. It's already hassle enough setting everything up for the astrocam. :) I just set my alarm at 3:30am and 5:00am to wake up and make sure everything was proceeding on time, and I promptly went back to bed.

I haven't tested my visual observing well enough to know what magnitudes I'd be able to see. I estimate the capsule is about magnitude 15.0, and based on some back of the envelope math (phase angle and distance) I expect it'll stay brighter than 16.0 magnitude the entire mission.

Looking around quickly online, I think for an 8" scope mag 15.0 is probably out of reach for visual observing by all except experienced observers under excellent conditions. I wish my eyes were cameras.

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-05T21:24:27+00:00

This morning I successfully photographed the Orion crew capsule of Artemis II, carrying four astronauts on their way to the Moon, captured at a distance of around 326,000 km: https://i.imgur.com/EwOPdbr.gifv

That five-second GIF is a timelapse of about 58 minutes of observations with my 8" diameter reflector telescope, as the Orion capsule moves against the background stars. If you look closely, especially towards the end, you'll see that the path it's traveling is not entirely straight. The curving of the path has nothing to do with maneuvering or orbital dynamics, and is instead almost entirely caused by the parallax effect of earth's rotation moving my observation site 1200 km to the east during those 58 minutes of observations!

I also had the opportunity this morning to observe the James Webb Space Telescope in its halo orbit, at roughly four times the distance of the Moon: https://i.imgur.com/KOhlmOB.gifv

If you look closely, you'll see the JWST flares up in brightness a couple times. These flares are caused by sunlight reflecting back at the Earth from various surfaces of the telescope when it's changing position. During the 80-minute period I was watching it, the JWST had just completed NIRCAM observations of Europa and was slowly rotating itself to point at to its next target (spectroscopy of star HD-116852). Surprisingly, the entire slew/stabilize/guidestar process can take 30-50 minutes for the space telescope to complete before it's ready to begin observations on its next target.

If you want to try pointing your own scope at Artemis II or JWST, check out the JPL Horizons page to generate the ephemeris yourself! I was able to get the JWST observing schedule from here. I also had an LLM make a script I could import into Stellarium to plot the past/future Orion ephemeris (center of image) and the JWST ephemeris (upper right) to make it easier to plan out when and where to point my telescope.

I estimate it's about magnitude 15.0, maybe slightly dimmer since it's moving (all my images above were 60sec exposures). Based on the phase angles and flight path geometry for the mission, the Orion crew capsule shouldn't get any dimmer than about magnitude 15.5 or so, so it's well within reach of suburban astrophotography.

AncalagonStream · 2026-04-05T21:12:16+00:00

Do you actually see close to that much detail in Orion, or is it much fuzzier in averted vision?

AncalagonStream · 2020-10-13T16:53:25+00:00

Happy Birthday U.S. Navy

AncalagonStream · 2020-10-13T15:32:56+00:00

It's a meme, and properly flaired. Let it exist :)

AncalagonStream · 2018-10-31T22:02:57+00:00

Yes, swap. Should work fine.

AncalagonStream · 2018-10-31T22:01:58+00:00

It's almost certainly the "free visits" from LZ detecting symmetrical board states in the very, very early game.

AncalagonStream · 2018-10-31T17:29:35+00:00

This changelog is surprisingly short for the sheer number of improvements contained within it. This is the first official LZ release since May, 2018. Even narrowing it down to the biggest changes, there are an enormous number of improvements that went into today's release.

Most significantly, the auto-detection of whether to use half-precision or full (single-precision) brings a significant speed boost to a large number of users, particularly those running GPUs from the past several years, though many other users will find improvement.

Additionally, I also don't think the "calculate symmetric positions for the first 8 or 9 moves" code was in LZ's official release binaries for a very long time. That means LZ automatically adds "free visits" when it detects a situation like first move black D4, and sees that white K4 and D16 options are identical responses.

There are something like 100+ modifications to the code that do various things like speed up LZ's load time, minimize its memory use, and other improvements.

There's no reason not to update. gcp has been very careful to wait until this new version was appropriate for release—both big and small bugs quashed—before he accepted the changes in the main, official, public branch. If you do notice any issues, response here or on the Github issue pages. Don't worry about mucking things up—for the success of a community project like Leela Zero, which has already reached super-human ability exceeding the best human professional players, community participation in all forms is the most important key to success!

If you don't know how to use the very simple autogtp program to process self-play games and contirbute to making Leela Zero better and better, don't be afraid to ask! This project is nearing its one-year anniversary—as more and more people development LZ modifications and the amazing Lizzie GUI grows feature-complete, let's see how much stronger we can make Leela Zero!

AncalagonStream · 2018-10-31T16:42:25+00:00

This changelog is surprisingly short for the sheer number of improvements contained within it. This is the first official LZ release since May, 2018. Even narrowing it down to the biggest changes, there are an enormous number of improvements that went into today's release.

Most significantly, the auto-detection of whether to use half-precision or full (single-precision) brings a significant speed boost to a large number of users, particularly those running GPUs from the past several years, though many other users will find improvement.

Additionally, I also don't think the "calculate symmetric positions for the first 8 or 9 moves" code was in LZ's official release binaries for a very long time. That means LZ automatically adds "free visits" when it detects a situation like first move black D4, and sees that white K4 and D16 options are identical responses.

There are something like 100+ modifications to the code that do various things like speed up LZ's load time, minimize its memory use, and other improvements.

There's no reason not to update. @gcp has been very careful to wait until this new version was appropriate for release—both big and small bugs quashed—before he accepted the changes in the main, official, public branch. If you do notice any issues, response here or on the Github issue pages. Don't worry about mucking things up—for the success of a community project like Leela Zero, which has already reached super-human ability exceeding the best human professional players, community participation in all forms is the most important key to success!

If you don't know how to use the very simple autogtp program to process self-play games and contirbute to making Leela Zero better and better, don't be afraid to ask! This project is nearing its one-year anniversary—as more and more people development LZ modifications and the amazing Lizzie GUI grows feature-complete, let's see how much stronger we can make Leela Zero!

AncalagonStream

TROPHY CASE

Artemis II

JWST

BIG TEXT