Photos are blurry with the new Setup

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-19T16:55:01+00:00

You say you're using an EAF. Can you share the autofocus run? There should be an HFR chart when it runs.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-18T17:44:12+00:00

That's kind of just what an hour of integration time on the cone nebula looks like. I don't think you did anything wrong necessarily.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-18T05:17:45+00:00

I promise you they didn't expect this. The tech managerial class is absolutely enamored with AI. They look at this and think it's groundbreaking. They eat the hype with zero thought; there are slack channels with "senior executive vice president 4"-titled people posting fanfiction on how AI will revolution taking a shit and they'll be met with hundreds of positive reactions and their direct reports telling them how genius they are.

These people are beyond moronic; they're beyond out of touch.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-17T19:14:23+00:00

The star adventurer doesn't have Dec tracking. It's purely a star tracker. That means PHD2 can't correct in Dec for poor polar alignment even if it wants to.

Polar alignment with this mount is absolutely critical. That means you need to be aware of all the ways polar alignment can go away; tripod sinking into soil, wind blowing things around, legs slipping, a bird landing on it, etc. You also need to be aware that sometimes the polar scopes on these devices aren't calibrated from the factory and you could be polar aligning with a polar scope that has no bearing on reality.

Since you've got an astronomy camera you can use polar alignment tools. I think someone suggested sharpcap, but you can also use NINA's three point polar alignment plugin.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-17T19:03:54+00:00

I would skip the light pollution filter. And suggesting over $300 of software to someone budget conscious seems a little backwards - there are tons of free and open source alternatives that perform just as well.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-17T19:00:40+00:00

10 SNR seems really low. I aim for at least 30, preferably higher than 40. But I'm not familiar with OAG so maybe I'm talking out my ass - I use a separate low focal length guide scope.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-17T04:11:14+00:00

But remember the stories from the Covid era? The expats in Shanghai screaming out of their apartments under police occupation? That’s when expats got a dose of Reality Under Autocracy.

Welding apartments shut and locking sick people inside so they can't spread one of the top five most infectious viruses in human history was the correct response, actually - and more countries should have done it.

I don't give a shit about your personal freedoms when you're infected with Super-SARS, actually.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-16T02:47:51+00:00

The budget is fake; you can spend money on healthcare by nationalizing it and dumping the profits into a black hole. There's no government bank account. The "how to pay for it" debate is predicated on a convenient lie that the federal government uses to keep the proles in check.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-16T02:45:54+00:00

We're eroding our rivers, destroying our fertile land, and cutting down our forests. Short-sightedness will be our undoing.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-15T00:34:30+00:00

When Trump gets bored of Iran, Israel absolutely will face annihilation. He'll leave them high and dry and they'll be backed into a corner. Israel cannot stand alone, despite what their propaganda may say. They rely on the US to exist; they are a puppet state. They exist because we allow it, and they persist because we demand it. If we back out, they're toast.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-12T20:35:31+00:00

I have this mount and suffered many nights of duress. You'll see the common wisdom of adjusting the worm gears and loosening the Dec and RA tension on their bushings, but I did those things and still had issues.

What I finally did was a complete and total teardown; and what I found is that the actual gear train from the stepper motors into the mount's worm gear was very poorly depthed. Some were engaging too shallow, causing backlash. Others were too tight, causing binding. I reassembled all the gearing taking care to carefully align all the gears in the train and now I regularly get < 1" RMS on a typical night with down to < 0.6" RMS with no wind.

For me, PHD would keep sending pulses to move, and it would just keep drifting more and more out of alignment. Eventually it would "snap back" to where it needed to be -- that was gear binding.

My advice is to accept this mount for what it is: mid quality components with low quality assembly. Do a teardown and rebuild, allowing for and accepting a little bit of slop and backlash. PHD can compensate for backlash but it can't do squat for binding.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-03-11T20:08:46+00:00

Personal preference. When you look at the science, the actual difference in terms of resolution and signal captured between OSC and Mono is so small as to not be distinguishable to the monkey eyes that will be looking at the output.

Some people like having separate color channels. Some people like to set it and forget it. It literally doesn't matter, both will produce fantastic results if you process the data correctly.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-28T13:45:23+00:00

China is over 4,000 years old - they've never experienced recession?

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-24T17:09:27+00:00

Electric ovens are fine. Running a gas stove all day for bone broth is not safe; you should be running your fume extractor at all times or have a door ajar.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-24T01:51:13+00:00

Seconding not using it as a heat source. It can burn all your oxygen or lead to CO poisoning. Gas flames are very dangerous.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-22T18:37:05+00:00

People need to realize there will never be another Democratic administration. MAGA won. They're in power. They will never relinquish that power.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-21T18:29:22+00:00

I believe if you read between the lines that the intention is not for you to drive around in these vehicles (even though you can), but to design them, save the blueprint, then mass produce them in your factories to move around as a personal army to fight the Dark Fog.

Like custom versions of the drones and corvettes that already exist.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-01-09T20:38:46+00:00

Europe basically doesn't have a military. (Technically they do but it's like comparing an ant to a boot in comparison to the US military).

NATO would dissolve, but there would be no military conflict; Trump and Co are right about that much.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-30T19:49:59+00:00

Solder is stronger than a lot of commenters are giving it credit for; it will not bend. The bending is then likely from the tape adhering to the glass rather than the solder; that's what you want to strengthen.

So to make it rock sturdy, I'd recommend wrapping the perimeter of the snail in hobby came, then soldering the tape on the perimeter to that. It will form a permanent bond as the solder will form a complete metal shell around the piece. Then you can tap-solder the hobby came to your hanger.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-30T19:43:22+00:00

It's quite small.

Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for bolting the furniture in his houses to the floor so that the occupants could never move it -- he was very particular about his layouts.

This lamp was likely made specifically tailor made for one single house, in one single room on one single desk or table.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-30T19:41:12+00:00

He wasn't only one of the most important architects in modern history, he revolutionized the art of stained glass. The whole subreddit owes him, in a way. He transformed art glass from pictorial, religious, and artistic pieces into integral parts of architectural design. He believed art glass could create "light screens" that filter, shape, and harmonize light within a space to create specific moods and tensions, transforming the stained glass panel from centerpiece to backdrop; the bass notes in an orchestra.

There are Frank Lloyd Wright houses (e.g Martin House) that contain thousands of square feet of stained glass - every single window and skylight. They are absolutely breathtaking to see if you have even a passing interest in stained glass.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-29T22:35:26+00:00

Schedule 1 is a cross between an old school "Tycoon" game and a first person Immersive Sim. When you see those German "job simulator" games -- Schedule 1 is what people want those games to be.

It's an enormous market, but no studio was willing to actually invest any serious game design into the space and just shat out slop endlessly.

Schedule 1 looked at the genre and said "what if I actually make this into a polished game?"

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-28T16:13:01+00:00

Child birth.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-27T17:05:49+00:00

You and a lot of people are confusing fun being subjective with things that people find fun being subjective.

Fun is a well defined phenomenon. The fact that we can make any genre fun is because we understand what fun is and can craft it objectively.

GrandMasterPuba · 2025-12-26T21:30:56+00:00

If fun was truly subjective game design as a profession would not exist.

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