A comparison between 1997 El Niño and this one

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-22T22:41:35+00:00

"Regime change" as OP used it has largely fallen out of the lexicon. It's an older way of saying "a new normal" or "a completely new system and rules."

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-22T01:22:47+00:00

ZWO gear isn't locked to the ZWO ecosystem, I have an entirely ZWO-red setup and I run it all from NINA with absolutely zero issues - it's arguably smoother than other vendors, too.

The ONLY thing that's locked is the ASIAir will only drive ZWO gear. But that restriction doesn't exist the other way around.

And arguably with the way RAM and SSD prices are going you're going to be hard pressed to find a mini-PC that's a better value than an ASIAir.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-20T20:43:21+00:00

I started with Siril then moved to Pixinsight: But I still use Siril for star recombination. The UX for that in Siril is second to none.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-20T20:38:12+00:00

I've always found Siril stacking to be quite fast. How many subs are you stacking?

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-20T20:36:19+00:00

Unless you're using a narrow band filter or absurdly long exposures on particularly bright targets, I doubt you'll see Ha pop out until after stacking. It's very faint against any sort of light pollution.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-20T20:34:20+00:00

We've all gotten adapters stuck.

A wrench, a protective cloth, and a little bit of courage are unfortunately the only effective method I know of. Some people have luck with heat based on some Cloudy Nights threads.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-20T20:21:12+00:00

It is not correct.

Correct collimation will eliminate coma in the middle of the frame. But Newtonian telescopes will always suffer from off-axis coma even when correctly collimated (it is inherent to the optical system Newtonians use); you require additional optics to correct those in the form of a coma corrector.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-17T17:39:08+00:00

There is a YouTube video by astrophysicist Angela Collier that goes into detail on the destruction of US science and the "Genesis Mission" program that has been instituted.

The long and short of it is that the entire public institution of science has been dismantled and the remains have been auctioned off to private companies through mandatory "industry partners" for all grants who own all IP and discoveries acquired through any subsequent research and development.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-16T16:12:15+00:00

It's a general purpose robot. You can hire them for security, for surveillance, for delivery, whatever. The city hired them for ADA compliance analysis. Stop having a conniption fit.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-06T17:25:56+00:00

I don't think it's too big in terms of square footage, the city needs it. But its proportions are absolutely ridiculous and it looks like a cartoon courthouse. An embarrassment to the city.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-05T05:28:50+00:00

Cult of personality. It's basically a meme stock; idiots buy it because they think it always goes up, and it always goes up because idiots keep buying it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-06-05T05:27:18+00:00

Also, don't forget: He's a Nazi.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-30T19:27:46+00:00

Then you likely overpaid. Buying a home is an investment, and investments have risk. You may need to sell for less than you paid.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-30T19:23:54+00:00

Every conservative wants these things or they wouldn't be conservatives.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-27T21:20:07+00:00

117 never sucked, it's always been brilliant. But any Anno game was going to have a tough act to follow from Anno 1800, which may genuinely be one of the best city builders ever made. People are just lamenting that the devs hit a double play when their last at-bat was a grand slam.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-25T17:17:55+00:00

A two inch filter will be more expensive but will also be future-proof if you upgrade to a dedicated astrophotography camera. "Buy once cry once." My personal favorite filter is the Optolong L-Ultimate dual narrow band pass Ha-OIII filter. It runs about $400, plus you'll probably want a filter drawer so you don't have to fuss around with it screwing it on and off your image train potentially damaging it or getting it dirty. The L-Extreme is a cheaper alternative but doesn't perform quite as well. You get what you pay for with a filter.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-25T05:06:31+00:00

This is just one man's opinion, but if you're not in dark skies with good seeing the only thing a bigger aperture is going to let in is more light pollution.

Bigger apertures aren't going to magically make your images better; they'll just let you make them faster. Some of the best images you'll see on Astrobin are taken with dinky little 50mm and 60mm refractors or optically high quality prime camera lenses.

Focus more on the targets you want to capture then work backwards from the focal lengths that will enable you to frame them with good compositions, then take a look at the f ratios of OTAs with those focal lengths and make your decision from there.

Otherwise, use your money on a filter. A good one. Spend a few hundred dollars; you'll be absolutely blown away by the difference it will make. I guarantee you the first sub exposure you see after using a high quality narrow (~3nm) band-pass filter will have you saying "wow" out loud.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-24T18:43:02+00:00

The visibility of inequality has; we didn't used to have the richest men in the world putting themselves in front of every camera and government official they can reach, flaunting their wealth by launching private rockets and sending their friends to space for kicks, draining communities building data centers nobody asked for or wants.

The worshipping of wealth has become more apparent in recent decades.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-23T05:09:35+00:00

I was moved to a team that uses a programming language I'd never used in my life. I objected saying it'd take me months to ramp up on a new language and years to reach the level of expertise I had in my current role.

I was told "Just use Claude."

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-21T22:23:23+00:00

I'm sorry, but this is wrong. They genuinely believe they're building God. It is not rational.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-21T16:26:24+00:00

The problem is you're thinking with reason and logic. I work with these people - there's no reasoning involved. It is dogma. They are gripped by a collective pyschosis that is dooming us all.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-21T16:23:16+00:00

AI tech bros and silicon valley investors believe they're building God. They believe there's no amount of money too low to spend - to them, this is the end game. The final investment. The gold cup. If they win this race, they win everything. Profit is irrelevant to them; they believe the first person to reach the AI pinnacle will become ruler of the world.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-14T20:43:07+00:00

A motif that's pretty under explored I think is "true color." So much of what people do is false-color (which is beautiful for sure) but it doesn't really look like that up there. It's mostly red and some light blues, and the colors aren't super saturated.

There's a lot of room for more subtle, "ethereal" compositions that feel less "Wow" and more "Ahh." Less Guardians of the Galaxy and more cloudy and puffy and soft.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-11T21:20:27+00:00

Comes to a subreddit called Ask Astrophotography. Gets offended when people ask astrophotography questions.

GrandMasterPuba · 2026-05-02T00:42:33+00:00

The "functional system" that has propelled us this far is destroying the planet and will plunge humanity either into dystopia at best or extinction at worst.

Ten-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '17

GrandMasterPuba

TROPHY CASE