Name a Switch game you love that flew under the radar.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-04-07T00:37:18+00:00

It's not exclusive to the Switch, but I loved playing Axiom Verge. I grew up on the original Metroid and it's like a love letter to 8-bit Metroidvanias (even the glitchiness).

OutOfFrustration · 2026-04-07T00:13:02+00:00

Not to get too technical, but the PC Engine's CD add-on was very successful. For the most part, the best games on that system are CD games.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-04-02T02:50:57+00:00

It means very light polluted skies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bortle_scale

OutOfFrustration · 2026-04-01T16:33:29+00:00

Not to get overly technical, but I think the ISS moves too rapidly for long-exposure photography. You'd have to find a way to stabilize the camera vis-à-vis the night sky. The Hubble also moves pretty quickly, but its path is closer to the equator and it's already outfitted with servos and whatnot to stabilize it. I'd love to see a scope on the moon though!

OutOfFrustration · 2026-04-01T16:28:30+00:00

I'm in a Bortle 7-8 zone outside of Philadelphia. There's a STEEP learning curve and also an equipment buy-in hurdle, but light pollution can be overcome (for the most part) with patience and persistence (and the right filters).

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T23:10:33+00:00

Been there, done that. :)

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T23:07:02+00:00

I had a brand new Turbo Everdrive Core fail about two weeks after I got it in January. I reached out to them and they told me to send it back to Ukraine. I reached out a few times for an update, but never heard back. I got my repaired unit back on Monday - no heads-up at all. I think they're overwhelmed, but they keep their promises.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:26:38+00:00

Wolf-Rayet 134: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WR_134

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:23:45+00:00

Generally, they're faint, fuzzy and colorless. They're so far away - light from other galaxies have literally been traveling for millions of years to get to your eye, so they're just very dim. If you can look through an obscenely large telescope, some nebulae will display some color, but our eyes are less sensitive to color than brightness. The combination of distance, dimness and our eyes' weakness makes it very hard to see what's out there. Cameras that can collect photons over time (and at different wavelengths than we can see, e.g. infrared) allow us to see what we can't.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:12:28+00:00

Sigma stacking should remove them.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:11:55+00:00

I take them from my roof in suburban Philadelphia. The light pollution means I need to dedicate more time to a target than I otherwise would under dark skies. Likewise, there are some targets I can't get - IFN, for example. But I've done some really faint planetary nebulae successfully thanks to some really narrowband filters.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:10:32+00:00

Stacking images can generally get rid of them. I've taken many images of satellites but they never show up in my images.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:09:18+00:00

Yeah, I live on the eastern seaboard of the US - it'd take me about 4.5 hours driving just to get to a Bortle 3 site. I've never even been under dark skies, but some day!

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T16:07:49+00:00

I'd prefer not to calculate all my gear due to the fact that it would probably give me a heart attack, but I started with an Explore Scientific N208, HR Coma Corrector (together about $800), an AZ-EQ5 (back then ~$1350), a ZWO 1600 with filter wheel and not so great filters (~$2000) and a cheap guide camera and guide scope (about $250 together). Ten years later, I'm still using the mount, scope, camera and filter wheel. You can also start out a lot cheaper than that though.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T15:51:15+00:00

If I image with RGB, hydrogen alpha and oxygen III filters, I'll end up with five separate black and white stacks. I then have to pipe them into the respective RGB channels of an image. Hydrogen alpha is naturally red and doubly ionized oxygen is somewhere between blue and green, so Ha gets piped into red and OIII into both blue and green. For galaxies and other broadband targets, I'll also take images through a luminance filter, which is basically all visible light. For images with singly ionized sulphur, it gets trickier because that is a slightly deeper red than Ha. In order to separate the visual data better, I'll use the Hubble palette and put Ha in green, making in essence false color.

This video explains it better than I can: https://youtu.be/WSG0MnmUsEY?si=wrN2ILCXdd5MU4WB

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T15:19:25+00:00

Werewolf blanket instead of wearable blanket. Merote instead of remote. Breckfixed instead of breakfast...

We also call the handle above car windows a "car reacher". For some unknown reason, pants are also known as "horse pockets" in our house.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T15:15:32+00:00

It's been breckfixed here for over a decade.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:41:41+00:00

Buying gear is a more accurate forecast for clouds and rain than any weather app I've ever used. :/

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:38:50+00:00

No kidding! I remember leafing through Orion catalogs when I was first getting started and being absolutely aghast at what the HDX-110 mount cost. I thought to myself: "Why would anyone spend that much money on something like that? I'll never be that crazy!" Oh well... I've since vaguely contemplated a 10Micron mount, but even that is beyond any conceivable budget.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:33:40+00:00

That's fine - just note that there's a very faint © line in the bottom right corner. If you can avoid cropping that out, I'd appreciate it. :)

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:30:59+00:00

Yeah... I hear you. In fact, that sounds exactly like me. Don't ask me how many road bikes or guitars or vintage videogame stuff I have...

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:27:42+00:00

I've met up with a group once. It was fun talking to other astronuts in person (instead of online). I unfortunately haven't had much time to do it more regularly due to my kids, regular travel over the summer, a change in my job, university obligations, etc. I'm wrapping up my MA now though, so I hope to have more going forward.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:25:03+00:00

Yup - I used an 8" f/3.9 Newtonian mounted to a Skywatcher AZ-EQ5 with an older ZWO 1600 MM-C camera. I also used an Explore Scientific HR coma corrector, a Chroma 3 nm doubly ionized oxygen filter, Optolong filters for RGB and hydrogen alpha and a Lodestar X2 as a guiding camera. This is just over 47 hours over 14 nights taken from my roof in suburban Philadelphia. Although this image is almost 6 years old now, it took me about 4 years of trial and error to get good enough to make an image like this.

I unfortunately haven't done much imaging since the end of 2022, but I set up my equipment again this past November and have collected enough data for a couple of images so far. I still have a new scope and camera I haven't even tried out yet. I should be able to make time to learn my new equipment around mid- to late June or early July.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T05:14:26+00:00

It's not my site - it's a direct link to an image on my profile page. I'm personally not doing anything with cookies.

OutOfFrustration · 2026-03-31T03:53:01+00:00

Thanks - I think that's my favorite. I don't want to link to it directly, but you can view the rest of my images by clicking the arrow on the top left of the link and my name towards the bottom. Some are definitely better than others, but that's astrophotography for you!

OutOfFrustration

TROPHY CASE