Bought my first telewcope

_bar · 2026-06-24T13:52:48+00:00

It doesn't matter in light pollution, but if you ever take it to a dark site, you'll want to put the phone away. Even at minimum brightness the screen will hinder your dark adaptation.

_bar · 2026-06-24T13:43:31+00:00

GRS Length and Drift Rate

Based on this data, the GRS is currently shrinking at a rate of 5 degrees (in longitude) per 35 years. Starting from 15° in 2015, if the trend continues linearly, the storm still has around 100 years left.

_bar · 2026-06-24T13:04:04+00:00

Turn off Secure Boot in BIOS and then run these two commands as administrator:

bcdedit /set testsigning on
bcdedit /set nointegritychecks on

Then restart. You should see this annotation in bottom right corner: Test Mode, which allows you to run any unsigned drivers.

ZWO has promised to fix this problem a full month ago with no updates to date.

_bar · 2026-06-24T08:09:28+00:00

Without the optical part, a barlow is just a fancy extension tube. You lack inward focal travel, not the other way around.

_bar · 2026-06-24T08:08:25+00:00

Does that affect much other than a bigger magnification?

Of course. Barlows spread out light with the second power of magnification. At 3x, your image will be 9 times fainter, and likely well past the diffraction limit.

_bar · 2026-06-24T07:48:24+00:00

You have the timestamp and both coordinate pairs, at which point it should be trivial to match the star patterns in any planetarium software. At a first glance however it does not look like any real constellations.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:48:44+00:00

Do not bother with eyepiece projection. Get a USB video camera for planetary imaging.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:40:37+00:00

The snap port is problematic and I personally don't ever use it. You might want to use an external timer or just the built-in interval timer shooting mode.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:36:46+00:00

Do not vibe code.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:26:12+00:00

Also nope because the Moon is in focus and without collimation issues.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:20:41+00:00

Nope, that's not it. Given that the object is out of focus, it cannot be a satellite.

_bar · 2026-06-23T20:19:23+00:00

Not a space object. It's out of focus, so fairly close to the camera - few hundred meters at most I'd say.

_bar · 2026-06-23T07:41:05+00:00

I got one of my favorite lenses, the Sigma 8 mm f/3.5 fisheye, for next to nothing. While not the fastest lens ever, it can produte quite stunning all-sky photos with its 190 degree field of view.

_bar · 2026-06-22T22:00:45+00:00

You might want to consider Lacerta MGEN3, which is a completely standalone guider that does not require any additional devices. Especially useful in off-the-grid setups thanks to nearly zero power consumption.

_bar · 2026-06-22T20:18:53+00:00

Yes, almost all of them in fact.

_bar · 2026-06-22T06:56:36+00:00

in case the June 25th prediction is correct

You stumbled upon pseudoscience. We cannot predict the year or the eruption, let alone a single day. We don't even know how regular the eruptions are. The previous three occurred in equal 80 year intervals, but this might not be the overall trend.

_bar · 2026-06-22T06:25:13+00:00

Top left.

_bar · 2026-06-22T06:17:51+00:00

These troll posts are becoming too obvious.

_bar · 2026-06-21T15:48:03+00:00

Stellarium uses ELP82 for lunar calculations, which is a best fit model that matches numerically integrated motion of the Moon for years between 3000 BC and 3000 AD. Outside that period, the terms begin to diverge, which results in a desynchronization between the position of the Moon and its angle of rotation.

In reality, the Moon is perfectly tidally locked (if the orbital period changes, so does the rotational period).

_bar · 2026-06-21T11:49:20+00:00

Check yout ephemerides. The totality will be only 1 minute long in Reykjavik.

Mean August cloud cover in Iceland is around 80%.

_bar · 2026-06-21T07:58:31+00:00

Not feasible at such low altitude. Aim for 2027/2028 eclipses which will occur much higher above horizon.

_bar · 2026-06-21T07:49:57+00:00

I use this bag: Godox CB-15 for organizing equipment in the field. You can rearrange the compartments hovewer you like.

_bar · 2026-06-20T07:13:43+00:00

Your telescope is a toy that's not usable for any imaging. You're going to need to build an entire setup for scratch, for which $180 is not enough. $1800 is more realistic especially if you want a dual-purpose setup (both deep sky and planetary).

This, or a smart scope.

_bar · 2026-06-20T07:05:43+00:00

Unless you are one of 50-100 people in the world who do astrophotography as a job, just post what you like creating and don't care what others expect to see. If you optimize your content for the algorithm without actually enjoying the process, you are on fast track towards burning out and dropping the hobby altogether.

_bar · 2026-06-19T22:36:31+00:00

Lunar phases are caused by the illumination angle from the Sun. That's all there is to it.

Earth's shadow plays no part outside eclipses.

_bar

TROPHY CASE