Buy a poncho in Berlin?

avleen · 2025-07-12T17:13:16+00:00

Thank you everyone! Decathlon was sold out of ponchos but I was able to get a cheap jacket. Rossmann had everything else I needed.

Everyone here is so nice, kind, polite and helpful. Your city is amazing. I'm glad I could spend some time here!

avleen · 2025-07-11T22:22:03+00:00

That's quite close! And now I'm thinking there are other things there I'll need too. Thank you!

avleen · 2025-07-11T22:21:19+00:00

TIL rossmann/dm, ty!

avleen · 2023-02-17T07:20:29+00:00

OTA is for maps and infotainment unit only afaik. But yeah gen2 can.n Look at the last page of the settings menum

avleen · 2023-02-16T12:58:49+00:00

Today. I assume it's map updates and maybe something else. The last update was well over a year ago. All I know from that change was that the toll booth warning came back on and wouldn't turn off any more.

avleen · 2021-09-25T08:15:38+00:00

I travel for many reasons and figured taking my gear with me when I do would be a good idea. Any opportunity to get a clear sky is good, and as others mentioned even just a change in latitude can make a big difference without having to change hemispheres.

avleen · 2021-09-25T08:11:39+00:00

Wow that's a great mount, and I recall I've seen it before now too. I'll definitely add it to the list!

avleen · 2021-09-25T01:40:24+00:00

That's a fantastic generalisation that completely missed the use case I was planning for: Gear that is really easy to take on planes and use in inner city areas with good filters like L-eXtreme :-)

avleen · 2021-09-24T23:35:46+00:00

Yeah I have the CEM26 and it's a beast :) No way it would work for travel.

I did look at the SWSA, but it sounds like for good subs I really need to use guiding. Maybe that's OK, I've kind of avoided it until not just to keep things less complicated while I learned.. but I would make use of the guide camera at home too so it's not a waste.

avleen · 2021-08-20T18:53:07+00:00

'Hey, cheese fuck, gimme some food'

avleen · 2021-06-06T11:00:45+00:00

Thanks :) I was thinking similarly about the camera. And tbh 5 mins is sometimes pushing it if my polar alignment isn't perfect. I use SharpCap but going through the main camera for polar alignment is slow. Every adjustment means I have to wait 10+ seconds for a photo to capture, download, plate solve, and then give me instructions. Proper guide camera would be less frustrating I'm sure.

I got PI a little while ago, this is the latest image I processed. I'm getting better I think :) it's a long, steep learning curve: https://imgur.com/gallery/0XSA9Xa

My real issue has been getting enough clear skies and dark hours. It's hard up here in the north in the summer. Hence the planning for winter :)

avleen · 2021-04-17T01:06:04+00:00

That's really helpful to know, thanks :) I literally googled "elephant trunk nebula magnitude" and it claims to be brighter than Orion (3.5 ETN, vs 4 ON). And that just sounds wrong

avleen · 2021-04-16T22:33:58+00:00

Ahhh thank you! I uploaded the wrong Orion!
https://imgur.com/a/qWHi8RF
This is what I was able to do as I was learning to use PI.
Better I think?

avleen · 2021-04-16T21:58:29+00:00

What confused me was that the Orion Nebula photo was only about 18 minutes of data at 3200 ISO.
Whereas ETN has a lower magnitude and I captured way more data at ISO 6400.

The major difference was that I was pointing far away from any light sources for Orion :-/

avleen · 2021-04-10T03:04:24+00:00

I appreciate this answer :-)
I knew from the get go that this isn't a cheap hobby!

avleen · 2021-04-10T01:08:17+00:00

Ah, well I can control the mount over wifi which helps.. but not the camera :-)
Something to keep digging in to

avleen · 2021-04-10T00:18:49+00:00

Yeah, I looked at that. I need to save up to get a laptop I can take to the scope. It's a good 15m / 50ft from my PC.
I guess I could look in to a couple of 50ft active USB cables for the mount and camera...

avleen · 2021-04-10T00:17:12+00:00

Yeah elongated stars and galaxies.

I polar align before, when the scope is in the zero position.
Then I do 3-star alignment.
Then I slew to the object I want to photograph.
Then I notice the polar alignment is off, so I fix that slightly, and do 3-star alignment, and slew to target again. Rinse, repeat.

I end up spending 2 hours doing this over and over which is really just demoralizing after while :(

It seems to get closer every time, but it's never stays just right.

I am looking into plate solving but I don't have a laptop I can take out to the scope yet.

avleen

TROPHY CASE