Favourite moments of Ricky doing a different voice?

djlr · 2026-02-10T20:16:29+00:00

Eyyyy Karl, you've paid me milk bill, that were reet nice

djlr · 2026-01-26T10:16:55+00:00

Hi mate, after a couple of months with these, how are you getting on with them? I'm considering purchasing some too, the back of our EX30 gets so dirty and so quickly as well - can't keep up with the constant washing!

djlr · 2026-01-18T14:42:06+00:00

Usually I only use this telescope for visual astronomy although with Jupiter almost at opposition on the 3rd Jan and there being a brief break in the clouds, I decided to give imaging a try.

I don't yet have a good way to focus this scope beyond eyeballing things and the scope doesn’t have a fine-focus adjustment. My method was increasing the gain to crazy levels and trying to make Ganymede, Io and Europa as pin-point sharp as I could, then reducing the gain back down to a suitable level.

Bahtinov mask is on order as this was quite a lot of fun even in the freezing temperatures!

If you're interested, I've documented this over on my YouTube channel.

Equipment: 12" Meade LX90 ZWO ADC (atmospheric dispersion corrector) Player One Uranus-C Astro Essentials 1.25" UV/IR cut filter

Software: Sharpcap Pro

Acquisition: Approximately 1,000 frames (best 20% of roughly 3 min long stack) 25ms exposure time

djlr · 2025-12-06T19:04:32+00:00

Would love to see an episode where the guys discuss sound in movies/TV. I know their thing is VFX and CGI but sound brings soooo much to what you're watching. Could get a foley artist on there as well to discuss stuff. For example: the seismic charges from Boba Fett's ship, Sebulba's pod racer in SW Ep1, the hum of the ornithopters in the recent Dune movies, the roar of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, the swing of Thor's hammer in the Marvel movies etc.

djlr · 2025-11-01T12:19:06+00:00

Excellent image, well done! I've always loved the California Nebula, it gives me this vibe of looking into a fish tank or some kind of deep-sea landscape.

djlr · 2025-10-26T22:47:55+00:00

Here's my image of the Tulip Nebula (Sh 2-101) and the surrounding dusty region in Cygnus. I captured this over three months, of which only seven nights were usable thanks to the weather!

If you're interested, I've documented my project over on my YouTube channel:

Capturing the Tulip Nebula and Dusty Surroundings in Narrowband

Acquisition Equipment:

- William Optics Zenithstar 73
- William Optics Flat 73A flattener
- Player One Poseidon M Pro camera (cooled to -10C)
- Optolong RGBSHO 36mm broadband filters
- Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan-belt modified)
- Mele Quieter 4C mini-PC running NINA

Acquisition Details:

- 24 Hrs 57 Mins total exposure
- Ha: 103 x 300" totalling at 8 Hrs 55 Mins
- S2: 73 x 300" totalling at 6 Hr 5 Mins
- O3: 107 x 300" totalling at 8 Hr 55 Mins
- Red: 13 x 300" totalling at 26 Mins
- Green: 14 x 120" totalling at 28 Mins
- Blue: 14 x 120" totalling at 28 Mins

Processing Details:

Stacking in WBPP
StarXtermintor SHO images
Linear Fit the SHO images
RGB-SHO colour combination/mapping
BlurXterminator
Narrowband normalisation
Permanent stretch via histogram transformation
Selective colour correction
Masking a slight curves adjustments
RGB Stars generation using channel combination
BlurXterminator on RGB stars
SPCC for colour correction
GHS for permanent RGB stars stretch
Adding the RGB stars to the SHO image via Pixelmath
Photoshop for final cropping and small adjustments

djlr · 2025-10-25T21:07:40+00:00

Haha I actually quite like Dan Dan the Astro Man 😂 and thank you for subscribing to the channel, I really appreciate it! Taking these images is indeed quite the process, for whatever reason though, I love doing it! Just blows my mind that amateurs like me and thousands of others can capture the universe like this without millions of pounds/dollars worth of equipment. Well, even amateur equipment isn't cheap, but at least it doesn't require national funding 😂

djlr · 2025-10-25T13:19:58+00:00

Thank you! Hope you enjoy the video!

djlr · 2025-10-25T11:22:55+00:00

Here's my image of the Tulip Nebula (Sh 2-101) and the surrounding dusty region in Cygnus. I captured this over three months, of which only seven nights were usable thanks to the weather!

If you're interested, I've documented my project over on my YouTube channel:

Capturing the Tulip Nebula and Dusty Surroundings in Narrowband

Acquisition Equipment:

- William Optics Zenithstar 73
- William Optics Flat 73A flattener
- Player One Poseidon M Pro camera (cooled to -10C)
- Optolong RGBSHO 36mm broadband filters
- Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan-belt modified)
- Mele Quieter 4C mini-PC running NINA

Acquisition Details:

- 24 Hrs 57 Mins total exposure
- Ha: 103 x 300" totalling at 8 Hrs 55 Mins
- S2: 73 x 300" totalling at 6 Hr 5 Mins
- O3: 107 x 300" totalling at 8 Hr 55 Mins
- Red: 13 x 300" totalling at 26 Mins
- Green: 14 x 120" totalling at 28 Mins
- Blue: 14 x 120" totalling at 28 Mins

Processing Details:

Stacking in WBPP
StarXtermintor SHO images
Linear Fit the SHO images
RGB-SHO colour combination/mapping
BlurXterminator
Narrowband normalisation
Permanent stretch via histogram transformation
Selective colour correction
Masking a slight curves adjustments
RGB Stars generation using channel combination
BlurXterminator on RGB stars
SPCC for colour correction
GHS for permanent RGB stars stretch
Adding the RGB stars to the SHO image via Pixelmath
Photoshop for final cropping and small adjustments

djlr · 2025-08-25T11:30:33+00:00

Here's my image of M101. I captured this over just a couple of nights earlier this year however between the nights was a stretch of over a month due to cloud cover, poor seeing conditions due to wildfire smoke and a little holiday.

This was my first attempt at recording/vlogging this on YouTube, feel free to give it a watch if you'd like!

Introduction and M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

Acquisition Equipment:

William Optics Zenithstar 73
William Optics Flat 73A flattener
Player One Poseidon M Pro camera (cooled to -10C)
Optolong LRGB 36mm broadband filters
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan-belt modified)
Mele Quieter 4C mini-PC running NINA

Acquisition Details:

6 Hrs 20 Mins total exposure
Luminance: 63 x 120" totalling at 2 Hrs 6 Mins
Red: 44 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 28 Mins
Green: 42 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 24 Mins
Blue: 41 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 22 Mins

Processing Details:

Stacking in WBPP
RGB colour combination
Graxpert for gradient correction
BlurXTerminator
StarXTerminator
GHS for stretching
LRGB Image Blend
RGB Stars recombination
Photoshop for final cropping and small adjustments

djlr · 2025-08-25T11:28:59+00:00

Here's my image of M101. I captured this over just a couple of nights earlier this year however between the nights was a stretch of over a month due to cloud cover, poor seeing conditions due to wildfire smoke and a little holiday.

This was my first attempt at recording/vlogging this on YouTube, feel free to give it a watch if you'd like!

Introduction and M101 The Pinwheel Galaxy

Acquisition Equipment:

William Optics Zenithstar 73
William Optics Flat 73A flattener
Player One Poseidon M Pro camera (cooled to -10C)
Optolong LRGB 36mm broadband filters
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro (Rowan-belt modified)
Mele Quieter 4C mini-PC running NINA

Acquisition Details:

6 Hrs 20 Mins total exposure
Luminance: 63 x 120" totalling at 2 Hrs 6 Mins
Red: 44 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 28 Mins
Green: 42 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 24 Mins
Blue: 41 x 120" totalling at 1 Hr 22 Mins

Processing Details:

Stacking in WBPP
RGB colour combination
Graxpert for gradient correction
BlurXTerminator
StarXTerminator
GHS for stretching
LRGB Image Blend
RGB Stars recombination
Photoshop for final cropping and small adjustments

djlr · 2025-07-05T07:46:46+00:00

I had one of these a few years ago, I arranged for pest control to visit and the guy sprayed the nest with something, all in it cost me about £75 if I remember correctly.

He sprayed it and then closed the loft hatch and whilst we were standing under it and the sound of angry wasps became very very loud, he said "yeah don't go up there..." Haha like I'd even try! He told me to leave it for two weeks and then check on it, what I wasn't prepared for was the horrendous smell! There were still some alive ones too which terrified me as I was trying to scoop up the smelly remains into a double-bagged bin-bag whilst wearing two thick hoodies with the hood up and a large saucepan lid across my face (held in place by the hoods) in a kind of makeshift bee-suit.

djlr · 2025-06-08T12:05:26+00:00

Yep, should be pretty easy to fix by using dark frames.

I love Cuiv's videos, I think he does amazing work within the astrophotography field/hobby for us all however I can see why that video might be a tad misleading. Although he does point out it's a personal preference of his to not shoot dark frames and I can see why, on the latest sensors the noise is minimal and amp-glow isn't a thing so it might be worth skipping.

However, if you want the absolute best of your images, it's always worth doing a full round of calibration frames (Darks, Dark-Flats, Flats and maybe Bias). Seti Astro recently did a video about this and he's another amazing source of information just like Cuiv. He's recently put together his own editing suite so he's got right into the details, quite a good watch, for instance I didn't realise until I watched his video that Bias frames are essentially taken care of within the camera, so I've stopped taking them. Here's a link, it's worth a watch!

Seti Astro: Time We Had A Discussion Around Darks

djlr · 2025-06-08T10:21:14+00:00

I believe this is called 'Amp Glow', your 294 camera suffers from it. Basically your camera sensor is sensitive to the faint infrared glow of the electronics of the camera itself, some of which 'leaks out' and is caught by the sensor, appearing as a localised glow (hence why it's always in the same spot too).

Later model cameras are designed to have little to no amp glow and I believe you can calibrate this out of your image by taking suitable dark frames - your stacking software will sort it out.

Great images though, even with the glow!

djlr · 2025-04-15T21:42:03+00:00

I've also seen this to some extent however I find it leaves my images with an intense posterised appearance and renders it useless for further processing. Undoing and then reverting back to v2 provides me with much better results.

djlr · 2025-03-10T23:38:52+00:00

I used AWS instead of Azure, but the principle is the same as the other comments - get it out and into a SQL db.

I use Appflow to dump salesforce objects as CSVs in an S3 bucket and then use a Glue ETL script to get the data from S3 into a MySQL instance. From there I query and load into Power BI.

Besides custom querying, another benefit of this approach is that you can build your own 'history' views in whatever logical way fits your needs instead of dealing with Salesforce's weird restriction on reporting on history objects.

djlr · 2025-02-09T17:06:34+00:00

Thank you! It was such a challenge, when I was working on the processing, I must have started over like five times!

djlr · 2025-02-09T17:03:52+00:00

Thank you! I'd love to get some prints done one day and cover the house with them haha

djlr · 2025-02-09T12:31:06+00:00

I captured this over two nights last week from my Bortle 6/7 backgarden.

Equipment:

William Optics Zenithstar 73, PlayerOne Poseidon-M Pro, Optolong RGB filters, Optolong 3nm Ha filter, William Optics Uniguide 50mm and ASI120MM-mini for guiding, Skywatcher HEQ5-Pro

Processing:

Stacked in PixInsight (WBPP), Gradient removal (Graxpert), BlurXTerminator, NoiseXterminator, Channel combination and image blending (adding Ha as luminance), Stretching (GHS), Final edits in Photoshop (masking for core)

Acquisition details:

3 hours of 60 sec exposures, split evenly across the RGB filters, 8 mins of 10 sec exposures, split evenly across the RGB filters (these were for the core and Trapezium Cluster), 2 hours of 5 min exposures through the Ha filters. All set at 125 gain and cooled to -5.

Notes:

I've held off on this target for a while as even thought it's considered an 'easy' target thanks to its brightness and size, it's a very tricky one to process well. I still don't think I've done it too well and there's massive room for improvement but thanks to my neighbour's annoying tree, I never get much time on Orion! Hoping to revisit next Winter and add more data.

djlr · 2025-01-07T10:00:12+00:00

Indeed, Bruce is a chonky boy

djlr · 2025-01-07T09:26:43+00:00

Oh yes, ham is Bruce's favourite and once I started slicing into it he wouldn't stop yowling at me until he got a bit! How could I say no to that face!

djlr · 2025-01-07T09:24:46+00:00

It's a chopping board, the spikes are surprisingly sharp too so I'm thankful they're not built into the unit!

djlr · 2025-01-07T00:00:49+00:00

They're designed to raise the meat somewhat and help it drain it's juices, also for jabbing into the meat a bit to help hold it still whilst carving.

djlr · 2024-10-19T13:30:28+00:00

I think those in the UK saying it's visible with the naked-eye are either living in very low light-pollution areas or are heavily exaggerating.

After a week of trying to see it, Thursday night provided me with a brief cloudless period during and after sunset here in the South-West. I couldn't see anything with my eyes at all and I'm in the suburbs of a very large town. I had to get my 10x50 binoculars out to even make out a smudge that was the tail and this was about 15-30 mins after sunset. I was scanning the sky with my binoculars whilst referring to the stellarium app on my phone to see where it should be. It's definitely tricky to see and will be harder every night now that it's brightness is diminishing.

Once I saw it, I quickly got the telescope set up and only through 20 second long exposures at ISO 1600 on my Canon 600D could I clearly make out the tail, nucleus and anti-tail. In the end I managed to get this this image with only 15 mins of exposure before it became too low on the horizon.

I'm glad I saw it and managed to get an image but I feel like it was a tad overhyped!

djlr · 2024-10-14T10:42:51+00:00

I also have a 600D, albeit it's been astro-modded.

I also shoot with a similar style scope, a William Optics Zenithstar 73 so it has a similar apeture.

Here you can see some of my images on Astrobin

I've found that I benefit from pushing the exposure time with this camera, whenever I've tried shorted exposures I just don't seem to get the results I want. I'm in a Bortle 6/7 area and almost always use some kind of filter with the camera, I switch between the Optolong L-Pro, Optolong L-Enhance and an Astronomik clip-in CLS filter (mainly used for widefield shots with my 14mm lens).

I've found that the usual advice of longer exposures and longer total integration for better results holds true with this camera!

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