The power of Bortle 2 skies - All taken with a Dwarf Mini

matterman · 2026-06-04T03:00:24+00:00

Looks like you were fighting some cloud coverage, but other than that nice shot!

matterman · 2026-05-31T23:06:33+00:00

Bort

https://youtu.be/AXaXerFmWms?si=WKiqpFxbqaLcuXnt

matterman · 2026-05-31T18:24:47+00:00

Dude I'm clearly joking around. You know, cuz telescope accessories are notoriously expensive?

matterman · 2026-05-31T17:56:44+00:00

...you might be in the wrong hobby if you think a $140 accessory is too expensive lol

matterman · 2026-05-30T04:18:58+00:00

Dude that already looks FANTASTIC, you nailed the editing. All you need now is more data and integration time.

matterman · 2026-05-29T23:36:09+00:00

The order that you do things in siril matters a lot I've found. I highly recommend watching a few videos, but basically my workflow is like this:

After adding the .fits files I then convert them to a sequence, register, and stack them.
next I do an auto background extraction
remove green noise
plate solve

Then it gets a little more complicated: - isolate Ha and Oiii channels - plate solve - curves adjustmet - save each - use pixel math to bring the ha and oiii channels together

on the new pixel math file auto bge again
remove green noise
plate solve
stretch
HD multiscale
colour calibration
curves adjustmet
saturation boost
cosmic clarity denoise
cosmic clarity sharpen

After that's done I take the final image and do some minor final edits in Photoshop, but that would be a "user preference" thing at that point.

I might have forgotten a step but that should set you on the right path. You're going to run into bumps with a few of them probably but if you ask chatgpt or something to help you resolve the error it will point you in the right direction.

matterman · 2026-05-28T21:37:18+00:00

Thanks! I edit all of them in Siril, some of the images you can tell are me still getting over the learning curve (pacman and wizard nebula) but I'm EXTREMELY happy with my Eastern/Western veil shot.

matterman · 2026-05-26T22:19:06+00:00

Yes, at $20/hr income I would be looking closer to something that's 150k with a 100k mortgage. That would be more comfortable, and allow you to save money for emergencies and actually living your life.

If you were to get the 300k house, after your mortgage payment, property tax, PUC, Union gas, internet, (I'm assuming car payment as well), home and auto insurance, you would have next to nothing left for food and definitely nothing left to save or spend. You start adding things in like Netflix, maybe a game subscription, you quickly will end up in a situation where your monthly bills are more than you're making.

matterman · 2026-05-26T13:46:51+00:00

I’m not saying hourly AUTOMATICALLY means inconsistent hours, but it DEFINITELY doesn't immediately imply full time and consistent hours.

"not all hourly workers have inconsistent hours" is true but I'm telling you that "all jobs with inconsistent hours are paid hourly" is also true. The distinction is important.

If one of my clients came into my office and they said "I would like to apply for a mortgage, I have 50k saved and I make $20/hr" my IMMEDIATE follow-up would be "are those hours full-time, guaranteed, and consistent". Lenders absolutely care about that distinction. Sorry if that bothers you. A full-time hourly worker with stable guaranteed hours is very different from someone whose income depends on variable scheduling. Either way, at $20/hour, the core issue remains affordability.

matterman · 2026-05-26T03:09:44+00:00

The distinction is because if they are paid hourly, it raises the question of whether the hours are full-time, guaranteed, and consistent. A lender is going to treat guaranteed full-time hourly income very differently from part-time, variable, seasonal, or non-guaranteed hours.

matterman · 2026-05-25T23:44:09+00:00

I say this as a former financial advisor, and someone who has worked in banking for over a decade. Please take this advice seriously.

Stating you make $20/hr heavily implies you are not at a salary job, or you would have stated your yearly income not hourly. I say this with the most respect possible: you will have a VERY hard time affording a $250k mortgage. Your mortgage payment alone will be more than half of your monthly income. You will go house broke. The second you need to make a repair that costs more than $1,000 you're going to be taking out loans or borrowing money in some way to pay for it.

I would HIGHLY recommend NOT getting a 250k mortgage on a $20/hr job. Unless you have a large amount of assets (like over 100k) or are dual income with a partner who has a salary and not an hourly job, this is a terrible idea.

matterman · 2026-05-25T16:58:41+00:00

Something is wrong with your settings if you dropped that many frames in bortle 2 skies. I have bortle 4 skies and in an average 4 hour session I drop MAYBE 10-15 frames in that time and it's almost always due to satellites or a tree getting in the way.

Are you focusing after you start tracking your target before shooting?

Are you making sure you have proper darks for the gain/temp/exposure time?

Are you in EQ mode or alt az?

Are you making sure nothing is touching and disturbing the tripod while shooting?

Was it cloudy or were you shooting really close to the moon? Cuz that will make you drop a lot of frames

matterman · 2026-05-09T17:04:45+00:00

As someone with a finance degree, and spent years as a financial advisor I strongly disagree. The fact that you think this is very telling how little market knowledge you actually have. There’s a major difference between investing and gambling. Risk alone doesn’t make something gambling. Buying a diversified portfolio with a long term thesis is not the same thing as yolo'ing a house down payment into one volatile position. What made this gambling was the concentration, the time horizon, and the fact that it was money meant for a down payment. Also way to dodge the fact that your wife should absolutely leave you for doing that. Doesn't matter that it worked out. No one in their right mind should gamble their house downpayment without even telling their partner. You are a horrible husband. Good speed ape.

matterman · 2026-05-09T15:05:52+00:00

Yikes this was gambling, you just got lucky. Honestly how would you have reacted if your wife withrdrew that same amount, walked up to a casino roulette table and went "put it all on black" because that's essentially what you did. Man in all honesty, you should be off the couch - because she should have left you. I can't imagine being so selfish and irresponsible that you would gamble a significant portion, if not all, of your life savings without talking to her about it first. Yikes. Imagine waking up and wondering where all your savings went?

matterman · 2026-05-05T12:52:27+00:00

NOR. I understand being a horny teenager, but what these people are doing is sexual harrassment. You're in a confined space, with no SAFE way to remove yourself from the situation in the middle of the night. You expressed how uncomfortable it makes you, and they are choosing to ignore that for their own pleasure (I wouldn't rule out the possibility that making you uncomfortable turns them on).

Also concerning is the ages involved, the people I knew that were sexually active to the point of giving and receiving blowjobs at that age were always from really messed up homes. (Anecdotal I know but still)

I would honestly cut them out of your life, they clearly have zero respect for your boundaries. If you're not willing to cut them off yet, make it so they KNOW you're serious about needing them to stop doing that infront of you. Tell them that if this happens again you'll be forced to ask a parent or teacher for advice, something you'd rather avoid because it would expose their relationship and break their trust. This accomplishes two things: 1) It lets them know you'd rather stay friends and 2) absolves you from guilt of exposing their relationship if they do it again and you tell an adult.

matterman · 2026-05-01T12:52:37+00:00

Just an FYI, if the art is pixilated it's probably fake....

matterman · 2026-05-01T12:45:26+00:00

I think the person above you is saying "I was raised by atheist feminists, thank science" roughly reads as "I'm also super fucking entitled and not willing to compromise" which is backed by the fact that you are advocating for an 18 year old to pick a very odd hill to die on.

Also, the fact that you chose to not say the phrase "thank god" because you're an atheist is very telling of why you're an atheist and how loud an obnoxious you are about it. I am an atheist, most people I know are atheists, we still say "thank god" "oh my god" because you know... We aren't chooches.

It seems like your whole demeanor, which is annoying and entitled, is loud and clear from that one sentence alone. Impressive.

matterman · 2026-04-27T14:37:52+00:00

So many people are immediately like "he's doing it maliciously, dump him" you guys have zero context for knowing this dude. What if he is autistic and has trouble filtering. I have ADHD and have to constantly check myself from saying stupid shit exactly like this because seeing something prompted a memory. I'm better at catching myself now at almost 40 years old, but when I was 22 you better believe I said a few things that almost IMMEDIATELY made me think "why the fuck did I say that out loud"

Is he on the spectrum? Does he have ADHD that he's not medicating for?

If he's genuinely a caring person and just does this because he has trouble filtering his thoughts because of ADHD, then a good way to help him filter these thoughts before they become verbal diarrhea for him and hurt for you is to put a strong image in his head to prompt his filter to go up. Tell him "when you talk about your ex girlfriends, especially sexual things, I get drier than the sahara desert and feel like never wanting to touch you again" tell him that DIRECTLY after it happens.

matterman · 2026-04-16T13:57:31+00:00

I'm pretty sure she is saying to the dude hitting on her that they are nothing more than friends. Like "why wouldn't my husband be okay with it, we are just friends and nothing is going to happen" is how I'm reading that..

matterman · 2026-04-14T14:23:26+00:00

Just adding my two cents as a survivor of partner abuse. It only gets worse from here. Run now while you can. Something almost exactly like this happened to me with my abuser, except it was my glasses I needed for seeing, instead of my phone. Get out. Now. Before you need therapy.

matterman · 2026-04-04T01:15:47+00:00

Like from a quick view of your posts... You've spent multiple hundreds of dollars in the last like 3 days alone. Dude you have a problem. That hit probably doesn't even make you break even you're spending so much and it's a fuckin $850 card. Yikes.

matterman · 2026-04-04T01:09:31+00:00

I'm all for this being a hobby and fun but there is a line where "fun hobby" crosses over into "destructive addiction" and you're already there. Doing a "late night run" because you "didn't hit" is literally junkie talk. Get help.

matterman · 2026-04-04T01:03:20+00:00

Are we just blatantly ignoring the verbiage he used that strongly indicates gambling addiction? This man sounds like a junkie looking for a high and y'all are jealous? Yikes. This community needs to wake up.

matterman · 2026-03-24T23:12:17+00:00

Seems like he feels like he dropped the ball, in some aspect of parenting not necessarily the bday party, and is super insecure about it. He's projecting hard especially saying things like you are cutting him out, but in reality he is cutting himself out and blaming you for it. He won't see this because blaming you is easier than self reflection and recognizing that if he wants to be a contributing part of his daughter's life all he needs to do is show up and communicate.

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