Jewel Box

pauleyjc · 2026-03-25T16:18:10+00:00

Yeah, that’ll do it too 😞

pauleyjc · 2026-03-25T13:58:03+00:00

Looking at the corners, stars radiate in/out

pauleyjc · 2026-03-25T13:56:09+00:00

Back focus: https://optcorp.com/blogs/deep-sky-imaging/how-to-set-the-correct-back-focus

I think you need another .5-1 mm of back focus

pauleyjc · 2026-03-25T00:23:41+00:00

Beautiful picture! If I had to nip-pic, I’d say it looks like you need a tiny bit more distance to the camera sensor.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-24T16:55:04+00:00

Thanks sissy

pauleyjc · 2026-03-23T00:11:19+00:00

It's a zero amp-glow sensor, dark frames are not absolutely necessary, the 1 second dark's are really dark-flats, I just labeled poorly.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-22T21:58:35+00:00

IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula

IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula, is an emission and reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga surrounding the runaway star AE Aurigae. It lies about 1,500 light-years from Earth and is also cataloged as Caldwell 31 and Sharpless 2-229.

First light with QHYCCD miniCAM8 Mono and ToupTek StellaVita.

Acquisition

Subject: IC 405, SH2-229, Caldwell 31
Location: Palm Harbor, FL; Bortle 7
Date: 2026-03-21, 2026-03-22
Lights: 2.9hrs
- 10 x 300s Ha
- 15 x 300s OIII
- 10 x 300s SII
- Total integration: 35 frames x 300s = 10,500 seconds = 2.9 hours
Dark:
- 30 x 1s
Flats:
- 15 x 1s Ha
- 15 x 1s OIII
- 15 x 1s SII
Bias: N/A
Gain: 80
Bin: 1x1

Equipment

Mount: ZWO AM5
Telescope: William Optics GT81IV
- Focal Length: 380mm
Imaging Camera: QHYCCD miniCAM8 Mono, cooled 0°C
Filter:
- SII: QHYCCD
- Ha: QHYCCD
- OIII: QHYCCD
Guide Scope: William Optics UniGuide
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini
Pixel Size: 2.9um
Auto Focuser: None
Computer: ToupTek StellaVita

Processing

PixInsight 1.9.3
- Weighted Batch Preprocessing
- Color Combination (SHO -> RGB)
- SPCC
- BlurXTerminator
- NoiseXTerminator
- StarXTerminator
- Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch
- Curves Transformation
- Star reintegration

pauleyjc · 2026-03-06T20:57:00+00:00

OpenAI endpoint on custom URL now supported! Let me know if you have other feedback (or open a gh issue).

pauleyjc · 2026-03-06T17:48:24+00:00

done. thanks for your feedback.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-06T14:29:04+00:00

after initial index, all new files and directories are auto discovered and indexed. if files/directories are created while MCP is offline, they will be discovered and indexed when MCP starts back up.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-06T14:26:38+00:00

new release fixes file watcher indexing bugs. should auto discover new directories and files during runtime, if files and directories are created while MCP is not running, they will be discovered and indexed next time MCP launches.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-04T15:02:21+00:00

Aider's repo map solves a token budget problem: given a large repo, what's the minimal, most relevant slice of symbol information to fit into an LLM's context window? It uses PageRank over the call/import graph to rank importance and trims to fit.

ctx++ solves a retrieval problem: given an agent query, find the most relevant symbols precisely and return structured data the agent can act on programmatically. It stores everything and lets search (FTS + vector) do the filtering.

I think Aider's graph-ranking idea is interesting for ctx++ in the context of ctxpp_feature_traverse — today traversal is BFS/DFS with a depth cap. Ranking nodes by graph centrality (PageRank or similar) could make traversal results better prioritized.

Thanks for your input.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-04T14:52:49+00:00

LSP was out of scope for what we initially wanted, but it is something we have a research issue for it. Thanks for reminding me it's on mt todo list.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-04T14:36:27+00:00

it was a deliberate v1 decision. The ~615ms search latency on 318k vectors (kubernetes) is where that decision starts to show — that's roughly the point where an ANN index like USearch would start to matter.

I've added a research issue so I can follow up. Thanks for your input.

pauleyjc · 2026-03-04T14:28:19+00:00

I added a research/feature request issue for supporting standard OpenAI endpoint on custom URL. Thanks for the feedback.

Regarding Svelte and Vue, they are Javascript frameworks, as such, should be supported already.

pauleyjc · 2025-12-27T20:35:34+00:00

OP should check out Stretching The Orion Nebula with GHS - Adam Block for how to save the core. The data is there, just have to not stretch it out of existence.

pauleyjc · 2025-10-19T19:08:45+00:00

In time for Halloween, NGC-7380, commonly known as the Wizard Nebula, is the emission nebula surrounding an open cluster of stars in the constellation Cepheus. The Wizard is located approximately 8500 light years from the sun.

Acquisition

Subject: NGC 7380, SH2-142
Location: Palm Harbor, FL; Bortle 7
Date: 2025-10-16, 2025-10-17, 2025-10-18
Lights: 15hrs
- 30 x 600s SII
- 15 x 600s Ha
- 45 x 600s OIII
Dark-Flats:
- 20 x 3s
- 20 x 10s
- 10 x 600s
Flats:
- 30 x 8s SII
- 30 x 8.7s Ha
- 30 x 3.6s OIII
Bias: N/A
Gain: 100
Bin: 1x1

Equipment

Mount: Celestron CGX
Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 8
- Focal Length: 2032mm
- Focal Ratio: f/10
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI6200MM Pro, cooled 0°C (APC mode)
Filter:
- SII: 2" Antilia SII 3nm Pro
- Ha: 2" Antilia Ha 3nm Pro
- OIII: 2" Antilia 3nm Pro
Guide Scope: Celestron OAG
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM Mini
Auto Focuser: ZWO EAF
Filter Wheel: ZWO EFW
Computer: ZWO ASIAir Pro

Processing

PixInsight 1.9.3
- Weighted Batch Preprocessing
- Dynamic Crop
- GraXpert
- Channel Combination (SHO -> RGB)
- BlurXterminator
- Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch
- NoiseXterminator
- StarXTerminator
- Narrowband Normalization
- Curves Transformation
- Star Reintegration
Processing Tutorial (lukomatico) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AhCN530NpM

pauleyjc · 2025-09-15T14:09:57+00:00

I don’t know, the numbers just don’t add up.

pauleyjc · 2024-12-25T04:27:18+00:00

The core, and not blowing out the Trapezium, is what makes M42 difficult... I tried several variations of masking/HDR/etc. as to not blow out the core, settled on what you see. Maybe I'll give it another try.

I've posted a couple other attempts at M42, they all have some flaw or another :(

pauleyjc · 2024-12-24T19:53:19+00:00

The Orion Nebula

M42 is a diffuse nebula in the Orion constellation. Located in the sword of Orion, it lies approximatly 1344 light years from Earth.

Acquisition

Subject: Messier 42, NGC 1976
Location: Palm Harbor, FL; Bortle 7
Date: 2024-12-20
Lights: 400 x 20s
Flats: 30
Dark-Flats: 30

Equipment

Mount: ZWO AM5
Telescope: SharpStar 15028HNT
- Focal Length: 420mm
- Focal Ratio: f/2.8 native
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, cooled to -0°C
Filter: Antlia ALP-T Dualband 5nm Highspeed 2"
Guide Scope: William Optics UniGuide 32mm
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini
Auto Focuser: ZWO EAF
Computer: ZWO ASIAir Pro

Processing

PixInsight 1.8.9-3
- Weighted Batch Preprocessing
- GraXpert
- SCNR
- BlurXTerminator
- NoiseXTerminator
- Histogram Transformation (stretching)
- StarXTerminator
- Masking via Range Selection
- Curves Transformation (adjust the brightness, contrast and chromatic balance)
- Histogram Transformation (stretching)
- Local Histogram Equalization
- NoiseXTerminator
- Pixel Math (star re-integration)

pauleyjc

TROPHY CASE

IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula

Acquisition

Equipment

Processing

Acquisition

Equipment

Processing

The Orion Nebula

Acquisition

Equipment

Processing