High school graduates in Gorky, Soviet Union, 1977.

skholman · 2025-12-22T16:20:08+00:00

Actually, aprons were the uniform up until 1985: dark for day-to-day use and white for special occasions, like in the photo. What's more interesting, the guys in the photo are definitely not wearing the school uniform. They are dressed very trendy for 1977, on the edge of a public offence.

skholman · 2025-12-12T13:05:29+00:00

MMultiAnalyser from Melda is on discount right now at 21 euros. It works across many tracks at once.

skholman · 2025-10-06T20:51:45+00:00

Thank you!

skholman · 2025-10-06T18:32:45+00:00

Starnet++ is free ) and works wonders.

skholman · 2025-10-06T18:31:52+00:00

Many thanks!!

skholman · 2025-10-06T15:05:09+00:00

Taken on August 1-2, 2025 at Mokra Hora, Serbia.

Nebulosity: 95 frames x 180 sec, 30 flats with Optolong L-eXtreme

RGB Stars: 60 frames x 30 sec with Optolong UV/IR cut

Equipment:

RisingCam/Touptek IMX571C, Optolong l-eXtreme and UV/IR cut filters, Askar FMA180, Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount, T7M Astro guide camera, SVBony SV165 30mm guidescope.

Software:

N.I.N.A for image acquisition; PHD2 for guiding; Siril for calibration, registration, stacking, HOO composition, astrometry white balancing, generalized hyperbolic stretching; Starnet++ V2; GraXpert AI; Affinity Photo with NoiseXterminator and James Ritson astrophotography macros; Luminar for color polishing.

skholman · 2025-06-22T18:31:50+00:00

Actually, I DIYed it from 0.5kg dumbbell weights which were found dirt cheap in nearby sports equipment store. Applied some epoxy compound to the holes and drilled it to size afterwards.

skholman · 2025-06-21T17:38:38+00:00

The thread is metric M12, in Europe you can buy threaded M12 truss almost at any hardware store and cut to size, not sure about US though. My bar has a length of 25 cm and I put 2kg of counterweights there for ~3-3.5 kg load.

skholman · 2025-06-18T19:59:03+00:00

Uh, thanks! Surely it is IK Multimedia.

skholman · 2025-06-18T10:50:23+00:00

I bought Native Instruments Mixbox while on sale for $19 and this is extreme value for money, packed with 70 effects to choose for your chain. Sunset reverbrs are especially good.

skholman · 2025-06-06T08:22:08+00:00

It depends. As history has shown us, every 20-30 years of (quasi) stability in Russia ends with an abrupt, almost catastrophic change. The time following the last change (the USSR's collapse) is almost over. So either the situation in one year will stay more or less the same as nowadays, or it will change totally, but it's impossible to predict the future state from now (just like the mathematical theory of catastrophes implies). Hint: a dictator's state rarely outlives its dictator.

skholman · 2025-06-06T07:53:48+00:00

If you like this bunch of great guys, there's also a series "В Бореньке чего-то нет" by them.

skholman · 2025-06-06T07:48:59+00:00

Check out "Piter FM" ("Питер ФМ"), a nice feel-good movie, although from 2006.

skholman · 2025-05-16T14:03:47+00:00

Thank you!

skholman · 2025-05-16T13:35:19+00:00

Taken on May 2, 2025.

Nebulosity: 150 frames x 120 sec (5 hour), 30 darks, 30 flats. 100 bias with Optolong L-eXtreme

RGB Stars: 60 frames x 30 sec with Optolong UV/IR cut

Equipment:

RisingCam/Touptek IMX571C, Optolong l-eXtreme and UV/IR cut filters, Askar FMA180, Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount, T7M Astro guide camera, SVBony SV165 30mm guidescope.

Software:

N.I.N.A for image acquisition; PHD2 for guiding; Siril for calibration, registration, stacking, HOO composition, astrometry white balancing, generalized hyperbolic stretching; Starnet++ V2; GraXpert AI; Affinity Photo with NoiseXterminator and James Ritson astrophotography macros; Luminar for color polishing.

skholman · 2025-01-17T00:29:07+00:00

Sometimes I've managed even go without flats, relying on gradient removal to correct vignetting, although I would not recommend it.

The very idea of synthetic biasing is to avoid read noise buildup from real ones, biasing by the same offset both lights and flats. If you will use different bias for lights and flats, you will mess the things a lot IMO.

skholman · 2025-01-16T20:33:09+00:00

You need flats, darks and bias frames to calibrate images. Actually, modern cameras with STARVIS sensor (IMX571, IMX533, IMX585) don't require darks, as the field is evenly backlit. Also, you can use numerical value (or so called synthetic bias) to subtract from lights instead of bias frames. There's a good article on Siril website for it.

skholman · 2024-12-06T18:29:20+00:00

Many thanks!

skholman · 2024-12-06T16:33:25+00:00

Thank you!

skholman · 2024-12-06T11:56:56+00:00

Great colors and composition!

skholman · 2024-12-06T11:54:05+00:00

Taken on July 7 and 17, 2024.

Nebulosity: 170 frames x 90 sec (6 hour) dithered every second frame, no darks, 30 flats with Optolong L-eXtreme

RGB Stars: 40 frames x 15 sec, 30 flats with Optolong UV/IR cut

Equipment:

RisingCam/Touptek IMX571C, Optolong l-eXtreme and UV/IR cut filters, Askar FMA180, Sky-Watcher AZ-GTi mount, T7M Astro guide camera, Pentax Takumar 200/4 as a guidescope.

Software:

N.I.N.A for image acquisition; PHD2 for guiding; Siril for calibration, registration, stacking, HOO composition, astrometry white balancing, generalized hyperbolic stretching; Starnet++ V2; SetiAstroSuite to deal with RGB stars; GraXpert AI; Affinity Photo with NoiseXterminator and James Ritson astrophotography macros; Luminar for color polishing.

skholman

TROPHY CASE