Jump to content

Sid

Members
  • Posts

    62
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Sid

  1. If you think school is bad, wait till you try Real Life
  2. Wow Astronut, that's amazing... No-one reading this thread should think that astro imaging is beyond them though - sure, you aren't going to capture images like Astronut's without good equipment and a high level of skill. But there is some level of astro imaging open to almost everyone. Like planetary and lunar imaging using webcam equipped telescopes or even just a consumer digicam on a tripod. There are loads of tutorials on the web for all levels of equipment and skill - give it a go if you are interested !
  3. A great way to view and\or image the ISS would be to buy a milsurplus anti-aircraft gun mount - the powered kind - and mount a telescope where the gun used to be. That's how rockets were tracked back in the day... I'm not claiming it would be cheap or very practical though
  4. lajoswinkler - I agree about deep space objects. Viewed 'live' you won't see any colour or structure and may even need to use averted vision to see them at all. But the nearer planets and the moon are well worth seeing through an eyepiece and wide angle views of starfields too. With good optics it is surprising what you can see - my 5" refractor shows multiple cloud bands on Jupiter for instance. A cheap webcam ( Phillips Toucam Pro is a favourite, I used a Logitech 4000 ) can capture some amazing planetary and lunar images, in fact it's what many of the best amateur imaging guys use. You don't take one image, but a video ( or videos ) and then use processing software to pick out the frames least affected by atmospheric turbulence and then combine them to increase the signal to noise ratio. The software is free and fairly easy to use. In fact the whole process can't be too hard if I was able do it The results won't rival the Hubble, and with a budget scope they won't come up to anything like the standard of the dedicated amateurs, but it can be very satisfying.
  5. Thanks - I have been astronomising ( hey, I invented a new word ) for a long, long time but always lived in very heavily light polluted areas until we moved to rural Spain a couple of years ago. That's when I bought the ETX for wide field views, having concentrated on the moon and planets before with a 5" F10 refractor. The dark skies are amazing, but there is never a free lunch of course and the ambient temperatures during the summer months make it difficult to use the Sony DSC for anything except very short exposures. The sensor just gets overwhelmed by thermal noise. I still have the 5" refractor and I am going to build a better mount for it eventually. I have a Logitech 4000 webcam that I modified for planetary imaging and I would love to start doing that again. Clear Skies
  6. Great images. Here's one of mine from a few months ago. I use an old Sony DSC2 interchangeable lens digicam piggybacked on a pretty crappy Meade ETX-70. Nowhere near as nice as your setup or results - plus I'm still learning... Orion Nebula :-
  7. Any time I am forced to do a zero gravity EVA with a Kerbal using the rocket pack. I cannot get on with the third person view, find control almost impossible and if I don't lose the poor little guy in the fathomless void of space it's only by sheer luck.
  8. I absolutely love the faint smell of petrol and hot oil coming from a classic 1950's 60's or 70's bike engine after you park it up from a really hard ride. That and the ( air cooled ) engine making ticking noises as it cools down. Happy days.... Must be a FAINT smell of petrol though or it's time to find a fire extinguisher The 'bulk' smell of petrol I neither like or dislike, unless it's in a confined space when it makes me slightly nauseous.
  9. Cheers for the advice Van Disaster ! I forget to mention in my list of mods that my KSP interest for now is recreating some of the actual and proposed missions of the 60's and 70's If anyone else likes that era of spaceflight then it isn't too a bad starting point...in my opinion ( for whatever that's worth ) Hopefully with some part pruning I can get Bobcats Soviet pack working too. Funnily enough it's only in the VAB I have problems with it, in game it's just fine. And I forgot Aviation Lights - great strobes and docking lights
  10. Thanks for that ! - I was being cautious in case some parts depended on other parts, if that makes sense
  11. AIES Aerospace Chatterer [FASA] Mercury\Gemini ISA Mapsat KSPX Landing bags Mechjeb Procedural Fairings I'd like to run Bobcats Soviet Pack but it slows down the VAB too much. I should learn to prune parts because I only use a fraction of the AIES stuff and I'm not interested in spaceplanes at all, so they could all go
  12. I love both of those books. The Forever War is a lot more readable though - Starship Troopers is a little heavy going at times. They both have important things to say about personal freedom and the role of the state in peoples lives, whether you agree with the authors opinions or not. But that's probably politics...I say just read them and make your own mind up...
  13. The Right Stuff is full of inaccuracies. Don't let that put anyone off from reading it though, for me it's right up there with Hunter Thompsons " Hells Angels" and a modern classic.
  14. Latitude and longitude coordinates can be expressed as decimals or as degrees, minutes and seconds. They don't interchange without some maths, due to the different number bases. I'll leave you to figure out how There is probably an online converter if you search for one...
  15. It looks great and I'm all for the realism aspect but I don't think there is enough content in the game to give it any longevity. It's good that games based on science are considered worth publishing though, I hope it's a success.
  16. It shouldn't do - people like you are the future. Now go make it happen, dammit
  17. Wow...glad you are OK... I have had multiple motorbike crashes, the last one of which smashed my pelvis, more or less severed my right leg below the knee and also broke a really varied and interesting assortment of other bones. Spent two years unable to walk after that.
  18. Got a Meade ETX-70, the computerised GOTO mounted thingy. I bought it cheap at an auction and the optics are pretty depressing to look through. I usually piggyback a digicam on it for simple astrophotography and never even look through the eyepiece. Also have a 125mm F\10 refractor. I need to build a decent mount for it - I have dark skies where I live but it's often windy and the current mount can't cope.
  19. The bin contains all the things I forgot to put on their craft - like landing gear, parachutes, retro engines - that kind of stuff
  20. I did see it, but I was too young to really understand the full significance of what I was watching. By the time the Apollo program was winding down though I was obsessed with spaceflight and astronomy and have been ever since.
  21. Long baseline interferometry space telescope for directly imaging extra solar planets. Missions to Jupiter and Saturns moons. Explore possibility of mining on the moon and the asteroid belt. Identify Kerbin and send mission to request Jebs help...
  22. I've watched most of them on YouTube. Even though I've read a lot about Apollo they were still entertaining. The YouTube comments from conspiracy nuts aren't so entertaining so I never scroll down to look now...
  23. I like that one as well Lego. In fact I like all the suggestions so much that I am going to start over and incorporate them. Thanks.
×
×
  • Create New...