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David: please don’t recycle them. I would be happy to collect but I am off to La Palma in a couple of days, returning Easter-ish, so can’t do anything any time soon. If others want them, please give them priority.
BTW, I have a bunch of BAA Handbook back issues which are free to a good home. They are duplicates of my main collection which is essentially complete back to the 1940s. If anyone may be able to fill gaps, please let me know.
Paul
I also thought the same as Bill.
But soon realised it couldn’t be because of its angle and direction in the sky.
I may be naive, but I thought that sporadics could come from any direction at any time.
If that is the case, I don’t see why one shouldn’t masquerade as a shower meteor.
That said, I am very far from being an expert in these matters and welcome comments from those who are.
(Yes, I agree with the analysis that it was not a Quadrantid.)
Well, the Earth didn’t move for me, darling, unlike 2021 when some of the tremors went over Richter 3.0.
I don’t have precise figures to hand right now but impressions are that 2023 wasn’t so much different than the previous couple of years. Cloud was much better than in the UK but calima (hot air bringing dust directly from the Sahara) was as objectionable as ever. In the summer the calima heat was so bad that the camera’s Peltier cooler couldn’t maintain -10C and the mount controller would crash somewhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes after starting. The latter was eventually kludged around with an old 4″, 12V fan held on with cable ties.
For TheSky error with PHD you need to run TheSky one-time-only “As Administrator” so that TheSky’s automation interface is registered with Windows.
…
Assuming the above steps fix the problem reboot the computer and carry out a manual “check for Windows updates” from the Windows Settings tool to ensure the Windows Update service is working properly.That was it! Discovered it myself a long time ago by trial and error, which is why it was both familiar and not immediately to mind.
My TCS has had Windows Update switched off in a hard-wired registry setting, so WU never works even when explicitly asked for. That way a working system doesn’t get munged by Microsoft into a non-working one. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. I am not concerned with security vulnerabilities as it is a dedicated system and heavily protected with multiple levels of firewalls. A simple web search will tell you how to follow suit should you wish.
Paul
This looks very familiar but I just can’t put my finger on it right now. I’ll think about it and get back to you.
I do love a good religious argument, which is why I will jump in feet first.
Like many, I think taxonomy is very important. There is room, IMO, for the taxonomic term “planet”. Think biology, where “genus” has a rather well defined meaning. Biology also has species and sub-species.
In my view the adjectives “terrestrial”, “ice-giant”, “super-earth”, “sub-neptune”, “dwarf”, “binary” and “satellite” are all species or sub-species of planet, as are many others.
Ceres is a dwarf planet. Venus is a terrestrial planet, Ganymede is a dwarf satellite planet, as are Luna and Charon. All are planets.
Planetologists, as opposed to astrophysicists, appear to agree with this taxonomy.
Compare Felis catus and Felis sylvestris, each of which live in the UK. Both are Felids.
Returning to the young members issue: I do not have a solution, far from it, but I am a member of the Cambridge Astronomical Association.
The CAA has a very thriving and active membership, many of whom are youthful by the standards of other local societies, let alone the BAA. They appeal to primary schoolchildren as well as those a very few decades older.
One could do much worse than to contact the CAA committee to see how they manage it. Their website is at https://www.cambridgeastronomicalassociation.com/ and I could provide introductions to a few of their people on (off-forum) request.
My personal view: I’m divided. I became an old age perisher this year but I am virtually certain never to be eligible for honorary membership unless the medics make astounding advances in longevity research. I can see, though, that those members with over 40 years continuous membership might be justifiably aggrieved if recognition of their long service was arbitrarily removed.
On balance, I believe that the best way forward would be to recognize longevity with a physical badge (gold tie pin has been suggested) rather than a financial reward. Honorary membership would continue in name but the subscription model simplified and the Association’s finances improved.
Please see https://britastro.org/observations/observation.php?id=20231213_165900_046f8d7b41dfcd8f
Not as impressive as Nick’s image but the nova had already faded to mag 21 by then.
Thanks Wayne – I saw your latest note on ARPS’ groups.io
As did I. In particular the longer period is now completely ruled out.
Reviewing this thread, I noticed that no-one had spotted the obvious answer to my professionals bugging amateurs quip.
What will likely happen is that everyone will send out to the local hardware shop for a big enough piece of plywood to cover the aperture and then cut a small diameter hole in it.
Nick: sure but as Grant points out, paying for a Windows license costs more than the underlying hardware. Emulation costs a great deal in performance too.
I’m agnostic. I run ARM and 86 architectures. I presently run Linux, Windows, MacOS and Android. In the past I’ve used CP/M, George 3, VME/B, MS-DOS, RSTS/E, RT-11, VAX/VMS, a whole bunch of Unices, and more which don’t spring immediately to mind.
Horses for courses.
If you insist on running Windows your options will be limited.
Arm-based single board computers like the Raspberry Pi and the Odroid are very small(only a little bigger than a credit card), take very little power (a few watts) and yet are thoroughly capable of running observatory control software, including schedulers for unattended observations. Even better, essentially all the software required is free.
Sometimes, in my opinion, it is worth going outside one’s comfort zone. An investment of £100 or less will let you explore without breaking the bank.
Shouldn’t it possible to extract useful information from the sky background in the photometrically calibrated images and spectra we take ? If so there could already be a huge (untapped ?) historical source of data covering a range of passbands, locations, air mass and atmospheric conditions
Cheers
RobinThat is a damned good idea! I alone have over 30,000 images neatly catalogued, most of which contain little but stellar images so determining the background sky brightness should be possible.
The FITS headers of mine not only have RA, Dec and time recorded, they also have altitude and azimuth (admittedly easily computed from the first three) so more than just air mass is available – the distribution over the sky, such as city lights, can also be determined. About the only thing I don’t have recorded is the weather condition at the time of exposure but perhaps there are other public records of that too.
