@grant-privett
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Registered: 10 years, 4 months ago
I've been doing astronomy for 50 years (eek), so I am probably not giving it up any time soon. Astronomy has changed and over time my interests have evolved from planetary observing, into meteors, through variable stars and, most recently, to the deep sky. These days I'm especially interested in imaging of various sorts, but find making pretty pictures increasingly dull. Its just not a challenge anymore - and if you don't catch the detail an AI can fake it for you. I generally use a 300mm f4 Newtonian on an EQ6 and Starlight SX694 camera from a site in Wiltshire near the Dorset border where the sky is mag 21. Fortunately, given the UK weather, I like programming and so write my own code to run a Starlight camera and interface it with TheSkyX software. I want to make the most out of every night. I've also taught myself Python 3, which is useful, but the language is a mess and was designed by an idiot. But several libraries exist that make it a useful tool. My current software project is trying to automate a lot of my variable star data reduction, while my observing interest is in seeing how far a 300mm can be pushed and, monitoring a few variable nebulae.
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