Steve Knight

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Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 34 total)
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  • in reply to: Bad eclipse viewing advice #622160
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Agree totally Nick. Well reputable as far as IAU is concerned!

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    in reply to: Bad eclipse viewing advice #622141
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Book is 2001 and by a very reputable author. Corona not bright, had to increase my cameras exposure in 2017 to capture it properly. Video best viewed with audio.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vxnXFjRUzs&t=81s

    in reply to: Eclipses and Transits #617813
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Dominic, I did ask Alan Bean about this image in 2013. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-12-sees-a-solar-eclipse Forgive the name dropping! He complained how little time Mission Control gave them to get cameras ready.

    in reply to: Penny Mordaunt #611466
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Good point and well made Alan! 🙂

    in reply to: Video observations #608638
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Hi Dominic, thenks, that was very useful. After some extreme compression and cropping I managed to produce <2MB GIFs. It was a challenge but I did it! Thanks for changing the formatting on the vimeo link. I have now figured out how to do it! Steve

    in reply to: Video observations #608606
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Hi Dominic,

    Thanks for the kind words about the videos. I have a lot more of those, just trying to extract the interesting stuff.

    I have tried including a Vimeo link in the description of an image but it does not appear as a hyperlink, one has to copy and paste the URL into your browser if you want to view it.

    I guess that is a necessary security feature?

    Cheers

    Steve

    in reply to: BAA Christmas Meeting #584995
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    I was there and really enjoyed myself.  Excellent talks and Nick James’s Sky Notes up to his already high standard.  It was great to see everyone again.  Maybe somewhere else in the Multiverse the “two ladies” are referred to as Prof Heymans and Prof Russell.

    in reply to: Winchester Weekend 50th, April 2016 #584044
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Great pictures Pauline. My fat twin brother Dwight had a good time.

    in reply to: The Dig #583896
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    I think I got lucky, bought the 1932 edition from Amazon for £42 in January.

    Steve

    in reply to: Carbon fiber tube OTA skeleton tube #582819
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    I can’t give you practical advice but I have a background with lasers.  Historically many used Invar (Nickel / Iron alloy) rods for laser resonators because of low thermal coefficient of expansion.   Many companies switched to carbon composites as lower CTE and much lighter.  Found this paper which might be of interest. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241529927_Long-term_and_thermal_instability_of_carboncarbon_composite

    in reply to: Crew Dragon launch #582501
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Well my forecast is looking good for tonight.  Let’s hope no launch delays.

    in reply to: Crew Dragon launch #582305
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    No breach of causality, the relevance of the ISS pass is that they’ll be on way to same orbit so their path will be same (subject to rotation of Earth over 25 min).  I did see an unmanned Dragon on way to ISS last July, it was fairly spectacular you could see thrusters firing.  Not as spectacular as the 2009 STS128 launch.  Watched it live then went outside and watched the shuttle Discovery and its external fuel tank pass over, they’d just seperated.

    in reply to: Winchester Weekend, Sparsholt, April 2016 #582227
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Managed to obtain a flux capacitor and flared trousers.  Heading to 1975 for weekend.

    Program looks fantastic.

    in reply to: Winchester Weekend, Sparsholt, April 2016 #582216
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Perhaps we should all crowd fund a new jacket for Alan for 2021?

    It’s the least we could do after the stress he’s suffered!

    in reply to: Imaging onto a Mac… #581912
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Hi,

    I started off using my ancient Macbook Pro with an ASI120MC-S camera.

    I used oaCapture, it is fairly good although I have now switched to Windows and use Firecapture which I prefer.

    I don’t know about compatibility with your camera.  Suggest you give it a try.

    https://www.openastroproject.org/oacapture/

    Thanks

    Steve

    in reply to: Vermin of the Skies #581789
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Given the location, number and that they were moving slowly geostationary satellites is my guess. 

    in reply to: LASER experiments and spectral calibration #581609
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Hugh, I’m just impressed that you had actually measured it.  Not surprised though, just impressed!  Also very relieved that my guesstimate was not so far off!

    in reply to: Samyang 500mm f6.3 DX mirror lens #581607
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    in reply to: Samyang 500mm f6.3 DX mirror lens #581606
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    Have no experience with the Samyang lens but I have an Opteka 500mm f8 mirror lens and for £85 new on Amazon very happy.  2012 solar eclipse.

    in reply to: LASER experiments and spectral calibration #581605
    Steve Knight
    Participant

    The red laser pointers you see are laser diodes, wavelength not particularly well characterised, it varies with operating temperature, ~0.25 nm / deg.  I would recommend a green laser, these are normally diode pumped solid state lasers.  Wavelength always 532nm, determined by energy levels in Neodymium rather than band gaps in a semiconductor.  Blue lasers are diode lasers as well so again wavelength not well characterised.  An old style red gas laser would be good, these are Helium Neon lasers, wavelength always 632.8nm.

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 34 total)