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Post by howie1 on Jul 25, 2016 1:51:47 GMT
Have only seen a couple (Don and Mark) broadcasting lately. (Not every day or second day like used to.) The last post on NSN.com forum was Ken back on 15 July. The Facebook NSN page also seems to have much less activity going on. Few posters, few likes and even fewer comments. Even posts on CN seem to be all about Night Vision and not VA. Is the Brexit and China slowdown to blame? (I notice some REALLY expensive kit going up for sale on IceInSpace recently!). Have the elections totally dumbed our desire to live? Is the weather bad everywhere? (The weather here has been rain, wind and cloud for a month and only clears up beautifully at the exact same time as full moon! LOL) Or are we all "over" posting, and are now actually getting out there for ourselves to enjoy the Night skies with cameras and software that finally seem to work simply and get great results? Just musing ... that's all
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bobbycloud
Member
Posts: 53
home town/country: Odessa, TX United States
time zone gmt +/-: -6 Central
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Post by bobbycloud on Jul 25, 2016 2:00:01 GMT
Have only seen a couple (Don and Mark) broadcasting lately. (Not every day or second day like used to.) The last post on NSN.com forum was Ken back on 15 July. The Facebook NSN page also seems to have much less activity going on. Few posters, few likes and even fewer comments. Even posts on CN seem to be all about Night Vision and not VA. Is the Brexit and China slowdown to blame? (I notice some REALLY expensive kit going up for sale on IceInSpace recently!). Have the elections totally dumbed our desire to live? Is the weather bad everywhere? (The weather here has been rain, wind and cloud for a month and only clears up beautifully at the exact same time as full moon! LOL) Or are we all "over" posting, and are now actually getting out there for ourselves to enjoy the Night skies with cameras and software that finally seem to work simply and get great results? Just musing ... that's all Howie I have been re-vamping my set-up, before that we had unusual cloudy or super hazy weather. I have caught Rock, Connie, and Jack on NSN
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Post by Dragon Man on Jul 25, 2016 2:25:42 GMT
I totally agree Howie, it has been very quiet for a while. But by reading the few posts being made in several forums the common theme seems to be weather.
It's too damn cold and cloudy down here in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's too hot up in the Northern Hemisphere. Both Summer and Winter come with their Astronomy problems, but Spring ad Autumn are usually when the Forums get busy again with images and observing logs.
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 25, 2016 4:58:19 GMT
+1 Bad weather july. Last week was up holidaying on the sunshine coast. And now back home fighting with my mount. Bad backlash on dec axis - just can't seem to fix it. Aghhhhh.
But is strange. Even the forums are quiet.
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Post by davy on Jul 25, 2016 5:59:59 GMT
Combination of elements for myself,summertime in scotland so we are getting rain,lol.fair bit of cloud kicking around and it doesn't get bark enough till around 12 midnight,but with working it is too late for me too start setting up week nights and weekends seem to have poor weather,hopefully this autumn will be better weather.
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Post by Dragon Man on Jul 25, 2016 6:37:31 GMT
Going to snow here tonight. It's 4:30pm now and we are already getting snowy rain. The strong wind is like ice cutting right through you Geez it's a miserable day. Shevill down in Tasmania would be getting snow again too. They've had a few days of it lately. I hope he is keeping warm.
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 25, 2016 7:45:50 GMT
Okay. I might try and broadcast a bit tonight on NSN, intermittently. Silent as I'll be sharing the living room, so use the chat box to say hello
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 25, 2016 10:20:53 GMT
Sorry. I gave up after a while sharpcap kept crashing when i was running the broadcast tool
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Post by Rick in NWArk on Jul 25, 2016 14:23:53 GMT
NSN didn't really have a forum before Joe's new version and the forum Davy & Ken created. I don't think the broadcasters really took to it like many expected. I think there is some back-end communication between the broadcasters instead of using the NSN forum, as they seem to know when they are getting online. But like you said, I've noticed fewer and fewer.
The Facebook page was very active leading up to the rollout of the new version, but has not had as much activity and from my perspective, less live video snapshots and more posts that are more like imaging with larger stacks of longer exposures.
Speaking of that, one thing to consider is that a lot of "video astronomy" has moved into stacking, with a lot of people following up with post processing. This means a lot more time between posting results, versus taking snapshots of multiple objects in an evening and posting them with no touch-ups.
For me, weather has been a bane. During the summer, I can't really do much during weeknights anyway, because it doesn't get dark until late. I skipped a clear night this weekend because the heat index was still 95 degrees at 9pm. But most of my weekend nights have been cloudy this year - so far. I have been noticing Howie's efforts in time lapse photography with much interest.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Jul 25, 2016 17:42:58 GMT
Since Saturday, the sky has been less than ideal. But I had some technical issues on my last outing (Friday). My Ultrastar's driver API wouldn't load into Windows so Starlight Live wouldn't see the camera. Windows was complaining about not enough system resources. When I got home to troubleshoot it further, it worked after a restart (did a restart in the field to no avail).
I had the ZWO ASI185MC in my finder that I moved to primary duty, but without a finder, it was difficult to know whether or not I was near the object. I should pack the red dot finder just in case for future outings. It's not great but it's better than nothing.
This week, I have a new-to-me AVX mount on the way (along with the clouds it's dragging with it). I picked it up on Astromart for $740 shipped. It comes with a fairly new-in-the-box Starsense (he said it was used 3 times) and a polar scope. I figure the Starsense is worth about $250-$280 on the used market so I got the AVX for about $450 - $490. I was thinking about getting a Starsense for the 130SLT mount anyway. Precise Goto works pretty well but some say that the Starsense improves the goto even more. This way, I can try it out.
It's supposed to be here on Wednesday. I know I'm going to want to set it up and play with it so I've been keeping the Astronomy stuff low key for the wife's sake. She doesn't want to be an astronomy widow.
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Post by fondofchips on Jul 25, 2016 18:29:24 GMT
Not just the seemingly permanent cloud cover but I'm busy building a home brew electric bicycle. All was going well until I bought a Chinese battery strip welder, well it nearly burnt out the extension lead it was plugged into as well. Lasted such a short time returning it was no problem as I still had the packaging! So I found some DIY battery welder plans and I'm busy building that too. Typically the EU limits an electric bike to 250 watts and 15mph. If I get my electric bike right it will do around 30 mph. The knack here is not to use the power too much on public roads and keep pedalling, as bikes with more than legal power are classed as full road vehicles and need road tax, insurance etc.
On the Astronomy front I've had a couple of sessions recently but need to go through all the setting up videos again with a long session. The Mallincam Extreme has worked well in the past but I'm in need of some more practice. Weather has been good here recently, but the nights are short at this time of year.
Still plodding on, and no Brexit is not to blame.
Clear skies to all.
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Post by Rick in NWArk on Jul 25, 2016 20:47:11 GMT
Since Saturday, the sky has been less than ideal. But I had some technical issues on my last outing (Friday). My Ultrastar's driver API wouldn't load into Windows so Starlight Live wouldn't see the camera. Windows was complaining about not enough system resources. When I got home to troubleshoot it further, it worked after a restart (did a restart in the field to no avail). I had the ZWO ASI185MC in my finder that I moved to primary duty, but without a finder, it was difficult to know whether or not I was near the object. I should pack the red dot finder just in case for future outings. It's not great but it's better than nothing. This week, I have a new-to-me AVX mount on the way (along with the clouds it's dragging with it). I picked it up on Astromart for $740 shipped. It comes with a fairly new-in-the-box Starsense (he said it was used 3 times) and a polar scope. I figure the Starsense is worth about $250-$280 on the used market so I got the AVX for about $450 - $490. I was thinking about getting a Starsense for the 130SLT mount anyway. Precise Goto works pretty well but some say that the Starsense improves the goto even more. This way, I can try it out. It's supposed to be here on Wednesday. I know I'm going to want to set it up and play with it so I've been keeping the Astronomy stuff low key for the wife's sake. She doesn't want to be an astronomy widow. Robert, that's a fantastic deal on a really good mount & accessory.
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Post by howie1 on Jul 26, 2016 2:41:24 GMT
Hmmm, I started this thread and now I am going offline a bit! Still cloudy here in Brissie. I see Ken's area had strong winds and snow again ... and that cloud and cold has already traveled up my way as it is streaming overhead as I type this post! Daughters birthday soon, so I am driving up to the mid west of the state to Clermont where my daughter and partner live. Taking my fav 200P, HEQ5 Pro, Canon and Macbook as it will (hopefully) be clear out west! Also heading to Opal (a town on the Queensland gem-fields famous for ... Opals!) hope to scratch around and strike it rich! LOL. Then back down the coast road to visit some friends in Rocky (Rockhampton) and then Bribie island just off the coast to see another mate whose retired too, and now looks after his Mum in her old age. So about 2 weeks or so touring around. No new scopes on the horizon for me. Quite happy with my kit. Envious of robrj's deals though! Matter of fact, when I get back I am going to sell off all the scopes and stuff I have accumulated, except for the 200p, heq5 pro. The rest can go. Interesting project Harry is doing there with the eBike. I nearly bought a commercial one the other day and thought better of it given the expenses of the forthcoming tour of the north-west of the state. We got the same laws in Oz re max power and speed 'cept even the commercial mob I looked at sold a 500W 35-45km/hr version! Cheers Everyone! Wishing you all warmer, clearer weather if in Oz, cooler clearer less fires if in USA & Canada, clearer weather for a few months if in UK and Euro.
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 26, 2016 6:27:38 GMT
Sounds like a serious clearout Howie. Sell it all then you can get an infinity. Or maybe you will hit a rich vein of opals ?
Have a good time !
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Post by Dragon Man on Jul 26, 2016 16:13:05 GMT
NSN didn't really have a forum before Joe's new version and the forum Davy & Ken created. I don't think the broadcasters really took to it like many expected. I think there is some back-end communication between the broadcasters instead of using the NSN forum, as they seem to know when they are getting online. But like you said, I've noticed fewer and fewer. The Facebook page was very active leading up to the rollout of the new version, but has not had as much activity and from my perspective, less live video snapshots and more posts that are more like imaging with larger stacks of longer exposures. Speaking of that, one thing to consider is that a lot of "video astronomy" has moved into stacking, with a lot of people following up with post processing. This means a lot more time between posting results, versus taking snapshots of multiple objects in an evening and posting them with no touch-ups. For me, weather has been a bane. During the summer, I can't really do much during weeknights anyway, because it doesn't get dark until late. I skipped a clear night this weekend because the heat index was still 95 degrees at 9pm. But most of my weekend nights have been cloudy this year - so far. I have been noticing Howie's efforts in time lapse photography with much interest. You hit the nail on the head Rick. I am really disappointed at the way the NSN Forum has gone. - 238 members as of today - new members joining almost daily - approx only 1 post made every 7 days!!! (the last post was by me 12 days ago!!!!!) - an average of only 8 members visiting per day (usually the same 8 each day). Wow, great support! They all seem to want to join, but never participate, or even visit. The Forum has really become a waste of time and effort. And Yes Rick, the Facebook page has turned into an Imaging group, but that seems to be the way Video Astronomy is going in several places like Cloudy Nights, and some others. I am rapidly losing interest in even visiting the other sites now, the way Video Astronomy is changing into Imaging. Even with Cloudy Night's strict rules in the EAA section there are more and more images being posted in the gallery of post-processed heavily stacked Images. Completely against the new rules posted by Moderators recently. Yet it goes unchallenged by the Mods. Weird.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Jul 26, 2016 17:01:43 GMT
You hit the nail on the head Rick. I am really disappointed at the way the NSN Forum has gone. - 238 members as of today - new members joining almost daily - approx only 1 post made every 7 days!!! (the last post was by me 12 days ago!!!!!) - an average of only 8 members visiting per day (usually the same 8 each day). Wow, great support! They all seem to want to join, but never participate, or even visit. The Forum has really become a waste of time and effort. And Yes Rick, the Facebook page has turned into an Imaging group, but that seems to be the way Video Astronomy is going in several places like Cloudy Nights, and some others. I am rapidly losing interest in even visiting the other sites now, the way Video Astronomy is changing into Imaging. Even with Cloudy Night's strict rules in the EAA section there are more and more images being posted in the gallery of post-processed heavily stacked Images. Completely against the new rules posted by Moderators recently. Yet it goes unchallenged by the Mods. Weird. I think the reason NSN's forum has so many registered users is you have to register to even look at it. Then when I saw there's nothing there, I just never went back. If I could have seen there was nothing there without registering, I would have just skipped it. For CN, I don't really have a problem with processed images as long as it's mentioned that they're processed. I do sometimes touch mine up a bit by stretching or adjusting contrast. I haven't had to do that with the Ultrastar. I personally think CN's definition is too restrictive. The topic is restricted to fit the equipment category, which it has clearly outgrown. I think that's an unnecessary burden. I consider even video astronomy as imaging. One of Webster's definitions of the word "Image" is "a visual representation of something: as (1) : a likeness of an object produced on a photographic material (2) : a picture produced on an electronic display (as a television or computer screen) " We're generating an electronic image, even if We're not saving it. So we are imaging. Just because photographers also use the word, doesn't mean we're not doing the same. They're just processing the crap out of it. Plus, now-a-days, stacking software is improving so much that even it is bluring the line with automated processing. So even if the viewer never touches the image, it can still be considered processed. The definition is becoming irrelevant and somewhat arbitrary.
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Post by davy on Jul 26, 2016 17:36:55 GMT
Have to agree with what's been said about nsn forum we as a group set up after being asked by joe,,I backed away from it as I was frustrated by the way it was being used,as we all see imaging and video are nearly joint at the hip now with software manipulation,and an imaging section was incorporated into nsn forum but alas it never took off the way we all thought it would,various reasons we have heard,,too difficult to work,,,yip near wet myself with that one,,,for a group of folk who have hundreds and thousands of pounds worth of equipment that can image galaxies and deep sky objects and give you detailed breakdowns on the latest cameras and sensors,,,oops excuse me while I climb back on my chair fell off with laughing... :-) .. There are lots of forums covering astronomy,sgl,cloudy nights and all have there followers and hell I look at the posts as well,, there is vast knowledge to be picked up on these sites,and here we do our own we thing,, video astronomy ,,just what it says on the tin,, but we are all now asking the question what is video astronomy today ..and with that lets have a discussion thread about it.
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 26, 2016 22:19:03 GMT
The problem as i see it with the NSN forum is that we already have the avf forum. The forum part of nsn seems like a duplication - other than for broadcasting. Why duplicate threads on nsn when avf is already there ?
And i still can't get the NSN broadcasting tool to work properly !@#$/^&!!
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Post by Dragon Man on Jul 27, 2016 10:40:17 GMT
The problem as i see it with the NSN forum is that we already have the avf forum. The forum part of nsn seems like a duplication - other than for broadcasting. Why duplicate threads on nsn when avf is already there ? And i still can't get the NSN broadcasting tool to work properly !@#$/^&!! The NSN Forum exists because Joe, the owner of NSN, asked us to make him a Forum for NSN users. We did. And now it's not used.
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Post by Dragon Man on Jul 27, 2016 10:56:42 GMT
You hit the nail on the head Rick. I am really disappointed at the way the NSN Forum has gone. - 238 members as of today - new members joining almost daily - approx only 1 post made every 7 days!!! (the last post was by me 12 days ago!!!!!) - an average of only 8 members visiting per day (usually the same 8 each day). Wow, great support! They all seem to want to join, but never participate, or even visit. The Forum has really become a waste of time and effort. And Yes Rick, the Facebook page has turned into an Imaging group, but that seems to be the way Video Astronomy is going in several places like Cloudy Nights, and some others. I am rapidly losing interest in even visiting the other sites now, the way Video Astronomy is changing into Imaging. Even with Cloudy Night's strict rules in the EAA section there are more and more images being posted in the gallery of post-processed heavily stacked Images. Completely against the new rules posted by Moderators recently. Yet it goes unchallenged by the Mods. Weird. I think the reason NSN's forum has so many registered users is you have to register to even look at it. Then when I saw there's nothing there, I just never went back. If I could have seen there was nothing there without registering, I would have just skipped it. For CN, I don't really have a problem with processed images as long as it's mentioned that they're processed. I do sometimes touch mine up a bit by stretching or adjusting contrast. I haven't had to do that with the Ultrastar. I personally think CN's definition is too restrictive. The topic is restricted to fit the equipment category, which it has clearly outgrown. I think that's an unnecessary burden. I consider even video astronomy as imaging. One of Webster's definitions of the word "Image" is "a visual representation of something: as (1) : a likeness of an object produced on a photographic material (2) : a picture produced on an electronic display (as a television or computer screen) " We're generating an electronic image, even if We're not saving it. So we are imaging. Just because photographers also use the word, doesn't mean we're not doing the same. They're just processing the crap out of it. Plus, now-a-days, stacking software is improving so much that even it is bluring the line with automated processing. So even if the viewer never touches the image, it can still be considered processed. The definition is becoming irrelevant and somewhat arbitrary. Rob, in camera stacking, or with programs like SharpCap stacking, isn't the problem. As long as it's done on-the-fly it's fine. Where the problem lies is when the stacking is done in post-processing. That is purely Imaging. The whole 'original' point of the Video Astronomy section (or 'EAA' as CN likes to call it) was to show what these cameras can see 'Live'. It has wandered away from that lately. It's not a matter of the rules being too restrictive. It's a matter of: if I want to buy a 'Live' observing camera, where do I look for examples? In the EAA section you would think. But more and more there are results posted after post-processing and stacking in programs like Registax. Yes, the posters admit they used Registax. So, they should post their results in the Imaging sections. The way it is going I can see CN Admin closing down the EAA section as it is now blurring into the Imaging section. The whole point of the EAA section is about 'Observing' with a camera. Not post-processing what you saw. There are several other sections post-processed images can be posted in. Posting them in the EAA section defeats the need for the EAA section, which is supposed to be about the 'Observing' with cameras. It's great to post images to show what we saw 'Near-Live'. But once it is saved then fiddled with it isn't showing anyone what the camera can see Near-Live. It shows how good the user can save and process images. I am not against anyone using their cameras to do Imaging by using post-processing. But the results should be posted in the right sections. Not the EAA section. To be honest, most broadcasts these days bore the hell out of me. Before cameras like the Infinity and some others came along everything was near-live. Now, the image stays up for 10 - 15 minutes while we wait to "watch it grow and develop" as some say. Snore
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