@leece is particularly grumpy that her Dwarf3 was convinced that it was already below the horizon.
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Last night we went down to Scarborough Beach, and hunted for C/2024 G3 Atlas - the current brightest comet.
It was still to close to the sun to see in the glare, but a bit after sunset my Dwarf3 had just enough dark to calibrate, and picked it up just 1 degree above the horizon!
The telescope had just enough time to snap 10 frames and stack them.
[#]c2024g3 #comet #astrodon #astrophotography #astronomy #dwarf3
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[#]WordWeavers 1/12: If you needed companions to start a rebellion, which of your characters would you choose?
Gwen and Grey would be two good options - a mage and a shape-shifting dragon are always a good starting point.
And Tannis and Ashwan are doing a pretty good job, although really it is their squadron-mates that are doing the heavy lifting.
So on the whole, I'll stick with Gwen and Grey.
[#]GwenAndGrey #CerianAndVaranWar
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Is there a way to perform logical operations on Mastodon searches?
For example searching for @randomuser AND #randomhashtag ?
In the ideal world, at least AND, OR, and NOT.
[#]MastodonHelp #TechQuestion
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In the #Codenames app, you get to progress through various offices, starting with a downtown apartment. Later, one of them features someone dusting where there are no crops.
[#]CGE #BoardGames
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I really want to see a movie about a chocolate sculpture of a raptor.
Maybe with a crunchy bit in the middle.
[#]movies #dadjoke #joke #chocolate
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Aurora alert for Western Australia, including Perth!
We took this shot about 30 minutes ago from Como!
This also answers the question "Can a Dwarf3 image the aurora?". And the answer is "yes".
[#]AuroraAustralis #astrophotography #astronomy #ItsHappening #MysteriousLights #PerthWesternAustralia #Dwarf3
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Last night we (myself, @leece , and her mum) saw in the New Year with a star party for family and friends.
To make it as accessible as possible, we found a park in Como that is almost completely dark, despite being only a couple of kilometres from the CBD. Adjacent to this park is the Como Croquet Club, so we hired their clubhouse as a base of operations.
Two days before, we got a panicked message from the club, asking if their members could have a gathering of their own - which was fine with us, as long as they did not want to turn on the field lights. So we had twenty odd people turn up, along with about the same number of Croquet Club members. As it turns out, the son of one of my workmates played in high school, and got his family into playing a game, much to the delight of the rather elderly club members.
We started proceedings with a couple of shots of the sun and the current sunspots (Me: "This is what it looks like right now!" 16yo daughter of a work mate: "Well, actually it's what it looked like 18 minutes ago." Me: Applause), and then ate dinner while waiting for the sky to go dark. At 8pm, we got our Dwarf3s aligned, and synchronised their schedules for the night. Then we fired up the DwarfIIs, got them running on some ad-hoc targets, and called everyone out, including many of the Croquet Club members, who were also interested.
We opened with some spectacular views of the Orion Nebula, the Sculptor Galaxy, and the Horsehead Nebula. We also started on a shot the Helix Nebula. Most targets we scheduled 30 minutes for, before the Dwarf3s would move on to new targets.
Aiding us in our explanation of what was on display was @ariaflame , a physicist from Murdoch Uni, and a good friend. We talked about the way clusters and nebulae are formed, how stars aged, and just how far everything is.
Around 8:30, the last of our guests arrived - workmate and Perth Observatory volunteer (and former professional astronomer) Steve Ewing, who had with him a 10" traditional telescope. By about 9pm he had it up and running, and was showing off Saturn and Jupiter, which are too small for our smart telescopes to resolve meaningfully. Steve's enthusiastic explanations of planetary dynamics were a highlight of the evening.
Sadly, as 10pm rolled around the sprinkler systems on the oval started up, and we had to rapidly tear everything down before they reached us. As Leece said - "Rain stopped play."
Despite this, it seems that everyone enjoyed themselves, and we got some great images to share with everyone after.
And that is how we saw in 2025.
[#]astronomy #StarParty #Astrodon #NYE2024 #Astrophotography #2025 #dwarf3 #dwarfII #SmartTelescope
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Happy New Year from Borloo (Perth).
Here is a shot of the Orion Nebula for this evening's Star party.
May the coming year be better than the last.
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Difficult to observe with an optical telescope, Barnard 33 - better known as The Horsehead Nebula - is a dark dust cloud overlaying the HII bright nebula IC434. To view it directly normally requires very dark skies, clear air, a large (14" or larger) telescope, and an Hb or Ha filter, making it one of the more challenging objects to observe.
For the Traveller fans, it is 422 parsecs away - or about 70 weeks if you could take a direct Jump 6 path to it. It is also just under 1 parsec across - that's a 1 hex object. IC434 is less than a parsec behind it, and is over 4 parsecs across, making it a 4 hex object. Nebulae are one thing (of many) that Traveller tends to gloss over, simply because they are so huge! There is also the matter of such regions being star nurseries, typically with ten or more stars within a single hex. These will all be too young to have any planets, let alone habitable ones!
Back to the real world, though.
With Electronically Assisted Astronomy - in this case provided by a Dwarf3 smart telescope - it becomes an easy object to capture. A mere 37mm lens and a built-in Ha/OIII filter gave a visible image within a few minutes, and an hour of stacked images provided this view.
Dwarf3, 57x60s@80 Dual-band filter. Post processed in Snapseed and Google Photos to bring out the colour and details.
[#]Astrodon #Astrophotography #Dwarf3 #SmartTelescope #Astronomy #TravellerRPG #Nebula #Barnard33
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I have a curious desire to try to replicate the Blakes 7 crews in Lego, using stock minifig components.
[#]lego #blakes7 #minifig #LegoMinifig
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I have identified the satellite at least! It is a Russian Glonass unit - Cosmos 2534.
[#]satellite #glonass #astrophotobomb
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Early this morning I took this shot of the Tarantula Nebula.
56x60s@80 on my Dwarf3.
I only stopped because of something weird.
The green line is clearly a satellite - not a problem. Annoying, but not a problem.
The question is "What are those broad red streaks?" They seem to have appeared in a single frame, and so were less than 60s in duration, but they are very broad. If all three were aligned, I'd say it was a passing jet, but the bottom one does not line up. Despite that they all parallel to each other. And to the satellite path.
Does anyone have any ideas?
[#]dwarf3 #tarantulaNebula #Astrodon #Astronomy #astrophotography
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There is also the running gag of "How do you hit someone with a Mac-10? Throw it at them," that particular machine pistol being infamously inaccurate.
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We all know the trope.
Someone fires their pistol at someone/thing and they/it keeps coming.
Eventually the shooter runs out of bullets, and just throws the empty gun.
Has there even been a movie where this has actually helped?
[#]movieQuestions #tropetalk #tropes
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So what can we all take away from this #Monsterdon ?
Aside from 1970s Colorado ski lodges being more than a little skeevy.
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I'm having trouble with "Crested Butte" sounds like it should be either a bird or something very obscene.
[#]monsterdon #snowbeast
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Last night it was blowing a gale, but I still managed a couple of hours on the Running Chicken Nebula with my Dwarf3.
260x15s@80 (I had to drop the exposure down from 60s because of the wind gusts vibrating the mount.)
Post processed in Google Photos to deepen shadows and a little sharpening and denoising.
[#]astronomy #astrophotography #Astrodon #Dwarf3 #GooglePhotos #Nebula #IC2944
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The headmistress stalked the halls of the school. One of the second grade teachers had reported that one of his students was missing, and had been present earlier in the day.
As she passed a storage cupboard, she heard a small noise and stopped. A quick check showed the door was locked. Interesting. A quick wave of her hand, and there was a "click". She opened the door.
Inside was the missing student, Britney Butler. She had clearly been crying, and her clothes suggested that she'd been manhandled into the cupboard, not climbing in.
"There you are, Miss Butler. Out you hop, and let's go and have a little chat."
"Mrs Aitkins ... I'm sorry, it ..."
"None of that now. Come along, you are not in any trouble."
The little girl climbed out, and the headmistress closed the door.
"This way, please". And started down the hall, with the little girl following.
She led Miss Butler to the cafeteria, and sat her down with a box of fruit juice.
"Now then, why don't you tell me what happened?"
The young girl looked worried "They said..."
"Never mind what they said, just tell me what happened", Mrs Aitkins said firmly, but kindly.
"It was three of the fourth-graders. They were making fun of my hair, and said I didn't deserve to be here."
"I see. Would those fourth graders happen to have perfect hair and teeth, and uniforms that are perfectly fitted to them."
The Britney nodded.
"I thought so." The headmistress looked at the child in her second-hand uniform, and her messy hair. The clothes had been expertly mended. By hand, if her eye was any good, and the little girl did not appear to be going hungry. She came to a decision, and waved her hand again, only this time a small figure appeared in the middle of the table.
"Oh! That's me!" Britney exclaimed.
"Look closer"
She did, and saw that it was not her - the hair had fooled her.
"Who is it, Mrs Aitkins?"
"That is me, when I was your age."
"But your hair! It is perfect!"
"Miss Butler, let me tell you something about your hair." Britney Butler looked a little lost at this change of subject, but nodded, because Headmistress. "My hair was just like yours. Until I got control of my magics. Then it obeyed me. Yours will obey you in time. But know this. Only the most powerful of mages have their bodies manifest their uncontrolled magics so young. You most definitely belong here."
"Do the fourth grade have control of their magic?"
"No. You won't get full control until grade eight or nine. Their hair is perfect because they don't have enough magic for it to play up."
Britney's jaw dropped.
"Now, finish up your juice, and let's get you back to class. You'll need to pay attention if you want to get that control."
The headmistress led a much more excited and happy Britney Butler back to her class.
[#]IAmWriting #SFF #SciFi #Fantasy #witches #School #Tootfic #Microfic
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We go back in time a bit for this snippet.
Earlier, in the briefing room Commander La Trous was all business. "We have a straight-forward mission today. Intel has located a major munitions dump, which their recon data strongly suggests contains fissile materials. Your mission will be to remove it from the map. Squadron Leader?"
"Sir!"
"You will lead a combined strike unit of five on this mission. You will transit to these co-ordinates", he indicated a series of numbers on a display, "descend to twenty thousand metres, deploy your missiles, and return to orbit. A follow up mission from Intel will determine if a return mission is required."
"Very good sir. Claire, Al, Fort, and Bennett. You are with me today. Fort, Bennett?"
"Yes Squadron Leader?"
"You'll be on interceptor duty. Claire and Al, along with myself will be on ground attack. You all have the jump coordinates in your pads?" There was a chorus of confirmations. "Sir?"
The base commander nodded "Carry on Ash. Dismissed."
The pilots left at a jog, heading for the hanger.
Read it all here: https://rdmasters.lympago.com/p/cerian-and-varan-war-story-in.html
[#]SFF #SciFi #SpaceOpera #IAmWriting #IAmWritingSF #CerianAndVaranWar
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