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I was delivering to Machynlleth a few years and had no idea what the loop was, i stopped in a layby for a coffee


flip me....




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_Loop

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Lived in Ffestiniog 30 years ago and had ambulance workup and down to Bangor+Llandudno, used the Llanberis pass route, often looked down on RAF fighters but not to this extent...


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10412257

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Don't know if I've actually seen any of Tusk's, but being seeing lots of satellites on my late-night/early-morning walks recently.

Helps that's there's been some spectacularly clear and cloudless nights recently, and there's not much light pollution from street lights here (although the glow from Dundee and Edinburgh in particular does spoil the horizon view a bit). And the moon's disappeared for a couple of weeks or so - a bright moon makes it a lot more difficult to see things like satellites

But for anyone who hasn't seen a satellite in the night sky (the International Space Station is the best known one for looking out for), they basically look like slow-moving stars. And because they're simply reflecting light off the sun, they can often shine very brightly for a few seconds - I think that's like catching a mirror the right way and the reflection is suddenly a lot brighter. Also, they may fade from view - I think that's when they move into the earth's shadow - they're being 'eclipsed', basically.

And I think the reason you can see so many of them at the moment is because the sun is never far below the horizon, so any passing satellite will be more likely to reflect the light from the sun. Of course, the related problem in this regard is that soon the sky will only be very dark for a couple of hours a night, and for a few weeks won't get properly dark at all, although it won't be so bad for those in the south of England - I'm a bit closer to the 'land of the midnight sun' up here

And the moon will soon be back as well - don't get me started on the moon while I'm trying to do my stargazing


I'm no expert, but think you'll need some quite expensive kit to take half-decent astronomy photos.

Although one of the top-end mobile phones I read about recently is being marketed specifically to take astronomy photos, but not really sure how good it is

best so far

10 sec. f/18 18 mm

ISO 1600

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Cool

Take it that's Venus shining brightly mid-photo, there?

Just been looking at some YouTube videos to see if I can use my phone for some astrophotograpy.

Answer seems to be yes, but a tripod seems to be a necessity, and I don't have one

But looking at those videos, shouldn't your f-number be a lot lower than 18, in fact the lowest setting available?

Meanwhile, I'll have to work out how to change the settings on my phone away from autoshoot

Ah, yes, that *is* Venus in the middle there.

I can see the Seven Sisters/Pleiades star cluster just above the tree there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades



And the constellation Auriga towards the top of the photo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auriga_(constellation)