Notices by Richard Hendricks (hendric@astronomy.city), page 2

@thomasfuchs @malcircuit Wow, nice work! The latest scopes from Lunt Solar Systems are actually dual-use as night-time apos and daytime h-alphas. :D

@thomasfuchs @malcircuit I just got an Astro-Tech 90 CFT and been having a blast with it. So much nicer than my ancient LX200. Hoping to upgrade from a Canon SL1 to an asi2600mc duo soon.

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION: How about for the ease of astronomy public outreach, we formally swap the names of flares and prominences?

#astronomy #astrodon

@inthehands @mav What's the policy on withdrawals and dropping classes? My son is at Texas A&M and it seems super punishing with only a week or so to change a course without penalty, and if you "Q drop" after that time, you only have a limited number and those stick on you like a Scarlet Letter even if you change universities in Texas. Makes it really hard to decide on trying out a course you may not do well in, because of the timeframes and penalties.

@inthehands @mav Is there a summary or report on the initial conditions and the changes implemented?

@mcc @whitequark ...pulls out my proposal to use 256 bit timers with Planck time ticks of 5e-44 s - good for 35 thousand trillion years!

@greatgodoffire @jdlbt I think you are mixing "autoguiding" with "tracking". Tracking is the basic "turns with the Earth's rotation" that any electronic mount can do. "Autoguiding" is precision tracking at a arcsecond/few pixel level to account for mount imperfections. No £600 mount+scope will do that. At best you'll be able to take 15s images before they trail. With the high F-ratio of a Mak, that's not much light.

@greatgodoffire As @jdlbt recommends, for #astrophotography it would be better to get a camera tracker and learn the craft first. 1000mm is not a beginner-level friendly focal length, for sure.

@hypolite @clacke Olde magics. This is one of the first stories written 80 years ago by a Titan of "hard" science fiction, A C Clarke. He commmented that he refuses to reread it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_Party
While it may be jarring to read "years" instead of 'centons' or whatever, I think the story doesnt have as much technobabble as the average ST: TNG episode, and leaves the story for the chars to explore.
The best Sci-fi holds a mirror up to us, and I think this story does that well.

@hypolite @clacke Another great show, grandparent to The Expanse, is Babylon 5. Instead of future humans and aliens living in perfect harmony, they're a bunch of squabbling species trying to work things out. Sci-fi is a backdrop, never the focus - I cant recall a single technobabble solution the whole series. The story is about people - sure they be green skinned and red-eyed, but we can mostly understand their motivations. Has some of the best character arcs of any TV show.

I think a microwave that beeps every few minutes after completion would help my ADHD son not leave his meals in the microwave.
Maybe it needs wifi to send him a text? 🤔

Writes two pages of API specification, lacks spoons for implementation. 😴 #embedded

@VeryBadLlama *hatches plan to launch hundreds of old glasses to Mars to terraform it*

@clacke @johncarlosbaez @dom Just remember, this is the old magics, it isn't derivative, everything else is a derivative of it.

@clacke My favorite part is this.

"But Klarten was not impressed. The first radio sets his race had built were now fossilized in strata a thousand million years old. Man, who had possessed electrical machines for only a few centuries, could not compete with those who had known them for half the lifetime of the Earth."

It's a little dated and incorrect, but just imagining aliens whose vacuum tubes and transistors were fossils in rocks a billion years old. 🤯

@clacke Wait, what the heck am I thinking?!? *This* is my favorite part:

"The engineers, as usual, made a tremendous fuss. Again as usual, they did the job in half the time they had dismissed as being absolutely impossible."

@georgetakei My wife used to reminisce about the Applebee's chili for *years* after it went away.

@clacke @johncarlosbaez @dom https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___1.htm

@dragonsidedd @mcc @pikesley deci, one again, stands alone in the corner at the SI dance. 🥺

@tastytea @puniko TIL woem is meow backwards. :blob_cat_ohnoes: