Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

 

Canon 6D, October 15th, near Genola Utah. 

More Anti Asian Bashing from CloudyNights and the mods don't care

 

This 'bobhen' guy loves to spout anti-Asian hate and most of these "boomers" suck themselves in celebration.  Except for the lone Australian dude who gets very little support but is often pointing out the obvious contradiction in bobhen's "points" when he starts to articulate his racist ideas.

Dark Site to Explore

 There are supposedly some really dark sites in Utah for astronomy.  

http://jaysastronomyobservingblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/conger-springs-utah-dark-is-dark.html

Orion Telescopes No More ???????

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/89-Hangar-Way-Watsonville-CA/31232756/

 https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/meade-and-orion-cease-operations-maybe/

 

Though they haven't been relevant for a decade, Orion Telescopes was the place I bought my first scope in 1984.   Cloudynights has a couple threads going but my own "lukewarm take" is that they just fell behind the times and as the market shifted to astrophotography, Orion just powered forward thinking that astrophotography was just a side-hustle compared to all the observers...  this attitude reflects their 1980's approach to the astronomy retail business.  Some people are decrying the waning interest in astronomy and that's sorta not accurate.  A lot of people really like astronomy but not a alot of folks want to drop 500 to 2000 bucks when they can just look at pretty astronomy pictures in their instagram feed.  Or they can go to a public star party and look through someone else's stuff.  The real excitement for newbies are the pictures and much of the older folks reacting to the demise of Orion still think that most people want to observe astronomical objects with their eyes.  I think at the very least they want a cellphone pic of what they are seeing.  The other VERY questionable thing about Orion is that they purchased the failing Meade Telescope company.   Meade's own product line is very dated and represents the state of astronomy circa 1995.  I don't know why they felt like they could absorb Meade and somehow "make it great again".  

My other sorta complaint/criticism is that their sales were so stingy.   Like 2-3% off on their mounts and telescopes.  I really dislike companies that offer trivially small "sales" on their goods.  It feels like an insult.   In addition, their astrophotography cameras never inspired any real confidence in terms of their reliability or future "repair ability."  They had an awful warranty service that was limited to the original purchaser only and when I had problems with my old Sirius mount, they just wanted to replace it instead of trying to fix it.  

 Finally, they really needed to partner up with some younger astrophotographers like Trevor of Astrobackyard.     They probably should have gotten rid of 70% of their "observing inventory" and shifted their emphasis to astrophotography.   That's where the small amount of money is going and with a good team, they could probably even bring some innovation to the market.

RIP Orion Telescopes.

UPDATE: I tried calling on the afternoon of the 16th.  No one answered sales or customer service lines.  :(

Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself ?

 Where else?

These "ironic" posts happen so frequently that I don't think it's actually ironic anymore.

Jupiter from September 22, 2021

 Still working on old data.  Had tons of sessions of Jupiter but was really depressed or something.

Same equipment as previous post.  The detail is pretty crazy for East Flagstaff.  There's a ton of decent 3 min data so at some point I can run it through Winjupos. 

Another Jupiter with Transit

From the same night as previous lunar data.  8/25/2021.  Approx 2:52 am

C11 with QHY5-462C.  Probably Televue Barlow.

Stacked in autostakkert and wavelets in Wavesharp, some misc color correction in PS and PI.

Appears to be an IO transit and according to Stellarium, I'm off in time by about 30 minutes?  Closer to 3:20 am appearance in Stellarium.