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I bought the Celestron focal reducer for my scope, so i'm down to f6.3, but it is an f10 natively. I could blow a bunch of $$ on guiding, but the gear train on this entry-level Scope is plastic so that Would just be $$ wasted.

Mostly my current scope is a test-base for figuring out my want-to vs. buying power :D

And my photos are still in the figuring it out stage as well. Weather and work has prevented stuff for a while now. :(

I opted for just the flattener for mine. I didn't need faster, i'm already at f/5 and didn't really want to reduce the focal length. F/6 is plenty fast enough to get good pictures. Have you looked into the Celestron RASA scopes? F/2 is pretty tempting .

I could blow a bunch of $$ on guiding

How long can you go without trails? I spent about $500 on the package with the guide scope, 120MM camera and the ASI Air to get into guiding. Plus, as a bonus, I get automated imaging runs, mount control, plate solving, and (if I wanted to add it, which I don't) focuser control. Oh, and I had to get a $20 USB to mount cable.

figuring out my want-to vs. buying power

I did that for a couple months to see if I liked doing this, and would be continuing or was it all going on the shelf after a month. Got some OK photos with my DSLR and 200mm lens. Decided I was going to keep going so I spent the money I didn't use to go on vacation.

my photos are still in the figuring it out stage as well.

Yeah, I'm still figuring things out. My post-processing has lots of room for improvement . I'm partially hampered by the fact that I refuse to shell out monthly "rent" for photoshop, and quite a log of the processing tools are photoshop plugins. So I make do with GIMP and figure out alternatives.

Weather and work has prevented stuff for a while now.

Yeah, seems it's either cloudy, the moon's out, or there's work or other things I have to do. I did manage to get out to the observatory site last night and shot an hour and a half on the soul nebula, which so far I am completely disappointed in, and added another 45 minutes to my california nebula. Then the clouds rolled in about 10, and I was freezing so I didn't wait around to see if they cleared off.

Damn TBK, I think my dentist has something similar in his office just it points at my face instead of the sky.

Great work though, my son would be ecstatic. But, he's an astrophysicist. Me? I could post some great pics of my hot peppers this year I'm a bit more grounded.

It would be pictures of cows from me. Or my dog. Except I don't know how to post pictures on SI and I'm not motivated enough to figure it out.

I am now going to Stupid Picture Friday. Thankfully there are people who are motivated enough to post week after week for our enjoyment and laughs.

Happy Friday, gents.

120 mm - is that focal length or film size?

It took me a while to realize it's not film size.

(signed) sisoon, former school photographer

I could post some great pics of my hot peppers this year

Did you get a good crop this year, Tred? I've been thinking about growing them, but we have such a short season and so much hail here. Haven't had so much luck in the past. I do like the hot stuff, though. Last night I made me and the kid a batch of bison chili, with 4 jalapenos, 4 serranos, 4 habaneros, and a hefty shake of cayenne for good measure. Between that and the chorizo sausage I added, it was some pretty good firebreathing stuff!

Happy Friday, Gents!

Losfer, that chili sounds nuclear!

Ive grown habaneros the last couple years, hot, tasty and easy to grow, lotk like little pumpkins.

Ive grown habaneros the last couple years, hot, tasty and easy to grow, lotk like

You should try growing habanada peppers they’re habaneros without the heat but all the flavor. They were developed by chef Dan Barber you can find them at row7seeds. If you like the heat you can add some regular habaneros to what ever you’re making. Habaneros have amazing flavor but it’s hard to recognize due to level of heat, habanada let’s you experience that.

120 mm - is that focal length or film size?

in this case it's the model number of the camera I have on the guide scope. Who's job is to continually track a single star, compensate for mechanical slop in the gears, and issue nudge commands to the mount and keep it on target down to the sub-arc-second. Now back when I was younger, I used to lust over 120-roll cameras, and medium-format.... sigh... Some days I miss film, and spending hours in the darkroom with the D76 and Dektol fumes.....

But, he's an astrophysicist.

One of the regulars at the observatory site is a with a PhD in planetary sciences. I try to listen to anything he has to say .

a batch of bison chili, with 4 jalapenos, 4 serranos, 4 habaneros, and a hefty shake of cayenne for good measure

I made a big pot of chili this afternoon. It's good. And spicy. But while my personal motto is "if it doesn't make you sweat, it wasn't hot," I tend to draw the line at painful.

[This message edited by tbkjcn at 7:02 PM, November 14th (Saturday)]

The thought of that chili is making my ear canals feel like they are on fire. That would burn from one end of the alimentary canal burn from one end to the other. From in to out.

Some days I miss film, and spending hours in the darkroom with the D76 and Dektol fumes.....

Yes, yes, yes!

The first morning we were in Chicago, about 36 hours after our wedding, I traded in my Exakta V for a Minolta Autocord. I went shopping while W slept off the wedding and travel. We honeymooned in Japan 3 years later (long story), and the first thing I did after checking into our hotel was go searching for a modern-ish 35mm camera - while W was sleeping off the trip.

In HS, my 'dark room' was very rudimentary and very low budget. My enlarger was a pre-WW II product, and the enlarging lens was my Exakta's F2 Biotar. After college, I was photographer for UC's Lab School for a while and had a pro darkroom - that was heavenly.

Now I use my phone's camera, and I rpint nothing....

My scope is an entry level. It has plastic gears in the drive, and it can get about 30 seconds max unguided.

I got started in astronomy 48 years ago when astrophotography was done with a film camera in a bag of dry ice to keep it cold (not quite a bag, but close). I've been visual only in all of the intervening years.

My first scope was a not-so-bad Sears model. It and a few of the original accessories are downstairs. That scope has seen a lot of use in the intervening decades and, frankly, could use some rebuilding.

I like fiddling a bit with astrophotography, but I do find that it takes away time away from my main joy, which seems to be visual observing. To each their own.

the first thing I did after checking into our hotel was go searching for a modern-ish 35mm camera -

The suspense is killing me. What camera did you buy?

while W was sleeping off the trip.

I see a pattern here.....

when astrophotography was done with a film camera

There's a gentleman that I've run into several times at the observatory who has several large binders filled with real prints made from real negatives. From back in the day when "guiding" meant sitting there with his eye glued to the finder, twisting knobs to keep the crosshair centered and "stacking" was taken literally. It's very impressive.

I like fiddling a bit with astrophotography, but I do find that it takes away time away from my main joy, which seems to be visual observing.

And I feel the opposite. No offense. I've reached the point where it would take a bit of work removing parts and spacers and adapters and filters and replacing them with original bits to even look through my scope now . Don't get me wrong, when someone calls out "Hey, I've got a great view of XXXXX over here." I'll wander over and have a look through their scope just like everyone else. But my thought is likely to be something along the line of either "damn, I wish I had the reach to image that," or "I bet I could get a good image of that, I should put it on my list." I enjoy spending hours sitting in the muggy heat or the cold watching my graphs and previews while my camera collects images of things I can't see with my eyes that I will later spend hours trying to make look "right."

[This message edited by tbkjcn at 7:34 PM, November 16th (Monday)]

Did you get a good crop this year, Tred?

Pretty damn good year. 70+ plants, mix of jalapeno, two cayenne variants, habanero, serrano, caribbean red, and a surprise crop of pale jalapeno. I tend to save seeds from year to year, and 13 of the 15 caribbean reds came out weird. I'm guessing they were heirloom, where the future generations revert back to the original plant. Turns out they were pale jalapenos - identical in heat and flavor to regulars but lacking a gene so they are yellow vice green and mature orangish vice red. Hard to find seeds so a pleasant surprise. 12 bags of dried peppers ready to be blended, should be a good spice year!

My main criterion for my 35 mm camera was to see the whole viewfinder with my glasses on.

My first choice was a Canon 7 or Nikon S2 or SP. (A Leica RF camera would have been OK, too, but Leica prices were sky high in Japan, of course.) I didn't find a truly clean version in my price range in any of the many, many stores I walked into.

I did a reset and walked into many more stores looking for an SLR, and nothing was that good. The best was the Olympus Pen F, but that was a half frame camera - the images were 18 mm x 24 mm, instead of 36 mm x 24 mm. The 2nd best was a Minolta SRT-101, which didn't feel as solid as the Canon line.

I was also not happy with the pricing. For Westerners, all the sellers worked from a small catalog given to tourists, and I knew enough Japanese to know I wasn't getting close to the best price, since I heard what Japanese customers were paying.

I finally found a store where the guy liked the fact that I could speak school Japanese. He didn't have either the Pen F or SRT-101. Ordinarily, he could get one the next day, but he was flying to Hawaii the next day, and his was a one man shop. Imagine - a minuscule shop, maybe 150 square feet, and the owner could take his family to Hawaii for vacation, when a dollar cost 360 yen.

I told him why I wanted one of those models, and he put a Topcon into my hands ... I could see the whole viewfinder, so I bought it. Eventually it needed some parts that the repair guy couldn't find, but that was years later.

Some cameras allowed changing the VF lens for eyeglass wearers, but none of the shops I went into knew about them. I really wanted a Canon, but the Topcon was good and did the job I wanted done.

TMI, I know, but I used to really groove on photography.

[This message edited by sisoon at 2:18 PM, November 17th (Tuesday)]

Venting a little after walking away for a while, FYI-

Guys - Please tell me if I am out of line. Now don't give me that BS male feminist crap, like try to explain to me without telling me all women are unique.

So, why do women think the line, "But I didn't enjoy the sex" even fucking flies on SI. I hear this from hard veterans around here and it pisses me and several men off. Then when we try to talk about it, we get the whole, "Well it is transactional" or "Sex isn't like pizza like it is for men. Always good even when it is bad."

How is that not the most sexist toward men bullshit ever. I then tried to say, women are wired were they need to be able to enjoy the moment which typically involves shutting off the multitasking parts of their brains they hone and they all ignore science and argue.

Why do BW/WW think they can say, "The sex was transaction and they didn't enjoy it." then expect a BH/WH to jump over the moon and value sex with them ever again. It is transactional. It is currency.

Can someone explain this crap to me?

Sorry, this is a rant, but am I alone in seeing the hypocrisy of this?

If I am not alone, should I throw this out into General? I think the women will contest this so hard I would delete my profile when I was done. I am not really getting help here anymore anyways, I go to a men's group now instead, but would it help those other poor buggers who have to read that crap?

Thank guys. I am just feeling especially like fighting the system lately, it is probably all this lockdown crap.

DoinBettr,

I guess my question to you would be: Why do you find it so difficult to believe that might be the case for some women?

I then tried to say, women are wired were they need to be able to enjoy the moment which typically involves shutting off the multitasking parts of their brains they hone and they all ignore science and argue.

So let me see if I understand this... you explained to women how sex works for women and they argued with your science?

As for this:

Why do BW/WW think they can say, "The sex was transaction and they didn't enjoy it." then expect a BH/WH to jump over the moon and value sex with them ever again. It is transactional. It is currency.

Isn’t it maybe possible that some aspects of human behavior are not necessarily binary? Like maybe sometimes sex is transactional and sometimes it isn’t? I know that I have social relationships with people in my professional life that I would probably never fucking spend time with if it wasn’t advantageous to my business. Those relationships are transactional... I spend time with those people, laugh at their jokes, butter them up, because I am getting something out of the deal.

The transactional nature of some of my relationships doesn’t necessarily invalidate every other personal relationship that I have. Although granted, I suppose it does mean that there may be some people in my life that think my relationship with them means something more than it does. I suppose that might be kind of fucked up... but also kind of the inherent nature of human relationships.

Or am I misunderstanding the questions here?

[This message edited by HoldingTogether at 9:57 PM, November 18th (Wednesday)]

Tred - You are like a pepper guru! That is some impressive stuff. Never even heard of pale jalapenos. I really need to think about building something like a small greenhouse. Something that will extend my growing season and protect from the hail.

DoinBettr - I hear you, and I understand your frustration first hand. I'm not sure what to tell you, other than every woman IS different. One of my biggest personal frustrations with my ex was that it was transactional with me, but not with her AP. He didn't do shit for her. Here I am, providing a good life for the family, being a single income provider, doing all these chores, doing all this housework, doing all this cooking and cleaning, taking care of the bills, and yet sex was transactional. There was clearly some dysfunction in the relationship. Almost three years after moving out, I have gotten to find out that not all women are like that. Not even close. And for me, the transactional piece is a deal breaker. I can't be with anyone like that ever again. I'm not saying that being transactional is right or wrong. I'm saying it doesn't work for me. It's a compatibility issue. Works for some people. Doesn't work for me. You have to decide what works for you, and what your lines in the sand are. Just my view, take it or leave it, but hope it at least helps that I feel your pain, man.

DB,

Do you believe the 'sex wasn't enjoyable' line is some sort of excuse? I don't think anybody but a newbie on the WS forum uses that line as a mitigating factor.

My W enjoyed some of her A, but some parts of it caused her pain as it was happening. So what? She could have avoided the pain by not conducting her A.

She had sex with someone other than me. Some of the sex was good, some wasn't. I don't care - she still has to do her work if she wants me to stick around. She still has to change from cheater to good partner.

There is no excuse for an A.

DB, I'm struggling with similar questions and confusion. Having sex with someone you're familiar with is usually a lot more successful. Meaning usually both my self and my wife get to the finish line. In casual or one night stand sex, it's much more difficult for women to finish typically. However, I call BS on them saying that they didn't enjoy it. The thrill of the illicit, the newness, the excitement all lend themselves to having fun. Remember how much fun it was to make out and grope around with someone in the backseat of your parents car? Even if it was only first or second base?

My fWW tells me it was all traumatic and horrible. Yet she initiated it, could have stopped at any point and even went to dinner after. And I'm supposed to believe NONE of it was fun or enjoyable? Had they just made out in the alley it would have been fun.

My fWW destroyed our marriage, killed my sense of wellbeing and put the kids lives at risk just to be a cum dumpster for an old boyfriend? It either isn't true or there's something really wrong with our WWs mentally....