Yeah, I had a Conn 6h for a while when I was in the army. This one is a King, 3B or maybe that was the Conn... Nice instrument, but needs to be played more than once a decade!

I have some friends here who have been very good to me over the years. I have spent almost every Thanksgiving and Christmas with their extended family. They told me that one of the grandsons started trombone, and apparently is doing pretty well. So, I figured I would donate the King to him. Be nice for it to get some use!

Yes, I received mine a few years ago. They wanted to avoid people from having to quote their SSN on forms and stuff.

Thanks! I have a few other shots, but really am a bit nervous about posting them in public... My facebook friends like them, but they are not as expert as
some of you guys on here.

The night I shot the moon, I couldn't get the scope to scan to anything else. I had been having problems connecting my phone to it, so was using an Ipad.
I found out later that the Ipad thinks I am in Cupertino, CA, so I don't know if it was sending weird directions or something.

I have seen quite a few of Cuiv's videos. Another I follow is the Astro Room. She is very good at keeping the level right for us newbies, and she is very
up on the Seestar!

Maybe I can force myself to upload some other targets... They aren't great, but the issue is my editing rather than any shortcomings of the scope.

Yes, I have been playing the trombone since 1967 (ouch!), including 10 years in the band of 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards. I play so rarely now, I am giving my bone to the grandson of friends. He is learning, and apparently doing very well. I have a 'spare' bone, in case I should ever be called upon in an emergency! After the last time I played in church, I decided to keep the bone out of its case, to be more available if the mood strikes. It has been sitting on a stand in the corner of the kitchen for probably close to 4 years now!

I recently bought a Seestar S50 telescope. This $500 gadget is very clever, and takes care of a lot of the work for the new user.

Due to the quality of the work in this forum, I have been reluctant to upload any of my stuff. It isn't the scope, its my lack of skill
in processing the results. The scope does provide jpeg images, but to get decent results, I need to get the hang of processing
fits files... I have been trying to learn how to do this in Siril, which has the advantage of being free. However, my brain is
just not getting it... Watching youtube videos ends up confusing things even further, since everybody seems to be using different
versions of the program. I try following along, but always end up at a point where the guys says "...then click on the <blah> option..."
which my version doesn't have...

I finally took an image that isn't embarrassing to share here. This was a shot of the moon the other day. Actually, it is a stack from
a 60-second video. The scope took care of all this for me, with the press of a few different buttons! This is the jpeg produced, and there is
also a LARGE fits file, which I will attempt to process if I ever learn how!

Anyway, here it is, and I welcome comments and suggestions...

(Download)

Yeah... I remember some time ago, somebody posted complaining about the number of posts in various groups. I remember noting that most days in the digest, at least, there are more posts in general chit-chat than in the 'main' photography forum. Heck, some days Jerry alone posts more than there are in the main forum!

If you have a 'key rack', wouldn't it be easier to keep the keys on there? What you actually have is a 'key-finder rack'...

My pensions (regular and army) are paid directly into my US bank. The pensions are *paid* in pounds, but they get exchanged to dollars on the way. The conversion probably costs something, and you never know how much will be paid in each month, but other than that, it works fine.

I agree! The only flaws were the sonic booms, meaning it wasn't allowed to go supersonic over land, and the amount of fuel it used...

I used RoboForm for many years, until it failed me. I could not get it to work, and neither could they... I transferred everything to LastPass, and I now have all my logins in there. Other than a couple of sites which won't let me use the entry, everything works fine. For those few problem sites, I can always cut&paste from the program to the screen.

I make it a practice NEVER to have a site 'remember me'. If they get hacked, your info could be grabbed...

Why on Earth is this URL so long? Not getting at you, but I make it a rule *never* to click on any URL which is not easily readable...

I have a SeeStar S50 (see my reply to an earlier message), and my plan is to try and take a timelapse of the eclipse with it. We will not get totality, but it should still be fairly decent. Depending on the weather, of course...

I have a ZWO SeeStar S50 ($499). Ever since I got it, we have been socked in with clouds. We finally got a decent night last week, and this is my attempt at the Orion nebula. Actually, it is the device's attempt, since I let it do all the processing automatically...

(Download)

I remember seeing (or perhaps reading...) an explanation for this phenomenon. It seems that, by law, when planning new roads, the council in charge are *required* to accept the lowest bid. So any company which suggests using better materials or techniques are outbid by those who offer a shoddy - but cheaper - option.