The Astrocast
The Astrocast
Episode 49 - Embroidery Circle of The STARS!
Note - Sorry for the funky volume up and downs on the intro! Not sure what happened there!
Welcome BAAAACK to The Astrocast! On this episode, Roo takes you through the experience of deciding to setup permanently! Building a pier has come with some interesting challenges, but it’s going great all things considered! We also discuss the changing of the seasons, a simple tool to make taking your flats MUCH easier, and dark sky trip tourism! Next week will be the 50th episode of The Astrocast, make sure you join us!
If you have questions you would like to have read on the show and answered, please email RooAstrocast@gmail.com - and i’ll do my best!
Links from this weeks show:
Lukomaticos Pier Tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhLJ-i1rdB4&t=446s
Embroidery circle (of the STARS!) for flats:
White Fabric: (you can probably find this cheaper at Michaels, but if you don’t have one nearby..)
Cloudy nights review of Rockin’ Td Ranch:
Rockin Td Ranch: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/28107962?source_impression_id=p3_1740532883_P3OhryYCcoBVEe0X&modal=PHOTO_TOUR_SCROLLABLE&modalItem=1041517094\
L-Para Filter:
Our link to High Point Scientific:
https://www.highpointscientific.com/?rfsn=8141859.a5f5d85
(Check out the Meade stuff!)
Thanks for listening, we'll be back next week with our 50th episode!!!
Side note: Thank you SO MUCH to all the listeners that have made purchases using our affiliate links! It helps the show so much, and I just can't thank you enough!
Please note - we used affiliate links! Any purchase made via Highpoint links or Amazon can result in a small percentage going to The Astrocast for support. Thank you so much!!!
Email me at "RooAstrocast@gmail.com" with any questions/comments. Thanks for listening!
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;36;19
Unknown
Sorry. Come on. Let's go. Nine. Eight. Six.
00;00;36;21 - 00;00;51;00
Unknown
you are listening to the Astrocast
00;00;51;02 - 00;01;34;12
Unknown
Oh! Welcome back to the Astrocast. I'm your host, Roo, today. It's Wednesday. New Moon is approaching. We’ve had pretty nice clear nights here in Charlotte. Last week the weather has been beautiful. I think, false autumn may be upon us. Are not false autumn. False spring. The vernal fall societies which, come near the tail end of winter, are upon us.
00;01;34;15 - 00;01;58;22
Unknown
Of course. I hope, everybody has been enjoying the tail end of Orion season. It does break my heart a little bit when I go outside and I see Orion's pretty much already pass the meridian once it starts actually getting dark out. But that's how it goes. The seasons they come and go. Leo starting to rise earlier and earlier.
00;01;58;25 - 00;02;21;06
Unknown
If you're up early in the morning before sunrise, you'll see Arcturus in the east, which can only mean summer approaches. Which is always great because we're very much looking forward to Nebula season. Once again. So that should be, coming back around before we know it. So thank you so much for tuning in to the Astro cast this week.
00;02;21;06 - 00;02;51;06
Unknown
I'm your host, drew. We're going to be talking about a few different things this week. I will tell you the, more, astrophotography centric episode that I have been working on as of late. Had to be pushed one more week. Details will come soon on that, but just bear with me. I'm, kind of working on a big project for you guys, and it's going to be cool, but I've been keeping under tight wraps because I haven't seen anybody else do it yet, so just keep that in mind.
00;02;51;06 - 00;03;16;10
Unknown
But we do have a lot to talk about. I have a few things to tell you guys about regarding my, setup with astrophotography. I have acquired, a couple a couple new things, since we last spoke. And I talked about breaking ground for the here on the last episode. Actually, believe it or not, I had a telescope on my period last night.
00;03;16;10 - 00;03;58;16
Unknown
I took a photo I polar lined, etc.. That being said, I wanted to take you through, you know, kind of what I have right now and what the long term plan is for a pair. So if you're listening this in your relatively new to astrophotography, one of the things that you're going to very quickly learn is that no matter how conducive your home environment may or may not be to astrophotography, if you set up at home on a regular basis, you're going to find that it's a bit of a pain in the butt and reduces your overall imaging time.
00;03;58;16 - 00;04;31;01
Unknown
Because no matter how much, you love astrophotography, like all of us clearly do, there's going to be nights where you're just going to be too tired, to, you know, lug the tripod outside, set up the, equatorial mount, put your telescope on, do the polar alignment and all these types of things, and that is what a lot of people end up building home observatories for, because they basically just grow tired of having to do all that over and over again.
00;04;31;04 - 00;04;53;01
Unknown
So that being said, I think since the inception of the show, I had personally talked about doing this because I've been doing astrophotography for coming up on five years now, and I just get tired of constantly having to lug stuff around, particularly in my situation where, you know, if I set up in my driveway, my neighbor might have their, you know, all their lights on.
00;04;53;01 - 00;05;13;25
Unknown
And if they do, I don't want to have to bug them and say, hey, turn your lights off and all that. I just want to avoid all that. So I end up setting up in my side yard and I, you know, you start looking around, you're like, there's no reason I couldn't have a permanent set up here. So then the, you know, next natural thing that I do is I, you know, start looking at peers and how they're made.
00;05;13;25 - 00;05;36;24
Unknown
And, you know, I logically think like, you know, being a DIY kind of guy. I'm like, I can rig something together real quick that'll hold a steady peer. So, rather than pour concrete on the first go around, what I personally decided would be better would be to make, the foundation that I would use regardless if I pour concrete or not.
00;05;36;24 - 00;06;03;19
Unknown
Which is a nice level surface with a paver stone for now to hold whatever I use for the year, and then basically after a full season of imaging, if I find, okay, this is exactly what I had hoped it would be, then I can go ahead and pour appear. But in the interim, what I did was I used, one of Luca Marco, who's a great YouTube, astrophotographer.
00;06;03;21 - 00;06;32;17
Unknown
He had built a pier out of cinder blocks, and I kind of took his method, essentially. And I had, you know, a whole bunch of cinder blocks sitting around from old projects that we had, you know, done in the past and had leftovers from. And I basically, you know, I dug a hole about 12in deep, I'd say built below the frost line, which is eight inches here, I believe in North Carolina, it's very important to, dig below the frost line so you can prevent shift edge.
00;06;32;20 - 00;06;49;26
Unknown
But anyway, that's if we get into pouring the pier, which we're not worrying about right now. And I then poured, paver stone, a couple bags of that into the hole. I level that out as best I could. I then poured some really small pebbles on top of that, a bags worth kind of leveled that out.
00;06;50;03 - 00;07;16;16
Unknown
And then I got a big giant bag of sand from, you know, Lowe's and poured that on top and then also leveled that out. So then I had a, you know, a pretty good level surface to work with, which could drain water very easily, which is obviously an important thing to do when we're working with, telescopes and piers and things that we don't want to be shifting around too much, it's important that the water can drain properly to prevent that.
00;07;16;18 - 00;07;34;09
Unknown
Afterwards, I, took my giant paver stone and sat it down on top of the sand. And then I got a level and just placed it on top. And I noticed it was a, you know, a little bit lower on the one side than the other. It was extremely close, but not perfect. And obviously I'm going for perfect.
00;07;34;11 - 00;07;51;22
Unknown
So I got some more sand, put it under, placed it back down, and just a little bit of trial and error. It didn't take too long. I'd say, you know, ten minutes of, kind of playing around with it, adding a little here, packing it down there, etc. and then once that nice, 12 by 12 paver stone, it's actually 16 by 16.
00;07;51;23 - 00;08;14;16
Unknown
I took that back, 16in by 16 inch paver stone is in place. That is the perfect base which I can place my cinder blocks on, which is what I did. So I placed, four cinder blocks on their side and then one up and down, which I drilled a hole into using a masonry bit, that I got for, you know, six bucks at the store.
00;08;14;16 - 00;08;45;05
Unknown
I put it into my drill, drilled a hole straight through the top of the cinder block, and then I dropped a, I believe it was a four inch, nut 4.5in nut. Maybe, through the hole along with a couple of washers. And then obviously, well, actually, I didn't need to use the nut because, well, I bought a, basically a pure extension that they sell for the tripod of the mount that I'm using, and I can put all the parts if anyone is interested in doing this same method.
00;08;45;07 - 00;09;13;18
Unknown
But essentially I'm just planning on initially setting up my, Star Adventure GTI outside, so I don't need anything too heavy weight. It's a really small mount. All it uses is a 3/8 inch bolt. Just one of them. To make that connection. God, I hope I can make that team sound disappear from the background. I normally don't get messages in teams at this time of the evening, but somebody who was going above and beyond, so I very much appreciate that.
00;09;13;25 - 00;09;33;08
Unknown
So let's just ignore that one. But anyhow, after you get the, the hole drilled, it's a pretty simple matter of putting on a couple of washers to attach that pure extension, which then the star adventurer guy can sit right on top of. So as long as you have a nice, sturdy base that you can attach, that pure extension to, bam!
00;09;33;08 - 00;10;02;22
Unknown
You've got a pier permanent observatory if you want to look at it that way. Now, the tricky part is just with a pier, you're not guaranteed an enclosure to keep your equipment dry. And obviously, that can be a big problem, because if the whole point of having the pier is to eliminate having to set up and break down every single night, and you have to break down to get your gear back inside so it doesn't, you know, get weathered upon.
00;10;02;24 - 00;10;24;23
Unknown
Then that kind of defeats the purpose. Now, the the thing that I am doing personally is I am planning to build a very small shed around this pier. I don't even honestly, I've been thinking about it. I don't even need, like, room to walk in there or anything. I literally just want something that will cover the pier and have, easily removable roof.
00;10;24;23 - 00;10;52;17
Unknown
So I will probably end up building like a small box out of plywood with a, rubber gasket seal for the, the roof. If you will, which will then be like a, essentially an open box sitting on top of another box. And then that'll cover it, you know, for the vast majority of the time, if big weather is coming in or something along those lines, obviously I can, you know, take my gear off of the pier and, just keep things moving.
00;10;52;17 - 00;11;14;26
Unknown
But, in the interim, before that happens and before we pour a permanent concrete foundation, what we can do is use a tele gizmos three, six, five cover. So I've heard about these ever since I got into astrophotography, and I've always wanted to use one, but I never really had a reason for one. Well, I definitely do now.
00;11;14;26 - 00;11;52;22
Unknown
So essentially with that cover, they have tested it, you know, and pretty much the toughest environments that you would ever experience. And they claim that you can leave it outside 365 days a year. So, I should be good with that through the summer time. And if I know that it's going to be, you know, raining and storming all week long, and there's not a chance I'm going to be doing any astronomy, that's when I'm probably going to, you know, take my camera and telescope and but even with, you know, rain and lightning and everything, there's no reason I couldn't still leave my mount outside if it's covered up.
00;11;52;22 - 00;12;10;03
Unknown
And I'm sure that that cover is not going to be blown away by the wind. So obviously, I'll kind of have to feel these things out as they come. Because this is something that's, you know, new for me. But the good news is, you know, I was able to set up the temporary trip here, if you will, using those cinder blocks.
00;12;10;06 - 00;12;37;17
Unknown
And, it worked perfect. So for everything that I need, which is essentially just a within five minutes, I can be imaging set up that is available to me 24/7. It fits the bill perfectly. And I really didn't have to spend any money besides the pure extension, which I got for, I guess, 30, maybe $40 on a high point scientific.
00;12;37;19 - 00;12;58;15
Unknown
So if you have the Star Adventurer GTI, the reason I recommend trying that pure extension because, I mean, technically, you could attach it to whatever you want. You get attached to a 4x4 if you want. But the pure extension is made specifically for the GTI to sit on top of it, and then it gives you a bit more clearance around things like the cinder block.
00;12;58;15 - 00;13;25;11
Unknown
So you don't, you know, smack into a cinder block with your camera or your OTA, which is obviously something you want to avoid. So, if that's something that, you're considering doing, make sure that, you know, no matter what you go with that you at least have some type of extension there that will prevent your telescope when slewing or going to the meridian and doing a meridian flip those sorts of things, from banging in the side of anything that it potentially could.
00;13;25;13 - 00;13;46;15
Unknown
But the beauty is, like I say, once I have that set up and my side yard with just a simple cover that I can walk outside, pull the cover off, and then hit one switch on a surge protector. Everything power is up. I've also got a strategy for the internet that I'm going to employ out there.
00;13;46;15 - 00;14;11;17
Unknown
So a lot of people know that the AC air doesn't have, great Wi-Fi antennas built into it. It never has because of its design. It's just not that great. I, I might switch to Nina, once I have got the more permanent setup in place, which will likely be a few months from now. But for the time being, I'm still using the AC air.
00;14;11;19 - 00;14;32;29
Unknown
I've got an Ethernet cable, that is in my garage that I ran months ago over the summer time because I need to have a hard line connection out there because that's where my office is or where it's going to be. And what I decided to do was actually buy a second router from the same brand, that I currently use, which is TP-Link.
00;14;33;01 - 00;14;58;03
Unknown
And I'm just going to put that router into access point mode and what that will do. Since I have got a hard lined router, in the garage, which is, you know, ten feet away from where I'm going to be imaging, I will essentially have, you know, a, a fantastic connection right there that I can use to connect the singer to in station mode.
00;14;58;05 - 00;15;26;24
Unknown
One thing that I've been having problem with on my AC air and station mode in particular, is whenever I successfully put my mini into station mode, like, as in, you know, log on to the AC air, turn on station mode, choose the Wi-Fi network I want to connect to, and then it connects to it. And then you exit out of the AC air app, reopen it, and then, while connected to your home network.
00;15;26;24 - 00;15;51;09
Unknown
Then you're supposed to reopen the Sia app. Well, when I do that, it won't let me connect back to the AC air. And I think it could have something to do with the fact that I've got a five gigahertz Wi-Fi network. And from I don't know, I'll have to look it up, but from what I've read in a few places, the AC air only supports the 2.4 G network.
00;15;51;09 - 00;16;13;12
Unknown
So I'm wondering if like, maybe the AC air is connecting to the 2.4GHz network? But my smartphone that I'm trying to control it with is on five gigahertz, and that's causing the issue. I'm not sure. But I figured out a way I can work around that. So most modern routers, they come with the ability, to turn on a guest network.
00;16;13;12 - 00;16;38;05
Unknown
So you can essentially set up another wireless network with its own name and its own security credentials, etc.. And with a lot of them, such as mine, you can choose if you want it to be a 2.4GHz network or a five gigahertz network. So in my case, what I'm doing is I'm enabling the second guest network on my main router.
00;16;38;07 - 00;17;09;06
Unknown
I am then running a line out to the garage and then plugging in that second router to it, which is then going to broadcast the 2.4GHz routes, observe a tree network, which I will connect my AC air to in station mode, and then when I am anywhere on my property, which gets decent Wi-Fi, which should be everywhere, including the garage, which is the one place I didn't get great connection because it's brick walls everywhere.
00;17;09;09 - 00;17;41;00
Unknown
But once that is done, then I should have a good solid connection everywhere. And then once I have that, really the sky's the limit. And then I can get, you know, Nina involved, remote desktop connections, etc., etc. so just something to consider if you have a, you know, a similar situation and you've kind of struggled with, you know, how should I do this if my router is in a central location in my house, but maybe you've got a wired, or Ethernet jack somewhere that's closer to the area where your observatory is.
00;17;41;00 - 00;18;04;16
Unknown
That's something to consider, because you know what? Don't get me wrong. I didn't go out and buy a second $300 router like, super duper fancy one. I literally went and bought one of the cheapest routers that they sell on Amazon, and in fact, I paid $40, I want to say for it, and that I know because I looked it up, can go into access point mode as most can these days.
00;18;04;19 - 00;18;28;22
Unknown
And that's all that I really need from it. So it's essentially going to act as a network switch. And as a bonus, all I have for Ethernet jacks instead of one, in the garage, which will be great whenever I'm setting my office back up in there, over the spring. So anyway, I got a, 13 second to polar alignment for the very first alignment of, the observatory.
00;18;28;22 - 00;18;49;19
Unknown
I'm using the term super loosely, by the way. I realize this is just a, temporary, pier, but it's officially an observatory. You know, once you have a permanent set up of any kind, you can call it an observatory. That's what my role is, anyway. I don't know what yours is, but I was asking people for, what they thought good names would be for the observatory.
00;18;49;21 - 00;19;08;00
Unknown
And I've had a lot of good ones, thrown at me already. And it's funny, because a lot of people, are throwing cinder block into the name, which cracks me up because I want to say, like, it's not going to be cinder blocks forever. I'm going to pour concrete, but I'm not going to crack people. If they want to use cinder block names, that's fine.
00;19;08;01 - 00;19;29;03
Unknown
I did put up a picture of cinder blocks and they tell me what to name it there, so. But, one of our listeners, Kyle, he suggested the Tower of Saruman, and he's a Lord of the rings fan. I, I'm a Lord of the rings fan, too. I'm not like a diehard fan, though, and I don't know, maybe that doesn't make me a fan because I know how passionate Lord of the rings fans are, but I didn't.
00;19;29;03 - 00;19;57;21
Unknown
I said I probably wouldn't do that just because I'm not like a diehard Lord of the rings fan. But the tower in the name got me thinking. And I was thinking maybe the Dark Tower Observatory in honor of, my favorite writer, Stephen King. I thought that might be fun. His, magnum opus, The Dark Tower, if you've never read it, it's a seven book series which tracks a man named Roland the Gunslinger, on his testify or on his quest, rather, to find the Dark Tower.
00;19;57;21 - 00;20;22;06
Unknown
So, I guess early recommendation, if you want to call it that. But anyway, his comment about the Tower of Saruman made me think about The Dark Tower, and then I got that kicking around in my head. But I haven't settled on anything yet, so if any of you guys have suggestions for what you think would be a fun name for the observatory, please feel free to shoot on my way at Ru Astro cast at gmail.com.
00;20;22;08 - 00;20;43;25
Unknown
And speaking of people emailing me, we had another person join our Patreon and I wanted to just give a quick shout out to, Mr. Timothy, is it, I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce your last name, my friend. But, Tim, you're already in the chat with us over on the, the members only discord, and it's really cool meeting you.
00;20;43;28 - 00;21;06;27
Unknown
He is early into his adventure of astrophotography and is planning on getting a, a Star Adventurer GTI in the very near future, but he posted his first image, mind you, without any kind of equatorial mount or anything, and I was. I was pretty impressed by it. I got to say, he did an excellent job compared to what my first image is.
00;21;06;27 - 00;21;26;24
Unknown
Which, don't get me wrong, I love it. I'm still super proud of it. And it gives me all the the feels when I see it. But, he definitely blew my mind out of the water, so good job on that, Tim. Keep it up, man. Definitely. Get that guy when you can. Don't cheap out and go for the, you know, the non-GMO two model.
00;21;26;24 - 00;21;50;03
Unknown
I know it's tempting, cause you're like, that's $400, which is almost 600, but trust me when I say it will make your life so much easier. Being able to say, just go to this target instead of trying to, star hop and find it manually, which can really be a pain. Also real quick, worth mentioning. The asteroid, that was a big topic on last week's show.
00;21;50;06 - 00;22;13;01
Unknown
Basically got reduced down to almost 0% the day after the episode came out, and I almost posted a message, but I figured most of you guys probably already heard about that. If you have any sort of, algorithms in your life, because they tend to tell me everything that I want to know about the stars. So I'm sure you guys are no different.
00;22;13;04 - 00;22;39;22
Unknown
The other really, really cool thing that I wanted to tell you guys about is a, a lens that I was able to acquire over this past weekend. So, as you know, I am also a, avid wildlife photographer. And, have been doing that for just as long as I've been into astronomy. And it's every bit as important to me as astrophotography is.
00;22;39;25 - 00;22;55;23
Unknown
And just because of the nature of it, I usually get more time throughout, you know, your average week to do wildlife photography than I do astronomy. Don't get me wrong, I wish it was dark outside 20 hours a day and I only had to work for six of them. But that's not how things are. And I love playing with cameras.
00;22;55;23 - 00;23;25;23
Unknown
So, all that said, I was able to acquire my dream lens, the one that I've had my eyes on for as long as I can remember. I actually wanted one form of this lens, and I say one form because they used to make an F model before this current one came out on Canon's older mount. But once the RF 100 to 500 L came out, I knew that was the one that I would have to have one day.
00;23;25;25 - 00;23;47;22
Unknown
And without getting into too many specifics, I basically was able to trade in a few lenses and finally get that lens. So I'm extremely happy about that. I cannot wait to try it out for astrophotography because again, it's canon L glass, which is their top of the line stuff. So I'm very curious to see how it will do.
00;23;47;24 - 00;24;09;25
Unknown
Like I say, 100mm to 500mm and it's f 4.5 to 7.1. So if I were to, you know, zoom all the way and out to 500mm, I'd be at f 7.1, but, you know, 4.5 and 100mm. And then in between, you know, depending on, what focal length I'm at. But I'll definitely be giving that a try.
00;24;09;25 - 00;24;33;03
Unknown
You better believe it. I'm very curious to see how flat the corners will be. Really curious about how the corners are on a lens like that. So time will tell. But I can tell you, for taking photos of wildlife. I haven't gotten to use it a whole lot because I just got it three days ago. But I went out to the park early this morning before work and was able to snag a few shots.
00;24;33;03 - 00;24;57;07
Unknown
And early results look incredible. So I'm. I'm, extremely blessed and happy to have that lens. It really is the one that I've always wanted. So it's kind of crazy to, in one weekend, kind of have my observatory finally starting to come together along with my bucket list lens that I've wanted for, you know, as long as I've been a photographer.
00;24;57;07 - 00;25;18;27
Unknown
So to have both of those things come to fruition in one weekend is just crazy to me. So, thank you guys. So much for, keeping up with the show and supporting the show. This is unrelated to the Patreon, because I am nowhere close to, the kind of membership levels that we would need to be buying observatories and lenses.
00;25;18;27 - 00;25;41;00
Unknown
That all comes out of my pocket. But I wanted to, thank all of the members of the Patreon because we've got like, 23 members now, which is really impressive considering the show is only a little over a year old and you guys just continue to support the show weekend in, week out. And I am just so, so thankful to you for doing that.
00;25;41;00 - 00;26;07;03
Unknown
So thank you so much. If you would like to support the show, feel free to, visit us at Patreon.com forward slash the Astro cast. Did anyone happen to catch that up to, along or released a new dual band filter? I must have missed it and I tend to keep up with filters pretty closely because as you guys know, I live in a bottle seven, so contending with light pollution is always of interest to me.
00;26;07;06 - 00;26;28;25
Unknown
Particularly if there's something, you know, new worth looking at. Personally, I still have a 1.25in L Pro, which was one of the first filters that I bought for astrophotography, that I still use for the vast majority of my sessions. Luckily for me, I've got a, 294 MK pro, which is a micro 4/3 sensor.
00;26;28;27 - 00;26;50;24
Unknown
And, because of that, the 1.25 is big enough to, not cosmic netting and the like, and it works well. But I have been keeping my eye out for a good two inch filter for quite some time just because, you know, as I learned, two inch filters are just generally easier to work with in astrophotography. If you like having lots of little adapters and pain in the neck.
00;26;50;24 - 00;27;16;09
Unknown
Things that have to get very close to your sensor, by 1.25in filters. But if you like using Aps-c or larger sensors, you should definitely, invest in two inch filters. And honestly, even if you don't have an Aps-c sized sensor yet, in our case, the ASI 2600 MK Pro is the first one that comes to mind.
00;27;16;11 - 00;27;45;03
Unknown
And that it is the by far most popular on the market today, Aps-c sized camera for astronomy. But if you're again, if you're getting started and maybe you've got like a five, eight, five MK pro like I have is my secondary camera, consider getting two inch filters because if you buy the 1.25in filters like yes, they will work with your current camera, but cameras will come and go over the years.
00;27;45;03 - 00;28;13;11
Unknown
They'll get worn out, you know, you'll want something newer and better. Things happen and camera bodies get changed out. But your filters can last a lifetime if you buy right in the first place. So I wish I would have bought a two inch filter. I bought several 1.25in filters, and I've replaced some of them, with better, larger filters that will work on all size astrophotography cameras up to medium well, not medium format, but up to full frame.
00;28;13;13 - 00;28;53;19
Unknown
So anyway, the El power, though, looks to be a another dual band filter that they released, but with slightly, wider wavelengths for the alpha and O3 signals that it's, singling out. So whereas the El Ultimate is three nanometer wavelengths, the El Para is actually ten nanometers so significantly wider and therefore, you know, I don't know, I think like technically speaking, the narrower your filter, the more clean the signal.
00;28;53;19 - 00;29;35;10
Unknown
I think that would be fair to say for things like oxygen and air for that you're trying to single out, and that's generally speaking why the more expensive filters tend to have a, narrower wavelength, when filtering out light spectrum. But that being said, some of the ones that I have seen will be, you know, so small three nanometers that they just won't work with, certain scopes, like faster scopes, like your raza's or, you know, EF three or higher, which in my case, I actually have one of, for example, the Rokinon 135 lens that I use and love.
00;29;35;12 - 00;29;59;21
Unknown
I had to buy when I bought my dual narrowband filter for that. I couldn't get the regular, el extreme. I had to get the, f f2 version. Yeah, the F2 version. They sell a couple different versions of it, but I had to get the one that worked with the, the faster system. But I had never seen the El Pyro before, and I hadn't heard anyone talk about it.
00;29;59;23 - 00;30;19;20
Unknown
It looks like it does work with F2 and faster systems, so that's something to keep in mind. So perhaps you want to get a dual narrowband filter for your rokinon, but you don't want to spend as much as you would on that, el extreme, which, believe me, I can tell you, it's very expensive. Ask me how I know.
00;30;19;22 - 00;30;43;13
Unknown
But the El Para looks to be a slightly more affordable version of that. So just a break it down. It looks like, Let's see. El ultimate's three nanometers. L'extreme is seven nanometers. El enhanced is a little bit different because that's technically a tri band filter. So it does have alpha and beta along with oxygen.
00;30;43;15 - 00;31;10;02
Unknown
And then the El Para is ten nanometers. So as you can see, they're getting wider and wider as the, price goes down. So it won't filter out as much of everything else. But I'd be really curious to see what the real world results are between something like an El Ultimate and an El Para, and if you're using, you know, the same glass and the same conditions, if you would end up with similar results.
00;31;10;05 - 00;31;34;20
Unknown
So in terms of how much you save, it looks like it's 259 for the two inch El para. Filter your two inch l'extreme, which is again is the seven nanometer, that goes for $309. And then the ultimate is for $389. And if you wanted to look in between, you can get the El Extreme F2 version, which is like what I have.
00;31;34;23 - 00;32;00;20
Unknown
And that's $309. But, you know, if you're wanting to save a little bit of money, it's certainly something worth considering. Honestly, if I'm that close in price, you know, 259 versus 309. Well, I don't know. I guess that's between 10 and 7 nanometers. I'd be really curious to see a side by side test with all three of these filters and see what the results are like.
00;32;00;23 - 00;32;30;07
Unknown
All four actually, because we could do the ultimate, the El extreme, the El para and I suppose the El enhance too. So if anyone, does have one of those El Para filters and you want to tell me how it does perform, please feel free to, shoot me a message at Ru Astro cast at gmail.com. I'd be curious to know if it's, if it's good or, you know, maybe even as good as something like an El Extreme filters makes such a huge difference.
00;32;30;10 - 00;32;56;08
Unknown
For me personally, I've. I've imaged, you know, with just a uvi air cut filter here before, and I can barely make out anything, even when I go through pix insight after, you know, a couple of hours of imaging. It's just it's so bad if you don't use any kind of filtration on portal seven or higher. Even if I go to a five, I can just toss in a uvi air cut filter.
00;32;56;10 - 00;33;13;07
Unknown
And even when I put in my old pro, it makes a huge difference then. But you know, it's just it's unusable from a seven without a filter is what it feels like. I'm sure that, you know, if you took enough time and stacked enough data, it would look every bit as good. But man, oh man, that takes a long, long time to get to.
00;33;13;09 - 00;33;39;03
Unknown
And, making our images look prettier is really, a huge point of why we go out time and time again. And I thought it would be fun to tell you guys about something I did recently. To make it a little bit easier to make my images prettier. So the number one complaint or maybe complaints. Not the right word that's coming at it from, too much of a negative con connotation.
00;33;39;03 - 00;34;10;20
Unknown
But, one of the number one problems that I see newcomers running into is understanding flats and kind of getting their head around what they're trying to do with flats. If you have a particular camera, like I do with the 294 IMC Pro, it might be well known that flats need to be at least two seconds long. If you want them to work well in something like weighted batch pre-processing or deep Sky Stacker to integrate properly with your photos.
00;34;10;22 - 00;34;43;07
Unknown
So all that being said, I'm not going to talk about the specifics around, how to take the flats today. But I do want to mention something that can actually physically help make taking flats a whole, whole lot easier for you. And it was one of our members on the, on the Patreon that actually showed me that they had done this, and it had crossed my mind before, but I'd never thought to actually try it until I saw him say, oh yeah, I got that da da da.
00;34;43;10 - 00;35;12;22
Unknown
And long story short, essentially, for just maybe five bucks, if that, you can make a perfect flat cap for your telescope. So as long as you've got, like, a reasonably sized camera lens or refractor, you can buy something from your average hobby store, whether it be Hobby Lobby or Michaels or even Walmart probably sells these.
00;35;12;24 - 00;35;35;05
Unknown
They're called embroidery circles. Forgive me if I botch that. It's a hard word for me to say. But they're you've probably seen them before. They're like, little wooden or sometimes plastic circles, and they've got a, a little nut that you can tighten on them to tighten to wood circles or plastic circles closer together or farther away.
00;35;35;07 - 00;35;58;19
Unknown
So if you loosen up this little nut enough, the, two circles will actually come apart. And when that happens, what you're supposed to do is feed fabric over one of the circles and then put it back inside the other circle. Trim away the fabric you don't need and then tighten it down to pull it extremely taut. And they use that for embroidery.
00;35;58;20 - 00;36;45;05
Unknown
Don't ask me in what way or how, but for our purposes, what I did was I took one of these same circles, and then I went to the fabric section of the hobby store, and I got for I think it was 199. It was like one yard of white plain fabric. And I then proceeded to go home that night and I, turned on my telescope and brought up my ACR app and what I would normally do would be to put my, flat panel on top of my scope while it was pointed up at the zenith, essentially like a meridian flip, you know, on its side, pointing straight up.
00;36;45;08 - 00;37;02;23
Unknown
I put my flat panel on top of it. But the problem is, like I said earlier, with my particular camera, you really want to do at least two seconds of exposure for a flat to get it to calibrate properly. And if I just put my flat panel on top, it's too bright. Even at the lowest setting, it won't expose that long.
00;37;02;23 - 00;37;28;06
Unknown
So I essentially needed to make it dimmer. And in order to do that, I would take sheets of paper and place them in between the, the flat panel and the telescope lens. And then I would go into, flats and hit auto expose on, the flat tool and planning from the here. Sorry, I know I'm kind of rambling.
00;37;28;09 - 00;37;50;26
Unknown
Anyway, in the ASI air, you can go into the plan section and then hit the plus button on your plan and select flats as the type of frame that you were taking, and they give you an option for auto exposure. And it's really easy to do. And it gets the histogram where it needs to be. But what I ended up doing was I knew I wanted at least a two second flat.
00;37;50;29 - 00;38;07;18
Unknown
So I would, you know, add a few sheets of paper and then let it expose. And if it wasn't, at least, you know, a second long. I knew I wasn't even close. And then after I had enough paper in there and I could see that it was taking a two second exposure and the histogram was in the right area, I knew I was good.
00;38;07;20 - 00;38;38;08
Unknown
So essentially all I needed to do was recreate that type of, environment, if you will, for my flat panel. But make it a lot easier to quickly take these and then, you know, use them. So I got this, embroidery circle and that yada fabric, and I took the art of fabric and I folded it over itself, placed it on top of the scope, and then put my flat panel on top and took the exposure.
00;38;38;13 - 00;39;02;24
Unknown
And I saw that it was not quite two seconds under auto expose. So then I folded it over again and I won't repeat myself, but I folded it enough times until it was exposing properly. Then I basically opened up the circle and fed that fabric through, pulled it as taut as I possibly could, and then I believe it was like, I think four layers all together.
00;39;02;27 - 00;39;23;09
Unknown
And then I just took a razor blade and trimmed away all the excess. And now I have this 80 millimeter circle that I can put right over my rokinon lens. I can put it over my new Astro Graph, the Asghar Sky 55. And then a lot of other, you know, camera lenses that I have if I ever want to take flats.
00;39;23;12 - 00;39;51;09
Unknown
And it's really just as simple as putting this cap on and then holding a light up to it. And then the ACA will do the rest. If you wanted to, you could also put this cap on it. And then if it's daytime or you've got evenly lit walls, you could pointed out a wall if you wanted to. The point is that you've got enough fabric between your lens and the light source to where you know it will always give you a good flat when you expose.
00;39;51;09 - 00;40;09;16
Unknown
And once you have that, it's just a matter of, you know, trimming away the excess. So definitely something to think about. I will link in the show notes, the specific parts, because I know I told you it's an embroidery circle, but I'll show you what that is in the show notes, so you all know exactly what to look for.
00;40;09;18 - 00;40;26;21
Unknown
I was also thinking about it, and you could probably get, your own LEDs. I don't know how hard it would be, but I would imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to put, like, strip LEDs on the back of this cap. And then, I mean, if you wanted to, you could even put a small battery on it.
00;40;26;23 - 00;40;44;22
Unknown
I mean, the sky's the limit, really, just as you know how, how much do you want to do? You know, versus, how difficult is it to do, but definitely worth looking into. I think, you know, for people who've got a permanent set up, obviously they can just hang a flat panel on the wall and use that.
00;40;44;22 - 00;41;06;18
Unknown
But for folks like us who have to go in and out and, you know, take our flats on the fly, something like a flat cap can make life a lot easier for you. You know, just so you know, too, they also sell, dark caps. Obviously, they're called lens caps. If you ever need one for your darks, you don't have to go buy a specific, dark cap.
00;41;06;20 - 00;41;25;24
Unknown
All right, I'm being a smartass now. I'll stop. But, yeah, the flat cap is definitely an investment worth making. It'll take you all a 20 minutes to make, and it'll make your life so much easier when you go to take your flats. You don't have to, try to hold three things at the same time while you're pressing the start button on your phone and all that nonsense.
00;41;25;27 - 00;41;49;29
Unknown
It'll just simplify things a little bit for you. And the more you can simplify things, the smoother they tend to run. Another topic that I want to mention to you guys is I have got an interview I am planning in the, probably in the next couple of weeks, and it's going to be with some folks who have a lot of experience with how things used to be in astrophotography.
00;41;50;04 - 00;42;16;24
Unknown
And I'm talking all the way from the film era upwards, and I'm trying to get together, some really good questions that we can ask some of the old timers, if you will. You know, while we're sitting down and speaking with them, and if you have any good questions that you would like to ask somebody who's been doing astrophotography for, you know, 20 plus years, please feel free to email them to me because I'm going to come up with all the questions I can.
00;42;16;24 - 00;42;51;16
Unknown
But if any of you guys, the listeners, have some good questions that you would like to throw out there as well, I would absolutely love to have them. So you can, email them to me at Ru Astro cast at gmail.com, and I will make sure to save and hold on to them. And then, as soon as that happens, obviously, I'll make sure that we, ask your question during the show, I've been seeing more and more Airbnb type places for dark Sky locations out west, and I don't know if this is starting to become a trend for stargazers.
00;42;51;18 - 00;43;18;13
Unknown
Kind of like remote observatories have gotten very, very popular over the last year, but it seems like I'm seeing more and more of it as of late. Today I happen to stumble upon a place in Nevada, and it was kind of in the north western part of the state, really, not like close to Las Vegas or anything like that, but up towards the, I guess, the Oregon area.
00;43;18;13 - 00;43;36;23
Unknown
Or would that be the Idaho area? Let me look at the map here. All right. Sorry, I always get confused about the four corner states, but, Oregon like up towards Oregon, like right on the edge of the state there. And it wouldn't surprise me if parts of it went into the other state. I don't know if that's our national Wildlife Refuges work, but wouldn't surprise me if it did.
00;43;36;23 - 00;44;02;22
Unknown
But this particular place was, I don't know, I think it's at about an hour from the closest town. Definitely border one skies. Definitely excellent conditions and, you know, pretty reasonably priced like $125 a night, I want to say, for renting out the Airbnb. And I was just thinking to myself, like, man, that would be a great vacation for the right group of people.
00;44;02;22 - 00;44;26;00
Unknown
So if you could get together a group of astronomers and, you know, kind of have your own star party, so to speak, instead of going to like a, you know, a big public star party type brown like Cherry Springs on the East Coast here up in Pennsylvania, but rather, you know, maybe get a dozen people together and have a star party out at one of those places.
00;44;26;00 - 00;44;49;06
Unknown
I could see that being a whole lot of fun. And I still haven't seen the high elevation portal one skies, which is something I'm still personally dying to see. And, I don't know, I'm kicking around the idea of maybe, taking one of those trips. I don't know if I'd be able to go for a whole week or not, but if, I guess if I went all the way out west to Nevada, I probably would want to stay for the whole week.
00;44;49;09 - 00;45;07;26
Unknown
The cool part about it, though, in my opinion, anyway, is getting there. Because you know, any good true dark sky locations is going to require a little bit of work to get to it. Because if you haven't, you know, driven to the middle of nowhere, are you even really in a portal one? You have to ask yourself this.
00;45;07;26 - 00;45;26;24
Unknown
Unless you're in the middle of the ocean. But anyway, from Charlotte, you have to, the. I remember looking it up on Google, and they gave me, like, three different choices of they all have connecting flights. So you can't go direct any of these places. Like, I think Reno, Nevada is probably the, the fastest way to go.
00;45;26;24 - 00;46;00;09
Unknown
So you essentially fly out of Charlotte, you make a connection, you know, at some airport halfway along the way out, imagine. And then you land in Reno, but then you got to rent a car and drive for six hours, 500 something miles, to get there. And man, oh, man, when you go and look at it on Google Maps and pull up like the Earth view, where it actually shows you the Earth and everything, it's crazy how far you have to zoom out before you see any sort of civilization.
00;46;00;12 - 00;46;22;03
Unknown
So that place in particular really caught my eye, especially for the price, at like 125 bucks a night. If anyone's interested in it, if this is making your ears poke, drop me a line. You can come by, the Facebook page or obviously email at gmail.com, and I'll post about it. I don't want to blow the guy's, you know, Airbnb listing up with people that are.
00;46;22;03 - 00;46;45;20
Unknown
Well, I guess it doesn't hurt to do it. Why not? So I'll put the, the notes in the show for you on the actual listing. I was it cloudy nights com which, if you haven't been there somehow, you need to go in and check it out. It has awesome forums from lots of astronomers and astrophotographers of every walk, as well as reviews and, you know, just a ton of great information.
00;46;45;20 - 00;47;10;16
Unknown
I love cloudy nights. Any time it's rainy out or cloudy out. Hence the name. I tend to find myself there, but somebody did a review of this particular home and it's called the rockin T.D. ranch. T.D. like touchdown and it's, single floor. It looks like a log home, but I'm sure it's just like a log facade, not an actual log home.
00;47;10;19 - 00;47;43;21
Unknown
Looks like it's got a three car garage out front. Like, pretty sizable home. It's on a 2000 acre ranch, and at night, the person who was there said it was by far the darkest skies that they had ever seen. So definitely something that I am, quite interested to check out. And I don't think this place is, advertised necessarily as being like, you know, this is a great site for astronomers.
00;47;43;24 - 00;48;03;20
Unknown
And I immediately take that back after pulling up the listing and actually looking at it, it's got a picture of a comet right on the, the very first page there, and it says it is a, stargazers and hunters dream that is aimed to spoil. So, yeah, I mean, it's a, fully furnished house. Let's see.
00;48;03;20 - 00;48;24;03
Unknown
Sleeps up to four and two sets of bunk beds. So that's definitely like a boys trip kind of thing. I don't think, that's the kind of place you'd want to bring your family with. Especially if it's two sets of bunk beds. But for some guys that are going out to, you know, enjoy the stars, I could see that being a very, very cool place, to visit.
00;48;24;03 - 00;48;44;04
Unknown
And I'm sure there's others that are like it, obviously. But this one's pretty reasonably priced. And I thought, given that it was a pretty great review on cloudy nights, I'd at least mention it to you. You have to drive like 50 miles on a dirt road to get to it. I mean, the pictures just looking at it are crazy.
00;48;44;04 - 00;49;07;08
Unknown
Like the pictures outside. Obviously a lot of, Milky Way photos, but not from what I can tell. Like looking through here? No, like great Milky Way photos. I do see one photo of the Milky Way that appears to have what might be a star tracker. Yeah, okay, that's a hand controller. So, yeah, these people actually are astronomers that are out there doing it.
00;49;07;08 - 00;49;31;01
Unknown
So it looks like, great shot of Andromeda, shots of the moon, etc.. So definitely, a lot of astronomers going out there to, to check it out. I do see one particular light from a flagpole on the property that looks pretty annoying. And it's right in the southern sky. It's because you can see row of Fuji right above it.
00;49;31;04 - 00;50;06;26
Unknown
Which which would suck, I don't know, I would have to ask the owners about that. Like, can you turn that flagpole light off or is it always on? There's nothing worse than seeing what would otherwise be a wonderful dark sky location and ruined by one obnoxiously bright broadband LED light. And I don't know if you guys have ever had this happen to you before, but back in, May, whenever the aurora borealis came, I spent, you know, God, probably three hours that day, scouring the internet, looking for the perfect place to go.
00;50;06;26 - 00;50;30;14
Unknown
Watch them from up in the mountains. And, you know, I went, I've got the photos to prove it. And they were beautiful. But the location I found was a cemetery on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia. But unfortunately, you know, a mile down the hill, you could see it way off in the distance.
00;50;30;17 - 00;50;56;23
Unknown
There was one house and it had on its, front porch, just an obnoxious Lee bright LED light. And it just, it killed me. Light pollution is just the worst, man, I swear. It's just getting so, so bad here in Charlotte. Like, me and my wife were, driving home the other night. We went and saw, Alton Brown on Sunday night at Belk Theater here in Charlotte.
00;50;56;25 - 00;51;16;14
Unknown
And, Alton Brown, one of my longtime, folk heroes. He's just an awesome guy. Famous from good Eats on Food Network back in the day. And, has done a ton of awesome stuff in between then. But I had never seen him live, and I wanted to. And we got to, I got a signed copy of his book, which was super cool.
00;51;16;14 - 00;51;44;02
Unknown
And if you ever get a chance to see him, definitely do. But he said, this is going to be his last tour. But I don't know. Everybody always says that, right? Anyway, I hope hopefully out and we'll tour again. But on the way back we, we both noticed, just like the crazy number of lights that are everywhere on the side of, Independence Boulevard, which is kind of our main route from the southern part of the city into downtown Charlotte.
00;51;44;04 - 00;52;11;25
Unknown
It's like the street that everybody takes, expressway, whatever you want to call it. And just there's not a lot of, stuff happening on the side of this road after, you know, in the any hours of the day, really, because it's just fast traffic going back and forth the whole time. But the incredible, obnoxious amount of LED lights that are unshielded or pointed straight up in the air over and over and over.
00;52;11;25 - 00;52;34;08
Unknown
And I just think to myself when I see that, like, man, if we just put half of these out, just half of them, everybody would still be able to see perfectly fine, but we might be able to have a chance of, you know, seeing more than a few stars. I knew it was really bad this year when I noticed I can barely see the Pleiades clearly anymore from my, from my front yard.
00;52;34;08 - 00;53;02;15
Unknown
So yeah, I mean, you can still see it, but it's it's it's almost like like a blob in a way. Like the stars aren't very distinct. If you get a really good, clear, dark night, sometimes you can make it out a little bit better, but it's, it's gotten bad, and it will only get worse. In other, astrophotography news, if you did not know High Point Scientific actually went in and bought up all of the stock from me to.
00;53;02;17 - 00;53;25;25
Unknown
So if you didn't know, Meade is a producer of telescopes and all things astronomy for a long, long time. They have been a, you know, a huge part of the market here in America for as long as I can remember. And they recently went completely out of business and had to sell off all remaining stock that they had.
00;53;25;27 - 00;53;59;10
Unknown
And originally they were going to be doing a whole bunch of, auctions from the website and high Point actually zoomed in and ended up buying everything in one fell swoop, and they are reselling it now on their website. Pretty significant discounts. So if there is any, you know, Meade gear that you did have your eye on, I would highly recommend that you check out, High Point Scientific and we are affiliates of High Point Scientific at the Astro Cass.
00;53;59;10 - 00;54;13;06
Unknown
So if you want and you're buying some of that Meade gear, you could always use our affiliate link, which will be in the show notes as well. If you want to, check that out. It helps support the show a little bit. Just a tiny little slice of the pie. Goes to the astro cast, and you don't got to pay anything extra.
00;54;13;06 - 00;54;31;29
Unknown
So I had a lot of people that have done that, over the last six months or so since we started doing it. And, I just wanted to say thank you to you all. It doesn't give me the individual names or anything like that for, you know, who buys what. But anytime that I see a sale there, I always say, thank you guys so much for helping, support the show.
00;54;32;02 - 00;54;50;07
Unknown
You know, another thing that you can start doing right now, it's the perfect time of year to do it is to start planning your summer time. And for me, it's usually early summer time. But for you, it could be different. Start planning your dark sky trip. Did you not take one last year? Well you didn't, now is the time to do it.
00;54;50;07 - 00;55;07;14
Unknown
And especially with us being just, you know what, three months away from June now it's going to be March in a few more days. January seem to drag on forever, but February was by in a blink of an eye. You'll, you know, June will be here before you know it. And that's when the Milky Way starts coming into focus.
00;55;07;14 - 00;55;39;21
Unknown
The core of the Milky Way, that is, in the Northern hemisphere, which is always when I like to make a trip because I like to watch the Milky Way rise as I'm sitting back and watching all those, subs come in. And this year will be no different for me. So I am planning on making my, yearly trip down, with my buddy, to our dark sky location and, obviously we're also in talks to plan a potential star party, but, we are going to be having our, virtual star party soon.
00;55;39;21 - 00;56;06;13
Unknown
So if you're a member of the, the discord group, you can join in on that. I'm very much looking forward to that. The tricky part is kind of finding the right time to do it, because obviously we want as many people to be involved as possible. But, you know, clear skies, etc., you know, and hoping everyone in different locations has clear skies along with, you know, different time zones and working and life and yada, yada yada.
00;56;06;13 - 00;56;22;16
Unknown
And it can take a little while to get it set up, but we're planning on doing one of those in the next few weeks. And I figure, if nothing else, it could be a decent little, segway into the, the actual star party, which we will undoubtedly be holding at some point in the next year or so.
00;56;22;19 - 00;56;46;08
Unknown
Very much looking forward to that. Trying to think if I got anything I could recommend to you guys this week, I haven't I've been so, so busy this past week. I haven't been able to do anything too interesting outside of my normal, day to day activities. I haven't played any new games, I haven't started any new shows, I haven't listened to any new podcast, etc..
00;56;46;10 - 00;57;07;28
Unknown
So I'll probably I'll probably skip the recommendation this week, but hopefully I'll have a, a very, very good one next week. So in the meantime, think about building a pier. You could do something, you know, as simple as a 4x4 in the ground if you want to. You'd be surprised how stable a 4x4 is in the ground.
00;57;07;28 - 00;57;32;18
Unknown
If you put it in a few deep and don't make it up, too high. It's one thing I noticed whenever I was setting up my pier. I only needed to put it about waist height before I put that, that pier extension on and the lower to the ground that your pier is the, least amount of vibrations you'll have to worry about, it'll be less susceptible to things like, you know, ground shaking wind.
00;57;32;18 - 00;57;49;04
Unknown
If it's got a lower center of gravity. So keep that in mind. Don't try to make it, you know, any higher than it needs to be. For me, I had to, I had to get over a fence line to see Polaris. I had to make sure it was at least high enough to clear that fence line at a 32 degree angle.
00;57;49;06 - 00;58;17;12
Unknown
Luckily it was, but for you, you know, your mileage may vary, but think about that. Think about dark sky trips. Think about, galaxy season. You know, we're pretty much, there at this point. Leo is high in the sky by the time, you know, true darkness rolls around while maybe not high in the sky, but, Leo's on his way up by the time it gets really dark outside now, so we're definitely getting deep into, into galaxy season.
00;58;17;12 - 00;58;37;11
Unknown
But that just means that, nebula season's on its way. So watch out, all of us wide field people who can't really do too much during the spring. We're going to surprise you once June rolls around. Mark my words. So make your dark sky trip. Trust me, you guys, it'll change your lives. But anyway, I think that's going to do it for this week.
00;58;37;13 - 00;59;03;29
Unknown
I really appreciate you guys. I'm sorry if I seem a little bit scatterbrained. It's just been a busy, busy, busy week for me. And my mind's been pretty much everywhere you can imagine. But part of it got to live with astronomy for the week, too, which was quite, quite nice. So hopefully, by this time next week, I'll be able to tell you that the pier is in a more permanent state.
00;59;04;01 - 00;59;23;26
Unknown
And then I got my tele gizmos three, six, five cover, which is going to be here, I think, Thursday, if I, read the the noticed correctly. So once that gets here, then I can start, you know, leaving stuff outside occasionally. And I'm really nervous but really excited about that too. So I'll let you know how it goes.
00;59;23;29 - 00;59;45;03
Unknown
We'll be back next week, 50th episode next week. You know, we're doing something special for the 50th episode. I know I made a big deal when we hit the 10th episode, but are we going to make a big deal for number 50 guys? So you have been listening to the Astro cast. I am your host, green. Thank you so much for tuning in this week.
00;59;45;05 - 01;00;23;09
Unknown
And as always, clear Sky is.
01;00;23;11 - 01;00;50;07
Unknown
Just wanted to, Quickly. I was looking through our referrals from our High Point affiliate link and it looks like a couple of you guys made some pretty large purchases over the, last month and a half, and I just wanted to send a really special thank you to you guys for that. Several of you made, you know, $400 plus purchases, 300, 200.
01;00;50;09 - 01;01;11;07
Unknown
You know, that that's significant. And, while they only send a small cut to the show, that is huge. And one of you in particular look like you probably bought a whole rig, close to $2,500. And that makes a big difference for the show. And I just wanted to say thank you so much for doing that. It means a lot.
01;01;11;07 - 01;01;14;04
Unknown
So thanks so much. Clear skies.
