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Gill Head: Kirkby Luneside's neighbour


Physicsman
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14 minutes ago, DeadRinger said:

It will be a fitting tribute

 

DeadRinger

 

I wasn't sure whether to give you a "Like" like, or a "Funny" like, as the latter might give credit to my insanity!

 

Year 2654..... "Hey, Fred, look what I've found" "Wow, Jim, we suspected the "Viaduct Nutter" lived in this area, but were never sure" "Yes, Fred, he SURE was a sad case. Probably STONED out of his head...."

 

 Jeff

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Time for an update since it's nearly a week since I posted anything.

 

To be honest, absolutely no work has been done on the viaduct since last Saturday. I've spent the last 5 days obtaining and processing 150Gb of imaging data from 2 (very) late evenings of Moon photography. The opportunities to obtain decent results are relatively rare in this country, so the viaduct has been on hold.

 

I will be back in the Bunker tomorrow and I'd expect to start painting by the end of the weekend.

 

It's a funny feeling having a break from the "job" after almost 4 months of consecutive days, but also quite refreshing!

 

Jeff

 

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7 hours ago, PeterBB said:

Hopefully we will be able to see some of your moon pictures after processing.

 

Peter, I'll put some examples on here tomorrow.

 

I really ought to put them in the Lounge, but as nobody ever looks there anymore, this thread is as good as any.

 

Just re-stocked with some wet and dry abrasives, so a bit of rubbing down tomorrow.

 

Jeff

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Physicsman said:

 

Peter, I'll put some examples on here tomorrow.

 

 

I'd be interested in details of your imaging set up when you do put up your photos. 

 

Graeme

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1 hour ago, jacko said:

I'd be interested in details of your imaging set up when you do put up your photos. 

 

Graeme

 

Hi Graeme.

 

I'm severely limited in what I can show on here by the requirement for JPEG use (all my pics are uncompressed TIFs). Converting some TIFs to JPEG isn't something I like doing, though I'll do it as some people are interested. 

 

If you PM me with a proper email, I'll send you some TIFs, though my Hotmail still limits me to 25Mb per message. I'll give details of what's involved....Best not to clutter things here - too much, anyway!

 

Jeff

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Physicsman said:

 

Hi Graeme.

 

I'm severely limited in what I can show on here by the requirement for JPEG use (all my pics are uncompressed TIFs). Converting some TIFs to JPEG isn't something I like doing, though I'll do it as some people are interested. 

 

If you PM me with a proper email, I'll send you some TIFs, though my Hotmail still limits me to 25Mb per message. I'll give details of what's involved....Best not to clutter things here - too much, anyway!

 

Jeff

 

 

Jeff, if you need to send large files like I do nearly every day then use WeTransfer https://wetransfer.com/

You can sign up for a free account and send as many files as you want up to 2GB per upload.  You can do this as many times as you like per day as long as you dont go over the 2GB limit for each upload.  Drag and drop the file(s) to the WeTransfer window.  You get an email stating you have sent the files once they have uploaded and then the recipient gets an email stating that files are ready to download from WeTransfer.  They have 7 days in which to download the files before they get deleted from WeTransfer.

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12 minutes ago, Donington Road said:

 

Jeff, if you need to send large files like I do nearly every day then use WeTransfer https://wetransfer.com/

You can sign up for a free account and send as many files as you want up to 2GB per upload.  You can do this as many times as you like per day as long as you dont go over the 2GB limit for each upload.  Drag and drop the file(s) to the WeTransfer window.  You get an email stating you have sent the files once they have uploaded and then the recipient gets an email stating that files are ready to download from WeTransfer.  They have 7 days in which to download the files before they get deleted from WeTransfer.

 

Mick, that post is worth several "likes"!

 

I'll give it a go. I frequently send images to an ex-Physics colleague of mine and it's a pain having to send 4 emails. Your suggestion could be very useful.

 

Many thanks!

 

Jeff

 

 

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Here are 4 pics, as requested.

 

The first 3 were taken on 1st and 2nd March - the largest craters in the first two are around 160km in diameter (Petavius and Janssen). The 3rd pic shows the Mare Crisium (one of the moon's "seas", it's the one at 2 o'clock to the naked eye at full moon) on the terminator. 

 

These images are ok, but the moon was at a relatively low altitude - 30 to 35 degrees, increasing atmospheric distortions. My usual rule is a minimum of 45 degrees altitude (preferably 50), but these were the first decent nights for weeks and I needed to have a "play".

 

Images are generally made from several, pieced together as a "mosaic", as the field of view from single pics can be rather small. The 4th pic is a 13 image mosaic from April 2018. The large crater is Theophilus, around 120km diameter. The imaging was quite good that evening, with the moon's altitude above 45 degrees.

 

I hope these are of interest.

 

Graeme: Celestron C11, images obtained at prime focus, f10. ZWO ASI 290MM planetary camera. 3000 frames per AVI, best 15% converted to TIF after stacking in Autostakkert!3 with Registax 6 wavelets and Curve adjustments.

 

Jeff

 

PS. The images on here are Jpegs, highly compressed from the original TIFs. So they do not "zoom" out anywhere near as well as the originals!

 

 

Petavius RMW.jpg

Janssen area .jpg

Crisium area .jpg

Theophilus Nectaris.jpg

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Those photos look superb Jeff. I have a C8 but I've been concentrating on visual observation and 'snaps' with my canon dslr for the past few years. However, now my observatory is nearly finished I'm moving into more serious astrophotography. I'll be guiding with PHD2 using an ASI290MM mini / Svbony 60mm guidescope but until I can save another £900 I'll be taking images with my  Canon 70d and APT- this will eventially be getting replaced with an ASI533MC pro. Up here, clear skies are few and far between so an OSC makes more sense than a mono camera.

 

Graeme

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49 minutes ago, Physicsman said:

Here are 4 pics, as requested.

 

The first 3 were taken on 1st and 2nd March - the largest craters in the first two are around 160km in diameter (Petavius and Janssen). The 3rd pic shows the Mare Crisium (one of the moon's "seas", it's the one at 2 o'clock to the naked eye at full moon) on the terminator. 

 

These images are ok, but the moon was at a relatively low altitude - 30 to 35 degrees, increasing atmospheric distortions. My usual rule is a minimum of 45 degrees altitude (preferably 50), but these were the first decent nights for weeks and I needed to have a "play".

 

Images are generally made from several, pieced together as a "mosaic", as the field of view from single pics can be rather small. The 4th pic is a 13 image mosaic from April 2018. The large crater is Theophilus, around 120km diameter. The imaging was quite good that evening, with the moon's altitude above 45 degrees.

 

I hope these are of interest.

 

Graeme: Celestron C11, images obtained at prime focus, f10. ZWO ASI 290MM planetary camera. 3000 frames per AVI, best 15% converted to TIF after stacking in Autostakkert!3 with Registax 6 wavelets and Curve adjustments.

 

Jeff

 

PS. The images on here are Jpegs, highly compressed from the original TIFs. So they do not "zoom" out anywhere near as well as the originals!

 

 

Petavius RMW.jpg

Janssen area .jpg

Crisium area .jpg

Theophilus Nectaris.jpg

Pink Floyd comes to mind.:good: stunning.:good::good::good:

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Superb images, Jeff

No wonder you have patience to construct the viaduct.

I shudder to think of the time taken to gather and process the data for these.

 

As Mr Dury said “It's good to be a lunatic”. (pun intended)

 

Edited by lambiedg
Grammar
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2 hours ago, jacko said:

Those photos look superb Jeff. I have a C8 but I've been concentrating on visual observation and 'snaps' with my canon dslr for the past few years. However, now my observatory is nearly finished I'm moving into more serious astrophotography. I'll be guiding with PHD2 using an ASI290MM mini / Svbony 60mm guidescope but until I can save another £900 I'll be taking images with my  Canon 70d and APT- this will eventially be getting replaced with an ASI533MC pro. Up here, clear skies are few and far between so an OSC makes more sense than a mono camera.

 

Graeme

 

Graeme, I have a vintage C8 from 1983. Still works superbly and in many ways is just as good as the C11 as us "fortunate" folks in the northern UK (Lanarkshire isn't far north of where I am in Cumbria) tend to be "seeing limited".

 

I await the chance to use the scope with the moon at much higher altitudes! Btw, last night was typical of Britain - lovely clear skies, and the moon at 17 degrees altitude in Scorpius!!!!

 

Glad to see you're into ZWO. I also use a mono 174MM - brilliant large chip for wide swathes of the moon. I did do some imaging of Jupiter in 2016, using a filter wheel, but until it gets back to a higher declination I'll be sticking to the moon.

 

Clear skies, mate!

 

Jeff

 

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36 minutes ago, lambiedg said:

Superb images, Jeff

No wonder you have patience to construct the viaduct.

I shudder to think of the time taken to gather and process the data for these.

 

As Mr Dury said “It's good to be a lunatic”. (pun intended)

 

 

Hi David.

 

A typical 2 hours of moon imaging generates 50 - 80 AVI video files of around 1Gb each. These each contain about 2000-4000 "snapshot" images of the target, and each is obtained in a 20-30 second period, with the frame rate at about 150 frames per second.

 

Software is used to select the best images - the other day I was using 3000 frames per AVI and the atmosphere was swimming so much ("poor seeing") I only took the best 300 (10%) frames from each. These are then "stacked" to reduce background noise and the resulting image processed.

 

Takes quite a few hours per imaging session, but it's like magic seeing the result emerge from blurry individual pics. Very enjoyable.

 

I'll put a couple more of my favourite pics from 2018 (I had a house move, so no imaging from April 2018 to 4 days ago) if people would like a couple more? I'll post up one of the mosaics with around 60 individual pics in it from this week, too.

 

Oh, btw - just spent 2 hours sanding down parts of the viaduct - I'll do a bit more later. Had to mention something railway-related!!

 

Jeff

 

PS. The first word I said, apparently, was "moon". Lunacy was inbuilt from an early age!

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, John Besley said:

Awesome pics of the Moon, is Mars viewable? 

 

Evening John.

 

I'm afraid that Mars is well past its best at the moment, still visible in the evening sky but much dimmer than when at its best last October. 

 

I've attached a few more pics - I'll leave it after that, for now anyway, though there's tons of material I could stick on here.

 

Image 1: Craters Aristoteles and Eudoxus, the former around 100km across. From April 2018.

Image 2: A highly compressed jpeg version of a 63 image mosaic. The original TIF comes in at over 40Mb.

Images 3 and 4: Theophilus group as taken in April 2018 and shown above. Compare it to the image from March 2nd (3 days ago), under quite different lighting conditions. A bit of shadow works wonders for detail!

 

Hope these are of interest.

 

Jeff

 

 

Aristoteles Eudoxus S12456Th stitch 5 BR.jpg

Endymion to Furnerius from Crisium 30 and LP 35 stitch 63.jpg

Moon_204710 S12456Th Gcur PH crop_stitch 13 GcurBR1.jpg

Theophilus Nectaris .jpg

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Apologies for boring the pants off some of you with the Moon stuff, but it was requested and it is my primary hobby.

 

Having said that, looking at some of the rubbish (non-layout related) filling pages and pages of some of the longest-running Layout threads.....

 

Anyway, other than tiny "touch-ups", 90% of the viaduct has been given a sanding down. One of the arch-liner/ring areas had DAS missing, so that's been filled-in and can be rubbed down on Monday.

 

I'll put a couple of dilute emulsion primer (white, but so thin you'd hardly notice the colour) washes onto two of the rear (east) piers tomorrow and use those areas for test applications of grey, probably Monday.

 

There you are, all up-to-date. And not a crater in sight! :P:(

 

Jeff

 

 

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4 hours ago, Physicsman said:

Apologies for boring the pants off some of you with the Moon stuff, but it was requested and it is my primary hobby.

 

Having said that, looking at some of the rubbish (non-layout related) filling pages and pages of some of the longest-running Layout threads.....

 

Jeff

 

 

 

And there I was thinking you were scoping out locations for your next Viaduct project when I came in at the latest post after a while away from here, C

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2 hours ago, BWsTrains said:

 

And there I was thinking you were scoping out locations for your next Viaduct project when I came in at the latest post after a while away from here, C

 

No, Colin....

 

.... just looking for a suitable retirement home! :sungum:

 

Jeff

 

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That's fantastic - thanks so much for posting. I also really do not like gradients at all so your affirmation to drop it in the scenery has given me the boost I needed - thanks. I just need to re-jig some boards/get the jigsaw out now. It really does look fabulous - best pics I have seen. Cheers

Edited by reddo
Learning how to do it!
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32 minutes ago, reddo said:

That's fantastic - thanks so much for posting. I also really do not like gradients at all so your affirmation to drop it in the scenery has given me the boost I needed - thanks. I just need to re-jig some boards/get the jigsaw out now. It really does look fabulous - best pics I have seen. Cheers

 

Glad to be able to help. Please ask away, someone on here - myself, Andy Peters or one of the regulars, will probably come up with some kind of answer.

 

One of the great things about this "hobby" - or should I say "occupation" - is the satisfaction of learning new things. I'm still making mistakes, but it's great when you sort them out. And gradients on a much earlier layout were a definite mistake.I

 

Enjoy your jig-sawing!

 

Jeff

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Update....

 

The viaduct had a base wash of very dilute white emulsion (1:30ish) on Sunday.

 

Over the last 2 days it's had 6 complete washes of an equally dilute grey acrylic mix. It's gradually getting darker....

 

I'm doing it this way, rather than a lesser number of more concentrated washes, because it gives a very fine degree of control over the whole process.

 

I reckon another 6-8 washes should do the trick (45 mins each)....I'll post some pics once the photos show a significant "greyness" in the structure. The darkening that's apparent to the eye does not necessarily show on the pics!

 

Jeff

 

 

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Further update.

 

The viaduct has now had 12 washes and it's taking longer for each one, so I'm hoping another 2 will finish the job.

 

I'll put some pics on here tomorrow showing the "grey" state of affairs. This won't be the end as accentuating coats of white and black (separately!!) will be added afterwards.

 

I suppose 20 hours of painting is pretty insignificant in the overall scheme of viaduct things!

 

Jeff

 

Btw, Andy - if you look in - your images today in "Show me yours" are excellent.

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