Welcome to Emerald Hills Live!

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This video is private.

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Electronically-assisted Astronomy (EAA) opens up new vistas for those who would never be able to make time to travel to view the heavenlies through a scope like our RASA 11-inch with a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro astro-camera and an Octopi-Astro camera interface. Operating on an iOptron CEM70G mount for precision "Go-To" targeting, we explored a random list of targets during this live-stream, varying from well-known favorites from the Messier list to exotic unknown deep-space objects seldom seem "on live TV." Thanks for taking part!

Tonight is a special night because it's the first night we're using fiber-optic cable to route the data and controls in from the scope to the control room, some 220 feet away. We're also using a Rig-Runner power distribution box, complete with Anderson PowerPole cables - for the first time ever as well.

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Electronically-assisted Astronomy (EAA) opens up new vistas for those who would never be able to make time to travel to view the heavenlies through a scope like our RASA 11-inch with a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro astro-camera and an Octopi-Astro camera interface. Operating on an iOptron CEM70G mount for precision "Go-To" targeting, we explored a random list of targets during this live-stream, varying from well-known favorites from the Messier list to exotic unknown deep-space objects seldom seem "on live TV." Thanks for taking part!

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Electronically-assisted Astronomy (EAA) opens up new vistas for those who would never be able to make time to travel to view the heavenlies through a scope like our RASA 11-inch with a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro astro-camera and an Octopi-Astro camera interface. Operating on an iOptron CEM70G mount for precision "Go-To" targeting, we hope to explore a random list of targets during this live-stream. If you're live, feel free to suggest a target!

[Edited: In this video, we tried the entire evening to connect reliably with our mount. Sadly, we never succeeded. Have you ever had this kind of difficulty? If so, please share your story below. Do you think it was due to the 7-degree cold weather? As of this edited comment, about one week later, we've concluded that it was not only the cold, but also our specific mount's inability to process power through the power ports supplied by iOptron for users to power-up on the front of the saddle. In the next observing session (on January 10th), we tries running the mount without supplying power to these ports and without running our USB3 cameras through the mount -- and the mount connected fine and worked perfectly! See that video here:
https://youtu.be/jo2AqTn0n2I
We've contacted iOptron and we hope they'll get the word out to other CEM70G owners with this generation of mount, but either way, we're now a very happy camper! : ) ]

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Electronically-assisted Astronomy (EAA) opens up new vistas for those who would never be able to make time to travel to view the heavenlies through a scope like our RASA 11-inch with a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro astro-camera and an Octopi-Astro camera interface. Operating on an iOptron CEM70G mount for precision "Go-To" targeting, we hope to explore a random list of targets during this live-stream. If you're live, feel free to suggest a target!

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

Links mentioned in this video:
https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/articles/231535887-How-to-add-your-own-photorealistic-custom-horizon-to-SN7

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/sections/206804267-Starry-Night-Photorealistic-Panoramas

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/360000835034-Starry-Night-8-User-Support

My 10-line text file:
https://brigada.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/emerald_hills.txt

You can name it whatever you want. When you place it in this path:
C:UsersrightAppDataLocalSimulation CurriculumStarry Night 8 PrefsSky DataHorizon Panoramas

IMPORTANT: You will have to replace the word "right" (in the path above) with YOUR Windows user name. For example, if your Windows user name is Fred, your path might be:

C:UsersFredAppDataLocalSimulation CurriculumStarry Night 8 PrefsSky DataHorizon Panoramas

Once you place the txt file in the path, the next time you open up Starry Night Pro, your local horizon photorealistic panorama will be a choice in the list. Isn't that fun? : )

Questions? As them in the comments. I'll do my best to answer and stay up to date.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

Links mentioned in this video:
Crash course on the Classical Orbital Elements (COEs), used to add a custom object:
https://youtu.be/2gAYqtmNJx8

More about JWST:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope

NASA What is a Larange Point: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/754/what-is-a-lagrange-point/

NASA JWST Dashboard: https://webb.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html

NASA Horizon System:
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/

Download a copy of the Orbital Elements Converter spreadsheet that we created for this video. (It's free - and it's also "macro-free." You have my word that there's nothing in it that will harm your computer. But if you'd rather - you can always re-create the spreadsheet using instructions in the video.):
https://brigada.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/orbital_elements_converter.xlsx

Questions? Ask them in the comments. I'll do my best to answer and stay up to date.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

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Emerald Hills Skylets examine and share great features for Amateur and Professional astronomy. They're designed to help you expand your capacity to walk the journey of exploring, analyzing, and documenting the universe. And because we "crowd-source" by seeking and distributing input from creative and entrepreneurial amateur astronomers from all over the world, maybe Emerald Hills Skylets might be of interest to you too.

This particular video is all about Starry Night Pro. You can learn more about Starry Night from Simulation Curriculum, here:

https://starrynight.com/starry-night-8-professional-astronomy-telescope-control-software.html

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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This short Skylet shares our journey with electronically-assisted astronomy (EAA), featuring Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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Emerald Hills Skies produces short videos called Skylets to share views of the live night sky, along with lessons learned in EAA - including hardware components, software applications, tips & tricks, and more. This Skylet features Doug Lucas, President of Team Expansion, imaging the night skies from Team Expansion's international operating base ("International Services") on the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky.

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Like many amateur astronomers, I've been using a bahtinov mask for focusing. But on a fast scope like the RASA 8 (f/2), I'm beginning to wonder if maybe the Bahtinov mask is "too approximate." This led me to investigate autofocusing using Nina and APT - with my Celestron Focus Motor. Initial results are very encouraging. At the end of our very first experiences with autofocus in Nina and APT, we image NGC4631 (The Whale Galaxy) to test out our focus. The entire night took place with a 96% moon (almost full). The Whale Galaxy was just 20 degrees away from the moon, too - but with EAA (Electronically-Assisted Astronomy), we were still able to enjoy it. We finished by pointing to some of our next steps. We're going to research the amount of backlash we have in our Celestron Focus Motor, incorporate that into these routines, and test them to see which autofocus routine we like best. Either way, we'll still use Sharpcap for imaging. Thanks for joining us at Emerald Hills Skies in another "Skylet!"

Learn more about APT at their website, https://www.astrophotography.app/ .
Learn more about Nina at https://nighttime-imaging.eu/ .
We use Sharpcap for imaging, available at https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/ .

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