drs1969 (David Smith) 🇬🇧

Refugee from The Winchester. Amateur lot of things including astronomy, photography, and mucking about with classic cars (owner). Leccy car owner. Owned by two cats, slept on by a beagle, shed on by a Golden and tolerated by Mrs S. Head of Technology Strategy at The IET. If this takes off, it'll be the starry nights, Scholarly Publishing, bits of old MGA, a rant or two. Bit of F1, and probably a loathing of the Tories /GOP

Last Notes

2025-10-07 12:29:19 UTC

More #UKPolitics
Speaking as a white bloke, if you show up somewhere and lament the lack of white faces in your field of view, rest assured that you have in fact been racist.
Robert Jenrick isn't playing with words. By word and deed, he's telling everyone exactly what he is.

2025-05-06 16:46:26 UTC

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Does that mean a Starlink passed within about 3000M of Hubble? It points 'out' from Earth right? Not at a shallow angle relative to Earth. It seems a rather close pass.

2025-05-01 19:58:24 UTC

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It appears that for Oxford (nearest official station to me) there has NEVER been a 30 degree day earlier than May 26th. Until today. There have only been 5 30 deg maxima since reliable records were taken
30.6 °C May 29, 1947
30.6 °C May 28, 1944
30.1 °C May 30, 1947
30.0 °C May 26, 1841
30.0 °C May 01, 2025

2025-05-01 19:51:41 UTC

#ClimateDiary Thirty Degrees Celsius here in North Oxfordshire today (May 1st 2025) I'm not sure when, if ever in recorded temps, we hit 30 degrees, but I've got 6 years of weather station data and I've never seen 30 in May at any point. High 20s yes.
This. Is. Not. Normal

2025-04-21 19:49:33 UTC

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That's a possible interpretation.
But an unlikely one.
That meme is very obviously designed to make one think that she is equivalent to him. That's false equivalency and it's right up there in the poster of logical fallacies.
And she isn't. Not even close.
It's a dumb meme, and a dumb argument.
And I'm not on her side in any way, and I'm saying that.
There are far better and more accurate criticusms to be made of her.

2025-04-21 19:31:40 UTC

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I didn't say she was right. I don't think she is. Her views seem to be heading ever more off the rails. But it's entirely wrong to make comparisons like that. Tate is a violent and dangerous man. And so much worse. One cannot compare the two, and it serves no usefulness to do so.

2025-04-21 18:56:32 UTC

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With respect, I think that's nonsense. Sorry, but she is not. One, she's a victim of sexual assault, whilst he's been accused of doing just that on multiple occasions.
His views are horrifically mysogenistic, bigotted, and generally appalling all round.
She is firmly in the wrong in my view about trans people and their grouping. But I don't think her views and his are aligned in any way. The above attack is not going to persuade people that her views are wrong.

2025-03-19 20:49:26 UTC

M81 (right) and M82 (left) and dwarf galaxy Holmberg IX just below M81 from an excellent viewing session with the #SeestarS50. 50 mins of exposure here.
The colour feels a bit off. Possibly the AI Denoise and the Apple Photos editing being a bit rubbish. But the little scope continues to impress! Stars down to Mag 17 in this image! #Astrophotography
If you look, you can see the dust clouds? Above and below M82.
https://media.mstdn.social/media_attachments/files/114/191/022/508/438/291/original/b986bc5da72a3a1c.jpeg

2025-01-02 11:46:20 UTC

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4 I’ve always been a visual guy - photons hit my eyeball. But last night, watching M33 emerge on screen as the scope did its thing - watching that live ( outside in the cold for authenticity!) I was very very happy indeed.
Hope this helps your thinking.

2025-01-02 11:44:20 UTC

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3/ Thing is, that Mak would be good for planets. Close ups of the moon etc. but not great for a lot of other things. Galaxies are dim, but actually quite big. (This is why we buy more than one scope when the bug hits.)
But honestly, right now, when viewing opportunities are infrequent ( work, weather, tiredness) I reckon this Seestar is maybe the perfect starter scope.

2025-01-02 11:41:21 UTC

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2/n I’ve just been looking at the Sun with my Seestar. 5mins to set up and I have an incredible live view, and some great pictures. If you want to look visually at planets, you’ll want a 150mm diameter scope with a focal length of say f10. That would mean something like a maksutov cassegrain scope, plus mount plus eyepieces. Skywatcher do good ones. Get a mount for your phone, and use that with the eyepiece, to take pics.

2025-01-02 11:34:30 UTC

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A few personal thoughts. 1) just was given a seestars50 as an Xmas present. It’s incredible. I’ve got 3 other scopes, and eyepieces etc - it’s amazing.
2) there’s 9 planets… and 100,000s of other things in the sky. And planets need 2 things - they need magnification, but they also need good viewing conditions in order to be able to use whatever magnification you have… and you also need a solid mount in order to focus when you have the viewing conditions. 1/n