What did you do today (2015)

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 31/07/2015 16:04:17:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 31/07/2015 15:59:30:

> Google's online calculator.

It makes a very creditable job of parsing plain English into mathematical expressions.

[/quote]

MichaelG.

Yes Michael, but I would have to parse the mathematical expression (or a formula) I wanted to use into plain English first!

It is indeed clever but some things these days are just clever for the sake of it

Ian P

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

It's nice gimmick, but parsing words is really no harder than parsing symbols*.

Neil

*I'm qualified to claim this, I've written a BASIC interpreter

[Boiler BriParticipant @boilerbri]

Today I realised how small my new workshop will be when I retire. At the moment I have have half of a double garage plus two feet extra for the full length of the garage, annexed off from the rest of the garage, so all in all I have plenty of room. 17 foot of 2foot wide work bench, compressor, box ford model A lathe, Harrison vertical Miller, my ford vertical Miller, start right bench drill, bench mounted grinders x2 and a four inch traction engine nearly completed, so all in all plenty of room.

My new workshop will be a garden shed, custom built 9 foot x 5 foot. I will also have to be realistic on what I can make, so the traction engine will have to go when finished but I will probably still carry on with the 5" sweet pea that I have in build. My 040 5" tank engine will go and my 3-1/2" William. Traction engines living outside at the seaside is not good!

My machines are in reasonable nick and if I can I will keep the boxford, but the Millers will have to go, I will still need a milling machine, most likely a bench mounted type, I will try to source one that has a vertical quill travel so I can drill with it, only problem I have is which one? Some have plastic gears which will be a Nono. I don't have time to faf about mending machines, my boxford has never missed a beat so I want quality.

Your thoughts gentlemen.

Bri

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Ian & Neil

Perhaps I'm too easily impressed … I thought it was rather clever.

MichaelG.

[Steven GreenhoughParticipant @stevengreenhough56335]

Had some good news made official. About 2 years or so ago I my employer (financial, telephony) decided to move me off the ‘shop floor’ and onto the I.T. dept; our bespoke accounting system was being migrated from ICL/Fujitsu mainfraime to Microsoft/SQL. For a couple of years we’d used a Host Talk windows emulated front end and the idea was that the new system would look and feel the same. I was draughted to design and implement the testing of the end user’s front end because of my (user) system knowledge and experience and ended up getting involved in testing most aspects of the conversion… All went well and I was seconded to I.T. permanently to test all (well nearly all) new development whether bought-in or developed in-house. All good rewarding stuff and have been more than happy with that turn of events.

Todays good news is that I’m being moved within I.T. to the role of trainee programmer/developer (in VB initially, not sure exactly what version we use). Made up doesn’t cover it, can’t wait until folks in the business are clicking my buttons.

Packing for a bit of fishing with my two girls tomorrow, smiling alot.

Edited By Steven Greenhough on 31/07/2015 20:47:15

[DrDaveParticipant @drdave]

I finally finished installing the DRO on my lathe tonight. Considering that I bought it at this year's Ally Pally show, that is fast work by my standards…

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

What did I do today? I attempted to get this thread onto page 100

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by Steven Greenhough on 31/07/2015 20:44:55:
…our bespoke accounting system was being migrated from ICL/Fujitsu mainfraime to Microsoft/SQL.

Wow, are people still using mainframes? I designed several of the PSUs for the ICL Fujitsu SX39 ("Essex&quot modular mainframe system including the supervisory and fans controllers, then later the hot pluggable, dual redundant multi output supplies for the OCLS optical(!!) hub. The first customers for the SX system were the UK Inland Revenue and British Gas (as they were at the time). They made this system for quite a few years. Don't suppose they were using that until they changed over?

Murray

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Around signing off MEW 232, I found time to process some images from last night. The best is just a vanilla shot of the moon, but the conditions were near-perfect, the detail in this stack of 21 images blows my socks off. Right click and 'view image' to see it in all it's glory!

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 09:51:14

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

> Your thoughts gentlemen.

Prioritise!

Put TV in shed and move workshop into living room

Neil

[Steven GreenhoughParticipant @stevengreenhough56335]

Muzzer.

That’s a level of detail that is a bit beyond my understanding. They’re taking a risk on me because previously a computer was just something I played games on.

But in answer to your question, yes people do still use mainframes. Several of our clients do…

[BrevaParticipant @breva]

Very fine picture Neil.

Are those circular marks with striations out from them caused by past impacts from space, or do we know?

If so they gave it quite a smack!

John

[Four stroke FredParticipant @fourstrokefred]

Not so much of what did I do today as what happened today . We had a 5.7 earth quake just off the coast but 10 kilometres deep – this followed a 5.3 two days ago. The dogs barked but but I didn't feel any thing – must have been busy in the workshop! Very little damage in town and still a great place to live.

George (Bundaberg).

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Breva on 31/07/2015 22:23:09:

Very fine picture Neil.

Are those circular marks with striations out from them caused by past impacts from space, or do we know?

If so they gave it quite a smack!

John

These days the generally accepted explanation is that they are impact craters and the lines of bright material are 'ejecta'. They are most visible around full moon.

What's nice about that pic is it picks up a lot of detail usually lost at full moon (its about 10 and a half hours off full), probably because I was very lucky about the excellent seeing conditions. The best bit is top-right, as 'libration' has brought some seldom seen objects into better view and being right on the terminator they are very clear, the dark crater Grimaldi is usually closer to the edge and less obviously round.

What is truly amazing is that a combination of image stacking and sharpening has allowed me to bring out details comparable to what a traditional film camera would get using a much bigger scope.

Patrick Moore's great work was to map a surprising amount of the 'dark side' using opportunities like this.

Neil

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Good heavens Bri, Garages are meant to be used as Workshops.

Cars are never allowed to soil their interior, not unless they are Blower Bentleys of course.

You need to get your priorities right

Neil,

One of the best I've seen of the moon. Amazing doesn't do justice to it – WELL DONE!

Volcanic action of yonks ago?

Geoff – This YouTube video production malarkey isn't easy!

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Quite right Geoff

"Garages are meant to be used as Workshops.

Cars are never allowed to soil their interior"

I've always worked on the principal that cars are waterproof and should thus be left outside. In my case one half of my double garage is a comfy workshop………..( and the other half is a scruffy junk hole where all the "it might be useful one day" or I'd better keep that paint in case I need it for touching up" or "if I take it apart there might be some useful bits to rescue" ….or any other feeble excuse for avoiding a clear out that comes to mind.

Norman

Edited By NJH on 01/08/2015 10:28:39

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Neil

Brilliant (literally and figuratively!) moonshot. The detail along the top edge is spectacular.

Query "image stacking and sharpening" ??? any SIMPLE details, please? My own attempts with the anti-intuitive 'unsharp mask' never produces results anything like yours!!

rgds

Bill

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

A few days ago it was reported that the sale of sheds to women was up 50% on the same period 2014. There may be some competion for garden space between the man cave and the she shed or maybe the indoor workshop could be on while "her indoors" becomes "her outdoors".

Mike

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Query "image stacking and sharpening" ??? any SIMPLE details, please? My own attempts with the anti-intuitive 'unsharp mask' never produces results anything like yours!!

rgds

Bill

Hello Bill, I mostly use free software.

Simple solution:  download Registax  (free) and load your pictures into it, let it stack them and then play with wavelet sharpening until you like the result.

Less simple – what I actually did:

That was 21 shots using a Canon 10D (ancient) on my scope at 100 iso and 1/100 and 1/250 second. The scope was tracking at lunar rate, but i doubt this made much difference. I had focused the scope with a bhatinov mask and it was well cooled down – I had been outside for three hours at this point.

I used RAW and balanced the images in Raw Therapee before doing anything and saved as TIFFs. (If they had all been the same exposure I would not have needed to do this as PIPP would have accepted the RAW files).

I then loaded the TIFFs into PIPP which automatically centres the image (among other things).

PIPP produced a new set of cropped tiffs that I put into Autostakkert! 2 which aligns them and produces a final image. I used all 100% of frames as I could see there were no 'duff' ones.

I then used Corel Paint to reduce the gamma to about 0.5 to stop the highlights bleaching. You can use many image program,s to do this sort of contrast adjustment.

Finally, I used Astra Image 3 to apply Lucy Richardson Deconvolution which worked brilliantly on this image (if you download old version 3 it comes with a licence activation code). You have to play with the settings to hit the 'sweet spot' that matches the lens and conditions and any focus error, but I think that the clear conditions and good focus set me up for success.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 01/08/2015 13:08:15

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Posted by OuBallie on 01/08/2015 10:12:25:Neil,

One of the best I've seen of the moon. Amazing doesn't do justice to it – WELL DONE!

Volcanic action of yonks ago?

Agreed! A very fine picture.

I think the current theory is that the moon ceased to be thermally active a very long time ago (billions of years). The craters were formed by impact when there was still a great deal of stuff milling around during the formation of the stable solar system we know today. Earth would have suffered from similar impacts but our geo-thermal activity is constantly re-modelling the planet's surface (plate tectonics and all that) so that the evidence has disappeared. Any impact craters that are evident on earth are therefore relatively recent – Meteor Crater in Arizona is only about 50,000 years old.

Rod

Edit – question answered in cross post.

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 01/08/2015 13:07:56

[OuBallieParticipant @ouballie]

Rod,

Something more knowledgeable have no doubt pondered since time immemorial and will continue so doing.

I asked about those striations, also as mentioned by John, as they look just like lava flows, albeit old.

That prominent crator is huge, but not all have those streaks radiating outwards, and some of the other are equal and greater in size.

Can't be water, so the next best is debris blown out by the impact.

Ah well, I won't loose any sleep hopefully, I have enough to occupy my noggin.

Neil,

I was following you quite happily up to:

"I used RAW ….. " which I use and comfortable with, but you just disappeared from then on.

I've enough brain ache without trying to get into your type of photography.

Can see myself disappearing up my own backside on both topics, and remember someone saying Windows was in the habit of doing so on a regular basis.

Geoff – Burst out laughing on hearing that about Widows, as it was so relevant around the turn of the Millennium.

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Thank you Neil.

Very informative but even though I also have the Canon 10D I can't see any likelihood of getting results like yours. I suspect that it is an example of Jack Nicklaus's dictum – "The more you practice, the luckier you get!!"

rgds

Bill

[VersabossParticipant @versaboss]

Neil, for us simple 'point and shoot' photographers it would be very interesting to see (just) one of the original pictures, before any treatment.

Regards, HansR.

[BrevaParticipant @breva]

""I then loaded the TIFFs into PIPP which automatically centres the image (among other things).

PIPP produced a new set of cropped tiffs that I put into Autostakkert! 2 which aligns them and produces a final image………"

Neil,

Thanks for the detailed info. It sure is labour intensive and only for the committed and knowledgeable. In my case, it bought a line from that much loved poem of Goldsmith's to mind:

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew.,"

John

[Raymond Sanderson 2Participant @raymondsanderson2]

After 3 years of neglect and spring on its way it was time for some TLC to my small Bonsia collection sadly I lost my major Olive to much water and bugs. Some new shoots off the old main root saved so hopefully in 30 yrs it'll look as good as it once was. My 35 yr old Fig still doing well and its off springs.

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