I know. We even talked about it 
There are 2 issues:
- but certainly not one of their flexies.I donāt think we did, I just recently noticed they changed their pics to something that looks a lot more like plastic than silicone
I spent the first of my job money on a new toyā¦
I bought an Apertura AD8 8" Dobsonian telescope
It finally got here today, after a very impatient 8 days. Tortuously, the stand/mount came yesterday, but the actual optical tube didnāt come until today.
Although itās not intended for astrophotography (almost purely for visual astronomy), I snapped a few pics of the moon through the eyepiece 
At max magnification, it looked absolutely incredible in person. My highest magnification was a 6mm eyepiece, with a 2x barlow (since the moon is so bright, it was a worthwhile tradeoff). That brings it near 400x, which is about the maximum with the Earthās atmosphere in the way. It also means I likely should have gone down a bit for full clarity (Iām magnifying the atmosphere turbulence), but it was still good for wow factor.
Obviously similar results can be had with fancy binoculars, with the moon so bright and close. Still, a good first test, as well as getting to know the scope (never used a Dobsonian before, the mount is a bit tricky to maneuver precisely).
Jupiter and Saturn rise in a few hours, hopefully the clouds play along. It was super clear until about an hour ago, because of course it was 
Supposed to get quite cloudy around the time Saturn comes out, hopefully I can still it before they get too bad.
Fucken aye it is.
Your photos look amazing.
When are you going to try and capture the ISS during itās transit?
Thatās fucking sweet
Best telescope experience I had was on a long backpacking/training/get together
We hike 10-20 miles into the back country and up a fucking mountain in bumfuck Missouri for a week and a half,
We carried in a very nice telescope, Iāve never seen Saturns rings so clear, 90% worth the hike in
We have an 8" dobsonian too, definitely fun to play with.
Not that Iām worried about it, but has anyone actually had any run ins with tsa? A fb group poster was trying to travel with a kit, and upon reading carryon would be problematicā¦ checked should be fine
But tsa is a dumpster fire so I recommended just mailing to self
But now Iām Jonsing for a tsa being told to fuck off story preferably in reference to implants
I feel like if challenged I would use my flipper and hand write the hex on a piece of paper and hand it to them āhave funā
The TSA is quite open about how it worksā¦ They publish advice lists which include the phrase āthe TSA Agent at the airport has full discretionā in other words we will do what we want despite this document saying that it is ok to travel with a plastic butter knife.
I was ātoldā to remove my shoes in Anchorage and I pointed out that their website says I donāt have toā¦ So they insisted on swabbing them for explosives.
If they had been feeling even more pissy I am sure I would have been selected for a cavity search.
With atmospheric turbulence + lens artifacts, I wasnāt able to get a good pic of Saturn, but oh my god. It looked incredible. Super distinct rings, could see where they disappeared into Saturnās shadow. Could very rarely see the cassini division, but I do think I saw it.
Here are the best pics I got, although not even close to how it looked IRL:
Sitting outside rn, hoping I can get Jupiter, but itās cloudy in that direction. Itās behind some trees right now, so thereās still hope that Iāll get a shot at it before sunrise.
Thatās more of a job for an astrophotography rig haha. Might try it some time for shits and giggles though. I do love watching the iss fly by, although tracking it with a dobsonian sounds like a nightmare.
Something was brought to my attention recently that the rings of Saturn are possibly only very recent
10-100 million years old, younger than the dinosaurs
Idk why that changes anything about my view of the universe but itās mind blowing
Got Jupiter and 3/4 Galilean moons! Callisto is hiding rn, itās scared of me 
IRL I was able to see some beautiful color banding, looked just like the photos Iāve seen for my whole life
Honestly a super emotional experience
Youāre quick to notice anything aināt ya?
I absolutely see why. At least in my mind, I have 3 time scales that I think in. Human, geological, and universal. With humans, youāre thinking in the span of a few thousand years, geological in the millions to hundreds of millions of years, and universal hundreds of millions to billions of years.
Itās really weird when any of those scales cross paths. The idea that something major in our solar system changed so drastically within a geological time scale instead of universal is mind blowing. It would be the equivalent of if we found out that Mt. Everest appeared after the first humans. In that case, weād be crossing human time with geological time, just as weird.
Thatās really interesting though, thanks for sharing. Canāt remember if I had heard that before, donāt think I have.
you probably explained it well why it blows my mind,
very used to thinking about astronomical things on such grander timescales than a measly hundred million years,
crazy to think that life on earth is older than something like that
I think I bumped into it on a tiktok or something stupid and called bullshit, but decided to verify ( tĢ¶rĢ¶uĢ¶sĢ¶tĢ¶ assume bull shit, but verify)
and yea the Cassini spacecraft data suggests the rings are approximately only 10-100M years old
meaning various forms of life on this planet are far olderā¦
The bartender at my local joint has a great sense of humor: he had mistakenly put some traditional Finnish Christmas songs on the terrasse PA speakers.
One particularly drunken patron yelled out āHey! What is this crap? Itās summer goddammit!ā
So he changed the music to Russian rap. The patron is fucking hopping mad. Highly entertaining
One of my favorites
Not only is it shit, it is only perceived security.
As āsecurity theatreā, it is far more effective at making passengers feel safe, rather than being actually effective.
When tested by homeland security and Red teamers, the TSA perform abysmally.
we are talking frequently 95% failure rates.
TSA costs a cunt load of money with very little (if any) actual Security provided.
Personally, if it meant not having to wait in a queue, I would happily walk through the Airport security naked.
There are other more effective and cheaper alternativesā¦
If youāre interested, Bruce Schneier has written some interesting articles.
Well, it would certainly speed up the cavity search if you didnāt have to undress first.
I have an acquaintance who used to audit / test the tsa
Heās told me plenty of stuff I wasnāt supposed to know, and therefore canāt repeat
He was frequently pressured into lowering the bar to make it easier for them and they still failed
I also have another acquaintance whoā¦ I donāt fully remember how or why it happenedā¦ it was a complicated multi part fuck up
but he wound up flying with a SELECT FIRE rifle, as carry onā¦ and it wound up being outside of his immediate control because the bag wasnāt the right sizing to stay under his seat
He is Leo-ish, but this definitely was not a fully approved or sanctioned thingā¦
Best part is when I was told story it was like, well at least you didnāt have loaded magsā¦
ā¦he didā¦ immediate face palm
Good thing most bad actors are dumb and untrained usually
