I was a bit curious about how many hours I have put into imaging. I can only count the hours I have used on my website, not the hours I have spent driving fixing up gear, servicing equipment, or the subs I have ditched. So I have counted 2298 hours (nearly 96 days). I think I have ditched about 20% more hours, which is about 459 hours. I think I put in quite a few more prior to automation, but don't imagine it would be more than 500 hours. This is not to mention the hours I have put into planetary imaging, which I think is well in excess of 4000 hours. Or does any of this include the years before hand with film.
It is surprising how many hours I have put in to my hobby.
Do you consider the time your gear does it's magic on its own as "personal time spent"?
I wouldn't count that towards your account of "time spent doing stuff", at all.
I have had a look at my sub library, and based on duration, I reckon there is over 500 hours; and that is not counting discards which have been deleted. However, much of that is acquired by my observatory system while I have been asleep. Not sure how much processing time has been spent, as that is more difficult to track.
I have thought that astro cameras should have a built-in hour meter, like marine engines. It would not be hard to add a software hour meter to an app like SGP for each of the cameras used. DSLRs have a shutter count (well some do) but that is useless as a contribution to duration.
Imaging? Well, that's probably less than 30 hours.
Actually looking through a telescope? That's another story.
I've been looking through telescopes since 1970 -- almost 50 years. Of that, there's also 17 years of working as a guide at Sydney Observatory plus star parties and other outreach events public & private. There's a little bit of variable star observing and back when I was young, quite a few hours observing, recording and tabulating meteor shower counts. Then there's my own personal observing.
All up, I'd reckon it adds up to somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 hours at the business end of a 'scope (maybe even a bit more) and that's not counting driving to and from or writing/typing up/sketching observations in my log (analogous to image processing).
My observing log (started in 1995) currently has about 6,900 individual entries pertaining to almost 5,500 objects observed -- and still growing. I have enough material/projects that relate to about another 2,000 things yet to observe.
It doesn't take long for a thread started in good faith to be turned into a joke.
Why bother. This is a good example of the why IIS is in Decline.
The whole world is in decline Glen. Search your feelings... you know it to be true. I'd argue IIS is, if anything, behind the curve really.
EDIT: Jokes are good. It's in the top 3 things that get me out of bed in the morning.
Last edited by AndyG; 15-10-2018 at 03:26 PM.
Reason: revelations, or something...
I don't think the TOS precludes a bit of jocularity and the folks that make the occasional joke are often major contributors of useful information as well.
Personally, I dislike the whinging about politics, subtle pushing of products by folks with a personal interest, folks that answer questions even though they don't have a clue and a few other things, but I'm not going to try to have them banned. I'd rather just ignore them quietly
I was a bit curious about how many hours I have put into imaging. I can only count the hours I have used on my website, not the hours I have spent driving fixing up gear, servicing equipment, or the subs I have ditched. So I have counted 2298 hours (nearly 96 days). I think I have ditched about 20% more hours, which is about 459 hours. I think I put in quite a few more prior to automation, but don't imagine it would be more than 500 hours. This is not to mention the hours I have put into planetary imaging, which I think is well in excess of 4000 hours. Or does any of this include the years before hand with film.
It is surprising how many hours I have put in to my hobby.
How many hours have you put in so far?
With those stats Paul, all up, you have had the 'shutter' open for approx 6 months Seriously, Credit due.
I could only roughly add up what I did back at my dark sky obs, there a few times a year for 3-4 nights 4-5 yrs, so about 40 nights - 10 for cloud nights = 30 nights x average 8 hrs per night = 240hrs, through a guided scope.
A stab in the dark for Planetary, say 50 hrs over 5-6yrs, then wide field on a tracker, another 50hrs,
Soo reckon a safe estimate with out including the 4,000 hrs trying would be around 350hrs ?
HavagoodN
Last edited by astronobob; 16-10-2018 at 02:25 AM.
According to Astrobin I've done 9.4 hour accumulated in over 3.5 years that I've been on there... Something tells me it's only counting the last image I uploaded
I could probably go back through Astrobin and count it up manually and discount the double ups.
OK, seeing this thread is so demanding of specificity and exactitude:
1. Imaging: 97.09345566712299119 hrs
2. Data: 4.38810934112789811 TB
3. Mosquitoes swatted 1.27899e79
4. Bottles of red consumed 147.75 (I managed to break a chair and pour 1/4 of a bottle on myself)
5. Amount of frustration since acquiring the Vixen SXP mount: 0
6. Number of Takahashis owned and resold: 37
7. Number of telescopes owned: 1 (Takahashi)
8. Number of telescopes NEEDED: 1
I know, I know, it's the WAY I say it...yeah...that's it.
OK, seeing this thread is so demanding of specificity and exactitude:
1. Imaging: 97.09345566712299119 hrs
2. Data: 4.38810934112789811 TB
3. Mosquitoes swatted 1.27899e79
4. Bottles of red consumed 147.75 (I managed to break a chair and pour 1/4 of a bottle on myself)
5. Amount of frustration since acquiring the Vixen SXP mount: 0
6. Number of Takahashis owned and resold: 37
7. Number of telescopes owned: 1 (Takahashi)
8. Number of telescopes NEEDED: 1
I know, I know, it's the WAY I say it...yeah...that's it.
Astrobin has been showing incorrect (zero) stats for me recently but it's working again now so I can tell you that my images there total 2831.22 hours of integration time
My total is 932.2 hours, but about 1/3 is double ups (mono->bicolour->tricolour versions), so my total is just over 600 hours (I did the count on Astrobin).
Interestingly, I approach 300 hours this year, which is nearly a half of what I got in total since starting astro in 2013. It seems that moving to Prossy was quite helpful in terms of astroimaging
OK, seeing this thread is so demanding of specificity and exactitude:
1. Imaging: 97.09345566712299119 hrs
...
4. Bottles of red consumed 147.75 (I managed to break a chair and pour 1/4 of a bottle on myself)
...
8. Number of telescopes NEEDED: 1
You have a VERY precise stopwatch Lewis! Approaching precision of an atomic clock
145 bottles x $20 adds up to about $3k - could have been another telescope....just saying
