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Looking at most astronomical object through a telescope is boring because you only see a white ball or point every time. Such targets would likely only be interesting with spectroscopy analysis.
There are however some objects that you can see the structure of even with an amateur telescope, and that makes them very exciting.
Some good ones:
- The Moon, notably crater detail.
- Saturn. Clearly visible to the naked eye, but looks like a ball. But under an amateur telescope, you can clearly see that there is a disk. Clearly discerning that the disk is a ring, i.e. seeing the gap, is a bit harder though.
- Jupiter. Clearly visible to the naked eye, it is quite huge. The four Galilean moons, being Earth-sized, are incredibly clearly visible, tested on Celestron NexStar 4SE 25mm/9mm eyepiece. Colored gas clouds are hard though, you will likely just see it bright white. www.reddit.com/r/telescopes/comments/35xrbb/how_can_i_see_the_color_of_jupiter_with_my/
- a double star. As mentioned at www.relativelyinteresting.com/10-astronomical-targets-new-telescope/ Albireo are incredibly separated. Also it is is easy to find manually being in a major well known constellation. It is no wonder it is not quite even known if they are gravitationally bound or not!
- Andromeda Galaxy. This is when things start getting hard. You can see a faint cloud, but it is not super clear that it has a center.One important understanding is that it is not possible to see stars outside of the Milky Way by naked eye.It is at this point that you start to learn that pictures of faint objects require longer term exposure and averaging of the images taken. For this you need:Just looking through the scope to immediately see something is not enough.
- a digital camera attached to the scope
- a computerized scope that slowly moves to track the point of interest
- image processing software that does the averaging
Video "Andromeda Galaxy with only a Camera, Lens, & Tripod by Nebula Photos (2020)" gives a good notion of expectation adjustment.
Sometimes mathematicians go a little overboard with their naming.
Most of the videos are crap, but the following ones almost killed Ciro Santilli of laughter:
- Video "Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs by Epic Rap Battles of History (2012)"
- Video 1. "Rasputin vs Stalin by Epic Rap Battles of History (2013)"
Rasputin vs Stalin by Epic Rap Battles of History (2013)
Source. See also: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/stalin.Monty Python has a few precursors to the "random famous people mixed together compting" format, although not in the rap fight format:
Communist Quiz by Monty Python (1970)
Source. Has a Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Forum/Communist_Quiz. Brings to mind: Video "Football, Football, Football by Mitchell and Webb".- www.youtube.com/channel/UCDyR_C_QVjZR24ze0fl5S_Q Goat-on-a-Stick channel
Afraid of Technology by adarkenedroom (2008)
Source. TODO source show, appears "Brass Eye", TODO episode www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/jpyfi/technology_scares_the_crap_out_of_me/ How to blackout your window without drilling Total Blackout Cassette Roller Blind from Order Blinds Online by
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
This is my first working setup, done in a rental friendly way without drilling. I am sure that it is possible to do it cheaper, better and with less work, but it the first one that worked for me, so I will document it.
Cost: 150 Dollars for a relatively large 130 x 158 cm window. They do not sell for windows much larger than that.
Bought from www.orderblinds.co.uk on June 2019.
My window faces East, and in summer the sun rises at around 5AM here, and I am a bit light sensitive and was getting destroyed.
This setup, together with:is good enough to allow me to sleep properly, which is priceless.
- the existing sliding curtains which were not enough on their own
- a cheap and comfortable Figure 2. "GO Travel sleeping mask" from the Pharmacy
Demonstration if everything goes exceptionally well:
How to fit a Total Blackout Cassette Roller Blind by Order Blinds Online (2016)
Source. The actual product name appears to be Bloc Blinds or BlocOut, Order Blinds appears to whitelabel them.However, not all will necessarily be fun and games as in that YouTube video, especially if you are doing it for the first time, and the main point of this article is to make you aware of that.
The first problem is that you may have to remove existing useless "privacy blinds" from the way, which can mean putting effort into learning how they work and, has a risk of damaging the property. So be smart and get a chair and a second person to help you out!
Next, fitting the side rails is not going to be that easy. The thing has to be tight to block the light, right? Careful not to scratch the bottom sill!
Then you will notice that, like in the video at youtu.be/cTVVe7codw4?t=106, you are expected to screw the side rails to the bottom wood / plastic sill of the window, which is not rental acceptable! So I didn't to that, but together with the black tape that I will mention next, it held well enough.
The top part requires hammering nails as shown on the video: youtu.be/cTVVe7codw4?t=24 but this is generally rental acceptable, and you can fill the holes afterwards.
Once you have the setup in place, it is likely that there will be some light gaps still, because it is basically impossible to make such large objects fit perfectly. This was especially true for the top of the window, but also for the sides, so I just used some black tape
So I added some wide (50mm) Figure 4. "Diall PVC repairing black tape" between the blind and the wall to completely seal off the light.
Diall PVC repairing black tape
. Source. This tape made things dark and was durable, but note at Section "Removal wall damage review" that it pulled bits of the plaster out with it during removal. I've since learnt about the existence of "painter’s tape"/masking tape, that might have been a better idea to protect the walls when pulling the tape off. It is worth noting that some of the painter's tape do come with a maximum number of days before you can pull them off, presumably after which wall damage becomes a possibility, e.g. Ciro saw one rateed 14 days. How to blackout your window without drilling Swimming goggles plus sleeping mask hack by
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
The problem with virtually all sleeping masks on the market is that they leave a lot of room near your nose for light to come in.
Ciro Santilli discovered a useful workaround for that: make the mask tighter with a swimming goggles!
Just make the goggles as loose as possible to not put pressure on your eyes, and then strap them over the sleeping mask.
If you are a back sleeper, put the googles forward as normal. If you are a stomach sleeper, put the googles on the back of your head, and the straps over the mask. This way you wont get your head squished by the goggles and the bed.
Once Ciro understood the idea, Googling "swimming googles sleeping mask" led to: mantasleep.uk/ might be a good option.
How to blackout your window without drilling Previous failed attempts by
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Thick cardboard paper and Gorilla Tape: the intense Sun heat made the cardboard bend, and even the Gorilla tape could not hold it, leading to light leakage. Even worse, it started to smell a bit, and I got afraid that it could catch fire, so don't do this! Maybe I will try coating with aluminium foil next time, but I'm afraid it might stick to the glass. In any case, even if those setups work, your room may be permanently very dark depending on how far the window opens, which can lead to other problems such as mold. Another downside of this method is that the tape is extremely sticky, and especially difficult to remove if it touches the glass, where you can't use metallic items to scrape it off without scratching the glass. I had to get a solvent and use a lot of elbow grease to get rid of it.
I have tried a few sleeping masks, but none of them were enough on their own. There is always some light leakage around the nose, especially as you turn around in the night. And some of them are too hot. I have tried:
- Sleep Master (archive): www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0015NZ6FK (archive). Also too hot.
- Muji Eye Mask
I also considered getting one of those "Perfect Fit Blinds" www.blindsdirect.co.uk/perfect-fit-roller-blinds (archive) which fit between the glass and the insulation. This looks like it could work. But I didn't go for it in the end because my window has 3 glass panels, so I would have to get three of those blinds separately.
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
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- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
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- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 2. You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either OurBigBook.com or as a static website.Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally. Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension. - Infinitely deep tables of contents:
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