00;00;05;25 - 00;00;30;19
Unknown
Testing my check. One two. One two. Microphone check a swing and sore lecture post.

00;00;30;22 - 00;00;42;05
Unknown
Two. My ten. Nine. 876.

00;00;42;07 - 00;00;57;02
Unknown
Items. You are listening to one. Yes. True. Yeah. Oh. Oh.

00;00;57;05 - 00;01;37;04
Unknown
Four. Welcome back up to the Astro cast. I'm your host, drew. Today is Wednesday, May 14th, 2025. The full moon has just passed us word about a 96% waning gibbous moon. Take that for what you will. To me, it just means the damn thing's finally going away. Oh, how have you guys been? I've missed you so much. It feels like it's been a year.

00;01;37;04 - 00;01;59;02
Unknown
And it's only been, you know, a couple of weeks, but I, I've had a lot going on, so sometimes we have to, step away from the things that we really, really love to do in order to take care of the things that are unfortunately important. So, just to give you a little update, I had a little bit of a health scare, over these last couple of weeks.

00;01;59;04 - 00;02;23;06
Unknown
I avoided going to the emergency room. Probably shouldn't do that, but I had my upcoming physical with my doctor, today, actually. And, I sat down and talked with him and kind of what I thought was going to be the case was indeed the case. So I've got high blood pressure. A lot of that is due to extra weight that I carry.

00;02;23;08 - 00;02;46;16
Unknown
I've been working very hard this year to lose said weight, but a whole lot of it has to do with stress and, this is a show about telescopes and space and beautiful pictures. But I'm going to take a moment, just to talk to you guys. I'm not lecturing, but I am telling you, because I didn't take care of myself for a long, long time growing up.

00;02;46;16 - 00;03;08;28
Unknown
And I got very lucky. I have a lot of friends that were not so lucky. And literally, as I say, that you can hear my dogs deciding that they're going to guest star on today's episode of the Astro Guys. So I'm telling you this because the number one thing that my doctor and myself was concerned about is my stress levels.

00;03;09;00 - 00;03;33;08
Unknown
I've got a pretty stressful job. But I don't think that that's the issue, at all, honestly, because I really do love my job. It can be stressful at times and it can be super busy. Really? It's my home life that is stressful. I live in a really stressful environment, and, you know, your home is supposed to be your sanctuary where you find peace.

00;03;33;10 - 00;03;58;01
Unknown
I work from home, and then when I'm off, I'm not going to get into details because it's, like, personal stuff, but, I have a very happy marriage with my wife. I will say that, that's not the issue, but just really, really high stress levels to the point where I was breaking out in hives. Like, if you were to see my left arm right now, you would be like, you, dude, what's wrong with you?

00;03;58;03 - 00;04;20;16
Unknown
My doctor took one look at me and he said, it's stress. So I say all that, I'm going to obviously be making some changes. I'm going to exercise more. I already eat healthy. I cut out all sweets of all kinds about a month ago. So I've been working on this for, you know, over a year now.

00;04;20;19 - 00;04;39;05
Unknown
I went to my first physical, I guess, three years ago. And when I say my first physical, I mean, like, since I was a kid, pretty much. Because I grew up in a household where seeing the doctor was not normalized because we didn't have health insurance. So I can remember less than a handful of times seeing a doctor as a kid.

00;04;39;05 - 00;05;07;15
Unknown
So, if you don't have a doctor, please go get one. Please go do your physical at a minimum, because what I found is all the things that, like, people are scared of going to the doctor because they're afraid they're going to find out they're dying from X, Y, or Z. Well, let me tell you something. If you are dying from X, Y, or Z, the only thing the doctor is going to do is extend your life.

00;05;07;15 - 00;05;34;23
Unknown
So, you know, being scared is one thing. But the thing is, is most stuff isn't incurable that we run into on a day to day basis. And if you can catch it early by doing things like going to a physical, you can avoid a whole lot of pain down the road. Like right now, my high blood pressure, if I was not on blood pressure medicine, I could literally be dead from it right now from hypertension.

00;05;34;25 - 00;05;55;00
Unknown
I've got a friend whose kidneys failed because of hypertension and high blood pressure and we almost lost him. And he's kind of playing with, you know, house money at this point because he waited so long to go to the doctor, he ended up losing all function in both of his kidneys. He was he had to go to dialysis for years.

00;05;55;00 - 00;06;21;07
Unknown
And then, you know, just last year, he finally got a kidney transplant. Thank God for that. But, you know, even with that, he's still playing with house time because the body is constantly trying to reject an organ that is not its own. So that's all I'm going to say about that for now. But please, please, please, if you haven't seen a doctor and you know, if you can't remember the last time you saw one, make an appointment.

00;06;21;07 - 00;06;38;21
Unknown
Just go see a general physician. It's really easy. You get in and out of there and a half an hour. You know, I went in and they. They drew blood. They usually do that last, but they wanted the people to go home for the lab. So they did that first. And then, you know, I sat, sat down and talked to my doctor for half an hour, explained what's going on.

00;06;38;21 - 00;06;54;26
Unknown
He made a couple of adjustments to my medications, gave me some very good advice, that I am going to take to heart. And, yeah. So that that's all I'm going to say about that. I just I wanted to let you guys know I wasn't around last week because I try to be as transparent as possible.

00;06;55;02 - 00;07;15;24
Unknown
I am also going to say I'm going to reserve the right to occasionally take a week off if I'm having a, you know, particularly stressful week. Then, you know, I'll probably just take the week off because this is a one man operation. As you guys know, if you're a long time listeners, I kind of do everything myself, and I love doing it that way.

00;07;15;24 - 00;07;37;09
Unknown
And don't get me wrong, because it gives me, you know, 100% of the creative input that goes into the show. But it's also a lot of work. You don't think it's a lot of work, but believe me, it's a lot of work. So, thanks so much for, everybody's kind messages that I got particularly, all of our Patreon discord members got a lot of, kind messages from you guys.

00;07;37;09 - 00;08;00;29
Unknown
And I just really, really appreciate that. All right, so what else is new? We actually got, quite a few topics to cover today. I've got some new gear that I want to talk to you guys about that I'm, super excited about. So, as you know, if you're a long time listener of the show, I am a big fan of super portable, Astro photography rigs.

00;08;00;29 - 00;08;24;08
Unknown
So what I've been working on, for this upcoming summer is a very, very portable rig that I can take with me to do really awesome Milky Way shots. This is going to be the summer of the Milky Way for me. So don't get me wrong, I love, love, love, love setting up my telescope, and doing deep field imaging.

00;08;24;11 - 00;08;41;27
Unknown
But I don't have too many Milky Way photos that I'm proud of yet. And I was, you know, I was thinking about that, and, I've got a couple that I. That I really like, but if I compare them, and I know you shouldn't compare yourself to others because there will always be greater and lesser people than you.

00;08;41;28 - 00;09;05;10
Unknown
This is good advice for not just astrophotography, but for life in general. I'm just not very happy and I know I can do better. And that's part of the, the fun of this hobby, right? Is we can always do better. So, you know, I've been talking about my R5 a lot, and I, you know, had to consider it astro, modifying it and look deeply into that.

00;09;05;10 - 00;09;28;24
Unknown
Decided against it ultimately, just because there were too many trade offs for a not enough benefit, particularly for a camera, that I use as often as I do for regular photography to to lose so many benefits just isn't worth it, frankly. That being said, though, the R5 is more than capable of taking, really, really beautiful Milky Way photos.

00;09;28;27 - 00;09;49;21
Unknown
And I also have an R7 that I can use to also take Milky Way photos. So if I wanted to, you know, set up two star trackers one night, I could do that. But one thing that I have not been a huge fan of, since I started building my first Milky Way rig, is the hardware that I was using.

00;09;49;21 - 00;10;21;21
Unknown
So I have the, I opt Tron Sky Guider Pro. It's a very capable system. I'm going to choose my words carefully here, because I really like IOP options stuff for the most part. Their filters are phenomenal in my opinion. I love my CPM 26. It's it's a fantastic mount. And even though it's an older mount now, and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone just given that there's, you know, newer harmonic mounts on the, the market that can do the job better.

00;10;21;24 - 00;10;56;03
Unknown
It's still a phenomenal mount and it's given me zero trouble. But the sky guider, I just haven't been a big fan of it. Honestly, from day one, I first of all, I don't like how it attaches. And when I say attaches, I mean the camera itself to the Sky Guider Pro, it uses this, kind of clamp system, where you basically tighten down a bolt around the front, where the polar scope is basically, so essentially polar align it first.

00;10;56;03 - 00;11;23;09
Unknown
And that's another thing I'm not a big fan of is how you polar align the Sky Guider pro. I suppose if you have an AI polar that that's different. But then you got to introduce a computer or a tablet. And that kind of defeats the purpose, in my opinion, of having a, ultra portable setup. I want something that I can bring with me, fit entirely in one camera bag and not have to mess with tablets, Assayas, etc. to get awesome photos.

00;11;23;09 - 00;11;49;05
Unknown
And I know that I'm, you know, capable of doing this with the right setup. So the Sky Guider Pro, I've had good success with their. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten some phenomenal shots with it. But it's got some other flaws, too. It uses a mini USB port for charging. Mini USB is kind of like, it's it's not the old micro USB that all of our phones used to have ten years ago, maybe not even ten now.

00;11;49;05 - 00;12;13;29
Unknown
Now that usb-C is everywhere. But, slightly fatter version of that that you see a lot with things like, I don't know, scanners, printers, stuff like that mini USB. Anyway, it's it's not a great port. I don't like, like I say, I don't like the mounting system for it, for the camera. I don't like the the way that you polar align it.

00;12;13;29 - 00;12;44;19
Unknown
Even though I got a a 90 degree elbow that lets me, not have to, like, get down on my hands and knees to polar align, which is wonderful. But even with all those, it's just it's not great, in my opinion. So I started looking around at other options. And, after reading a few reviews and watching YouTube videos, I basically stumbled upon the move shoot, move nomad system.

00;12;44;26 - 00;13;08;00
Unknown
So this is a, a device that I have heard about quite a bit over the years, but for whatever reason, I never really considered it. I didn't put it in with, the big Boy brands, I guess you could say. And I just like, who uses that when I've got, you know, a CM 26. But I wasn't thinking of light weight, you know, easy, quick grab and go systems.

00;13;08;00 - 00;13;25;27
Unknown
Back then I was thinking of, you know, what can support the most weight and those sorts of things. But the reality is, you know, if I get the R5 with a pretty chunky lens on it, it's still less than 5 pounds with the ball head and everything. So, you know, the the move, shoot, move. And it's first iteration.

00;13;25;27 - 00;13;59;24
Unknown
It had some issues, but this newer iteration that they released called the move shoot, move Nomad fixed a lot of those issues such as the ball head coming loose when it would rotate on a specific axis and, some other little issues here and there. And, I decided I would go ahead and order one. Actually, I did reach out to move, shoot, move, probably six months ago and ask them if they were interested in, talking about their devices on the show or sending me a review unit or any of those sorts of things.

00;13;59;26 - 00;14;32;07
Unknown
And I never even heard back from the guys. So definitely no sponsorship here or anything like that. It'll just be my, you know, honest opinions on the device. So I, I purchased this from was a PNH that I got it from. I was high point. High point scientific, also a partner of the show. If you ever need to buy anything from High Point, I always put the link to our, affiliate link with High Point in the show notes, and, the show gets a small cut of the proceeds if you purchase through those links at no extra cost to you.

00;14;32;14 - 00;14;55;27
Unknown
Thank you to everyone who does that. But I ordered the starter kit from them, and that basically came with the, the, the tracker itself. The Nomad. It comes with a really nice ball head. And then it also comes with their laser puller alignment system, I guess you could call it, which is one of the big reasons that I love this device.

00;14;56;00 - 00;15;21;29
Unknown
You can use. And I know you can technically use a laser to polar align with any device, but the way that this one is built, it actually has a spot where you screw the laser directly on to the device, and it lines it up perfectly. And in line with the tracker. And then you essentially just shine that light directly at Polaris, and Bob's your uncle, and then you're ready to take, you know, long exposures.

00;15;21;29 - 00;15;46;19
Unknown
And the beauty of that is you don't have to, you know, detach your camera and all that sort of stuff and then, you know, clamp down the little thing that you use for the Sky Guider Pro in order, to kind of get everything going. You can, you know, put all your camera gear on, swing it out of the way, use the laser, and then you're already aligned so you don't have to worry about shifting anything around whenever you, reattach the camera.

00;15;46;19 - 00;16;13;18
Unknown
So, I ordered that starter kit and, we think, what did I pay for that? It was 259 for the starter kit for the move, shoot, move. And like I say, that comes with, the tracker itself. It comes with the ball head that they make, really nice ball head that also has the, the clamp that goes on the bottom of your camera, you know, the dovetail and then the laser that used a polar align.

00;16;13;25 - 00;16;37;10
Unknown
Now, I did need, 1 or 2 other things in order to, kind of fully complete the set. You could say they're optional, but I think ultimately they'll make life a lot easier. I ended up getting one of their, zoom mounts. And if you haven't seen one of these, it's, it's a really interesting device, actually.

00;16;37;12 - 00;16;58;19
Unknown
You essentially can put your camera or ball head on top of it, and then it moves on one axis and where there's basically two different elbows, it looks like a Z, and you can move it up and down. In any direction. And essentially it allows you, to get a perfect angle for your Milky Way shots or whatever it is that you're shooting at.

00;16;58;22 - 00;17;27;11
Unknown
So I paid 39.99 for that, and then I almost stuck with my Sky Guider pro, mount for the mount. What is that called? The, the wedge. The mount for them out. Go figure. But I was looking at the reviews for the wedge that moves shoot, move offers, and after carefully considering it, plop down another $100 to get that wedge.

00;17;27;11 - 00;17;53;22
Unknown
So not really cheap. All in all, but still, if you look at a, you know, I don't know, a sky guider pro or something along those lines, you will end up paying, significantly less. Now, mind you, this is not like a Star Adventure GTI, where it has all the go to functionality and everything while, you know, I guess tech now, now, you wouldn't want to use it for anything, anything remotely close to that.

00;17;53;22 - 00;18;21;12
Unknown
This is really a milky way machine, is what it's for. You could go like do a 50, maybe even a 85 millimeter lens and get good results. But really, what it's made for is being an extremely portable star tracker for Milky Way shots. So all in, I guess. Let's see, around 259 for the, starter kit, another hundred for the, wedge and then another 40 for that.

00;18;21;15 - 00;18;51;18
Unknown
That is mount. And I already have a tripod. Of course, you do have to have your own tripod. I got several of those. I'm good on that. So I guess. What is that about $400 all in for a really good, sky tracker system? That in combination with my, R5 and the IOP Tron l Pro filter that I recently got is going to make for, I think, an incredible setup for Milky Way shots.

00;18;51;18 - 00;19;20;29
Unknown
Now, what I'm planning on doing. And I'm going to, go for the first time in a couple of weeks here. I'll talk about it more shortly. Is this summer. I want to once a month or once per New Moon. Essentially, I want to go to a different area and take a different Milky Way shot. So, you know, I'll be looking for places that have something really interesting and unique in the foreground and then obviously dark skies.

00;19;20;29 - 00;19;40;04
Unknown
So the goal is going to be, portal four or lower for all shots. So I don't want to go somewhere that's portal six and attempt to make it work. That's not what I'm interested in doing. I want to go to really, really dark sky locations and, get, you know, just incredible shots of the Milky Way.

00;19;40;04 - 00;20;04;20
Unknown
I want to lower down my eyes. So I want to do, you know, minute plus exposures. And ideally, I want to not even have to use that clip in L Pro filter, though I will if I need to. So, you know, I have had nothing but cloudy skies here for the last two weeks, and though I just finally got the, the last piece in the day, the wedge that took the longest to come, directly from move, shoot, move.

00;20;04;22 - 00;20;29;06
Unknown
I have not had a chance to test all of the gear yet, but that's going to be changing. Hopefully. Knock on wood, at New Moon, I am planning on making a trip with my sister, and a friend up to. I'm thinking West Virginia is what I'm thinking, because they have some really incredible, really dark skies up there.

00;20;29;12 - 00;20;56;03
Unknown
In fact, if you look on the East coast, within, you know, a reasonable drive, West Virginia by far has the dark skies. So I'm really excited to get up there and see it, because if you remember, back in May of last year, May 10th, when we had the Aurora borealis break out, I drove about three hours north to Virginia, not West Virginia, but Virginia, up into a place called Indian Valley.

00;20;56;07 - 00;21;29;11
Unknown
And that was fairly high elevation, and technically a bottle four on the map. And man, oh man, those skies looked every bit as good as the portal one that I get on the coast. And I assume that's due to elevation, because you're up so much higher and there's so much less atmosphere to contend with. So the place that I'm looking at now in West Virginia, like I say, it's a portal to site and it is pretty significantly higher, than the place that I was at at Indian Valley.

00;21;29;13 - 00;21;47;29
Unknown
So I'm really hoping that the results are going to be awesome. The main thing is, though, as I'm just hoping we get clear skies because man, it has been nothing but clouds here for the last couple of weeks. We've had a ton of rain. Which is a good thing. We really did need the rain because my yard is just dying out there.

00;21;48;02 - 00;22;14;03
Unknown
But, it looks like, next Friday. I guess let me think here. The 20. So Memorial Day weekend. So not this weekend, but the following weekend. You know, depending on what the weather is like, I hope to go Saturday night. I will go Sunday night if need be. But I'm using my old tricks that I've taught you guys, light pollution map info in combination with Google Earth.

00;22;14;06 - 00;22;31;10
Unknown
I also got a really cool recommendation, from a friend of the show named Mark. He actually told me about a website that basically gives tips for places to camp while you're out in the wild. Let me see if I can find the name of it. Oh, man, I was starting to lose hope. There I was looking through my bookmarks.

00;22;31;10 - 00;22;50;13
Unknown
I was like, I know I bookmarked it, but I couldn't find it. It's called I Overlander. Really, really cool app. Highly recommend you check it out. They have a website. I think it refers you to the app, though. The app is what most people use. Again, that's the letter I and then Overlander. Be sure to give that one a look.

00;22;50;15 - 00;23;17;18
Unknown
Super cool place. Lots of active users on it. And they're constantly making, you know, live corrections, giving reviews on different places to stay, etc.. You know, it got me thinking, looking at I overlander. How awesome would it be if there was an application, that suggested spots for astrophotography and you could even go as far as, say, like this is good for deep sky.

00;23;17;20 - 00;23;42;21
Unknown
This is good for a milky way. I would love, love, love if somebody found, like, a really cool place up in West Virginia somewhere that had, you know, a really unique foreground. That was beautiful. To share that on an app so other people could also go check it out when they want to. Now, the thing that you'll find if you hang around with enough astronomy people is they don't like giving up their good spots too often.

00;23;42;24 - 00;24;01;01
Unknown
I am guilty of this. I know I've told you all, many times about my dark sky trip, and I'm very aware that I've never said where I've taken it. So, but if we could, all come together and build a database like that, I think that would be awesome. But give, give that app a try. I overlander if I can remember.

00;24;01;01 - 00;24;20;29
Unknown
I'll put it in the show notes. Just so you can go check that out as well. So, yeah, we'll have to, look and see how it goes. I'll, obviously I'll give a review on the gear after I take that trip and really get a chance to use it. I haven't even had haven't even had clear skies outside one night for me to just go outside and play around with it yet.

00;24;21;01 - 00;24;40;08
Unknown
So that shows you just, how bad it's been year, because believe me, I'm dying to get out and use it. But, man, the device itself, it's so tiny, it fits in the palm of your hand. Like it? It makes the sky guider pro look like a frickin CPM. 120 you know, it's it's just nuts how small it is.

00;24;40;08 - 00;25;11;10
Unknown
So I'm very happy that I'll be able to pack that down. I haven't, taken one of my. I got, like, an extra cheaper camera bag. I'm not going to use my super fancy camera bag for this setup. Not yet anyway. But I'll likely buy a secondary one anyhow, I want to have a bag specifically set up for Milky Way shoots, because if I'm going to do this every new moon and, you know, travel from place to place to get really cool shots, it'd be good to have a go bag, if you will, that I can use for those photo shoots.

00;25;11;13 - 00;25;36;22
Unknown
So on from the move, shoot, move. There's actually, another piece of gear that I got since I last talked to you guys, and, it's new glass. I'm very excited to announce I've got a little new glass. It's it's it's a new lens to me, but it's not at the same time. Let me explain. So I'm sure many of you guys know about the, all time great rokinon lenses and astrophotography.

00;25;36;22 - 00;26;05;06
Unknown
Obviously, you have the very famous Rokinon. 135 I also own that lens and love that lens. For very wide, deep field stuff. But there's also the rokinon 14 millimeter lens, which is just a phenomenal piece of kit, for getting Milky Way shots. So, they actually recently came out with a broken on 14 for the RF mount system.

00;26;05;06 - 00;26;31;01
Unknown
So if you don't know. Rokinon. Also known as, sigma insert certain areas depending on what part of the world you live in. They have a, beautiful 14 millimeter lens that is extremely wide field. If you don't know, the smaller the number, the wider the lens when it comes to lenses. So if I say a 14 millimeter lens, that's a really wide angle.

00;26;31;05 - 00;27;01;11
Unknown
Whereas if I say a 85 millimeter lens, that would be considered a telephoto lens or like a, you know, a zoomed in lens, if you want to think of it that way. But in any case, I owned the F version of the Rokinon 14, and I actually I bought a used copy of that lens from Bbc.com, which is, it's a cool site for buying used, photography gear, and they do a really good job inspecting all of the gear before they sell it.

00;27;01;14 - 00;27;20;17
Unknown
They're not an affiliate or a sponsor of the show. Just to be upfront with you, you can also check out Match.com for used gear. They do kind of the same thing as MPB. Anytime I'm checking one place, I always check the other to see what they have. But anyway, the copy of the lens that I got just wasn't really that good.

00;27;20;17 - 00;27;48;02
Unknown
It did not give me great results, in my opinion. And I don't know if it's just because it was a really old lens. Or maybe the the quality control wasn't great on it. I don't know, it could be a million different things. But when I saw that they had released the RF version of this lens, I knew I had to have it because, you know, during these trips, I really like having that rokinon glass to take the Milky Way shots.

00;27;48;05 - 00;28;10;09
Unknown
I also own a 16 millimeter canon RF lens that's, f 2.8 as well. But I don't know why the rokinon just seems to do a little bit better with 14mm. There's less comma and aberrations and what have you in the corners. So I just, I prefer the rokinon lens and I have gotten to briefly test that out.

00;28;10;09 - 00;28;28;13
Unknown
I was able to get some, Milky Way shots from the front yard here in the portal. Seven almost eight yard. It was it was actually kind of crazy. I put in that L pro and, you know, got up at 3:00 in the morning. I think I talked about this before we, took the week off, but,

00;28;28;15 - 00;28;46;23
Unknown
Yeah, man, it it it really impressed me with how well it was able to pick up the Milky Way from my incredibly light, polluted skies, so I just I cannot wait to get it out to dark skies and have it sitting on top of that new, move, shoot, move, Nomad. I'm telling you, it's going to be a killer combination.

00;28;46;23 - 00;29;06;20
Unknown
So the only thing that I don't have yet and I don't know that I necessarily need it. I've got a couple of old intervalometer, just cheap ones I bought on Amazon for 15, 20 bucks or whatever, and they aren't very intuitive. After you figure out how to use them, they're easy enough to use, but just the instructions are bad.

00;29;06;26 - 00;29;33;15
Unknown
Or somebody would make like a really nice intervalometer wouldn't that be great? Like maybe something that's not $20. Like, I wouldn't mind spending 100 bucks for a really nice Intervalometer. Canon sells a wireless shutter, but it's not an intervalometer. It's just a wireless shutter. You can use the built in intervalometer, on the canon R5 and R7, but it's kind of terrible and it's not intuitive at all.

00;29;33;23 - 00;29;55;12
Unknown
And I still I'm not great at using it because it'll, yeah, I won't get any details there, but it's just not great. The built in one, you can make it work, but it's not ideal. So I'm still considering, maybe getting a different intervalometer if you know, of a really great one and you'd like to recommend it to me, I would absolutely love for you to do that.

00;29;55;14 - 00;30;19;07
Unknown
Drop me an email at, ru Astro cast at gmail.com, and, I'll make sure to say hello and thank you for doing that. But yeah, so we got our new Milky Way rig ready to go. Got this new moon trip planned in less than two weeks. Hopefully all those things combined will lower my overall stress level a good bit.

00;30;19;09 - 00;30;40;02
Unknown
I know I got to make some changes myself too. And then some stuff around the house. Obviously. But I definitely think getting out under the stars is a excellent way, to find your Zen spot and lower your blood pressure and just relax. So that's what I aim to do. And I aim to do a lot of it this summer.

00;30;40;04 - 00;30;59;18
Unknown
I hope that you guys do, too. If you if you haven't, like I say, take a dark sky trip. If you do it once, you'll get hooked and you will want to do it again. I'm, I'm really hoping that I am very, very impressed by these, portal three. Portal two skies that I'm going to visit.

00;30;59;20 - 00;31;21;07
Unknown
I know it's not portal one, but like I say on the East coast, you really can't get through portal one. So I think this is probably going to be about as good as it gets. And I'm still looking for the the best possible place. I've got a few ideas I got, you know, I got plenty of time a little over a week, to pick my final spot.

00;31;21;10 - 00;31;44;11
Unknown
So I'll be, definitely looking into that as time marches on. If you guys know any good spots up in, you know, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia within, you know, a 3 to 5 hour drive from Charlotte, North Carolina. Feel free to send them to me. You know, I would, love to get any tips. I looked at, we have a couple of observatories up that way.

00;31;44;11 - 00;32;05;26
Unknown
If you go up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. But I don't think they they seem very, astrophotographer or amateur astronomer friendly. They seem more like, science centers. I could be wrong about that. I haven't actually visited them. That's just based on my impression from their websites. I'm not going to name any places, because, like I say, I've never visited.

00;32;06;01 - 00;32;21;15
Unknown
So I'm not going to judge, but they, they, they were putting me off enough where I was like, yeah, I don't know how I want to go spend my whole night at that place, you know what I mean? I don't know if like, there would be like, community event going all maybe not that there's anything wrong with community events.

00;32;21;15 - 00;32;42;09
Unknown
I think they're great. But, you know, if I'm out doing a solo dark sky trip, I don't want to be at a community event. So anyway, I'll be keeping my eyes peeled. You know me. I'll be hunting all the graveyards down and all the, national parks and what have you. I'm aiming for a national park. There are a couple of, you know, dark sky parks up in Virginia and West Virginia.

00;32;42;12 - 00;33;05;27
Unknown
And one day, what I'd really love to do is just buy a small piece of land up there in the Blue Ridge Mountains, for, you know, summer vacation home for me in the family. I think that would be absolutely incredible. And the land is actually not that expensive if you know where to look, obviously, you're not going to buy a piece of land in Asheville or, you know, some trendy big city.

00;33;06;00 - 00;33;27;20
Unknown
But if you're wanting to move to the middle of nowhere like me, then you can find, quite a few good places if you know where to look. I gotta find the right place, man. My my wife. I think I've almost convinced her to move out of the city. Like, I can tell that she's thinking about it, and, she she keeps saying that she wants to be around the water.

00;33;27;24 - 00;33;51;04
Unknown
So when we were in, Salem back in Halloween, last year, we went up to Salem, Massachusetts. Beautiful town, by the way. If you get away from the touristy, terrible area that they have up town for all the teenagers, you can have a great time exploring a lot of the historical sites, and, it's right on the bay there, and just a really gorgeous wharf area to check out.

00;33;51;06 - 00;34;12;09
Unknown
And she just had a wonderful time walking around the water. We both did, and we spent all day walking around out there. And I think ultimately, if I could find a place, man, it's hard to find dark skies along the coast, isn't it? Maybe if it was a big lake and we had, like, a, cool setup, then maybe something like that would work.

00;34;12;09 - 00;34;31;19
Unknown
Anyway, I'm all ears. If anyone has suggestions, I would love to hear them. I want to, take a quick moment here to thank our newest Patreon member by the name of Parrish. Parrish joined the I that I mentioned Parrish, last week. I don't know if I did or not. If I did, then there you go, Parrish.

00;34;31;19 - 00;34;55;08
Unknown
You get welcome twice. But, it's weird because I don't normally take two weeks off or one week off, you know, and not talk to you guys for two weeks. So I'm having to remember what I did and didn't talk about on the show. You'd be surprised. I listen to the show. You know, every time it releases, I always listen to the episode, and I always find 3 or 4 things, or I'm like, man, I said that wrong, or, man, I botch that.

00;34;55;11 - 00;35;17;25
Unknown
But until you guys start sending in corrections. Ruiz Jr. Guest at gmail.com. I'm probably not going to have a corrections area. But if you ever want to feel free, you can also dial, 86648. Screw. That's (866) 427-5766. If you ever want to leave a question or a comment for the show, but yeah. Thanks, Perez.

00;35;17;25 - 00;35;37;08
Unknown
Thanks for joining, man. It means a lot to me. We also had quite a few people, order t shirts. If you want to get yours, you can do that at QC Root.com forward slash store. Still working on getting the Astro cast domain down. I actually have some, other really cool news that I wanted to share with you guys.

00;35;37;11 - 00;36;05;02
Unknown
I actually, got my LLC approved, last week, so qc Ru media, LLC is officially an entity and is registered with the state of North Carolina. That actually opens up a lot more opportunities, for the show and, you know, for myself as a photographer, amongst other things. And I'm really, really excited about that. It kind of makes me, you know, official, so to speak.

00;36;05;02 - 00;36;29;00
Unknown
So I've got, an event I'm doing Saturday for a friend. I don't really charge her anything because she's a really good friend of mine, and what she does is awesome. If you guys remember, I was actually a guest host on her show once. It's called The Backyard Naturalist. Debbie and Laurie, shout out to the those two awesome ladies to, really good friends of the show.

00;36;29;05 - 00;36;52;26
Unknown
Anyway, they do a, a live show in our local farmers market, once a year. And I always do the photography for them when they do it. Sometimes I do it twice a year. But we always get there early, and I do the photography for them, and they always, you know, tip me or something along those lines, but I don't actually ask them for money because, like me, they're not making a whole lot of money on their podcast.

00;36;52;26 - 00;37;11;23
Unknown
At least I don't think they are. They do it because they love it, and they love to spread the good word about nature and wildlife birds, snakes, you name it, they talk about it. So if you ever want to check that show out, it's called The Backyard Naturalist. I was on the show once, so you can go back and find my my episode.

00;37;11;23 - 00;37;31;04
Unknown
It's about light pollution. I'll actually I'll link it in the show notes for you guys so you can check that out. Man, it is so cool having people send in photos wearing astro cast shirts all across the world. We've got, you know, our listeners out in Switzerland and Belgium and the UK. It's just awesome every time I see it.

00;37;31;04 - 00;37;51;15
Unknown
It's so funny. One of our, members mentioned that we're all pretty much the same guy. I was laughing so hard when he said it because we all have, like, beards and dark hair and glasses. We all are wearing the Archer guy's shirt, so I don't know. You could be worse, that's for sure. Yeah. Shout out to everyone on the Patreon.

00;37;51;15 - 00;38;13;23
Unknown
You guys are awesome. And, thank you so much for all the support. If you'd like to join the Patreon, you can do that at Patreon.com forward slash the Astro cast. You can join for as little as $1 a month and, jump into our always lively discord, that I need to get more involved in. I just at, like I say, I had to kind of step away from a lot of stuff early last week for my health.

00;38;13;25 - 00;38;32;22
Unknown
But things will start calming down this weekend, I think. And, then I'm going to start getting more involved. I also need to get out under the freaking stars, man, if we could get some clear skies here, that sure would be nice. But, I'm looking for you, Captain Cumulus. You're always running your mouth in the chat about how many clouds you clear, but I don't see you over here.

00;38;32;22 - 00;39;02;10
Unknown
Clear. That's for sure. So I, I posted an update last week after the show went live about Zwo pulling out of the US market. This this was a, real gut punch for me, and I'm sure lots of other astronomers and astrophotographers because, you know, if you don't know, Zwo is by far the number one manufacturer of astrophotography gear, that we have access to.

00;39;02;11 - 00;39;29;03
Unknown
So they make kind of the best cameras. I mean, you could argue, you know, why. Player one, etc.. Player one also pulled out of the US market, just so you know. Not sure about yet. I'll have to look into that. But you know, by and large, if you're going to buy a astrophotography camera, chances are you're going to need to get you are going to get a zwo camera, and you can't do that now.

00;39;29;06 - 00;39;57;01
Unknown
They're sold out everywhere. And Zwo has not announced that they will be coming back to the US market. This is due to the ongoing tariff disputes between our politicians and other countries. I'm not a fan of it at all. And I think, you know, we're really privileged to be able to have the kind of money to throw around to buy things like astrophotography cameras.

00;39;57;04 - 00;40;19;10
Unknown
You know, there's people that live in countries that are so poor, you know, all they can do is make textiles and get paid, you know, less than a dollar a day to do it. You know, our whole economy runs because we have fat wallets in America. And you might not think you do, but if you're listening to this show right now, an air conditioning, you are richer than 90% of the population on this earth.

00;40;19;13 - 00;40;40;10
Unknown
If you got clean drinking water, air conditioning, and you're listening to a podcast, just keep that in mind. But, there's not really a whole lot more to say about it. You know, they they put out a statement. I saw it on their, official Facebook page said that they're going to attempt to set up something in America for manufacturing.

00;40;40;12 - 00;41;04;12
Unknown
I feel like every single company that has done this, though, has said that because they don't want to lose the goodwill of their patrons, obviously, for something that's completely out of their control, they're not going to, you know, send over a $2,500 camera and then expect someone to pay, you know, $5,800 for it because of tariffs.

00;41;04;14 - 00;41;29;04
Unknown
They know that they would, you know, lose all their customers. So rather than damage the relationship that they have made with all of the astrophotographers in America, I believe they just decided it was better to not sell at all. And that's sad because we get a lot of new people that listen to this show that our bread and butter is beginner to intermediate astrophotographers.

00;41;29;04 - 00;41;52;01
Unknown
I consider myself an intermediate intermediate astro photographer. I don't consider myself an expert. I don't have a mono camera yet. As many of you know, I don't have a true dark sky location that I can remotely shoot from whenever I want. Am I going to have all those things one day? Absolutely. I plan to, but it won't be with a Zwo camera anytime soon because you can't get one.

00;41;52;01 - 00;42;26;18
Unknown
They're sold out everywhere, and, like you say, is not shipping anymore yet. Now, will that change in the future? Probably. It probably will, because, you know, we've we've already seen, the tariffs go from 145% down to 30%. So obviously there's going to be back and forth. I do know that a lot of our ports are empty in America, and it it sucks that, you know, not have a new astrophotography camera, but it it's going to really suck when people can't get things like toilet paper and medicines etc..

00;42;26;21 - 00;42;54;15
Unknown
I also want to make a correction. I said, if you happen to hear the, the update that I posted last week, I made a comment about China, having a stranglehold on the insulin market. And I want to say I was wrong on that. China does not have a stranglehold on the insulin market. It's actually a lot of the precursors for antibiotics, antibiotics that are made, in China that are not made in America.

00;42;54;15 - 00;43;19;06
Unknown
So stuff like that is what scares me. You know, if people can't get medicine that they need to save their lives, you know, because another country has all of that, and, you know, whether you like it or not, we are a global economy. I, I'm going to leave it at that. Like I say, I, I don't like talking politics on this show, but this is going to have wide reaching impacts for people that are not billionaires like me and you.

00;43;19;06 - 00;43;40;24
Unknown
If you're listening to this, I'm going to guess you're probably not a billionaire. But, all I can say is I really hope everybody, that wants to get into astrophotography can still get into it. I would say if you're looking to buy a new camera right now, there are options out there. You don't strictly have to go with the Zwo camera.

00;43;40;24 - 00;44;02;14
Unknown
I would recommend one to you. Buy by far, if that was the first thing you were buying, like A58, five MK Pro. I recommend it to so many people because it's a great camera at a very reasonable price. For an entry level, you know, cooled camera. But there are other things you could do. Go to, Cloudy Nights is an excellent forum that has a buy sell trade page.

00;44;02;16 - 00;44;30;27
Unknown
Classifieds section. And I actually bought my first camera that I used for astrophotography exclusively there. It was a Astro modified Canon Rebel T3. I that's a very old camera now, and I wouldn't really recommend anyone buy a T3 at this point, because the shutters are probably so old that they're going to disintegrate. But you can check them out, and people do buy and sell their gear on there pretty regularly.

00;44;30;27 - 00;44;51;02
Unknown
Just be very aware of who you're buying from. Make sure that they've got a reputation that they've made sales before. If it's somebody who's making their very first sale, then I would just verify with them, you know, do a very thorough verification, maybe ask if they don't mind getting on a call with you for a few minutes and talking about the camera.

00;44;51;05 - 00;45;14;14
Unknown
You could look at Astro modified cameras if you can find a dSLR. There are companies that do astro modifications for them. If you're wanting to, you know, exclusively use the camera for astrophotography. So there are still ways, that you can get into this hobby. It's just not as easily accessible as it was just a month ago because of these changes that are taking place.

00;45;14;14 - 00;45;35;26
Unknown
So, I hope that you're able to find everything that you need. If you got any questions about cameras, you can always feel free to email me at Ru. Ask your cast at gmail.com. You can leave a message on our voice. Line 866. Four. Screw or you can join the Patreon for a dollar a month and jump in the, discord with us and ask all the questions you want.

00;45;35;26 - 00;45;59;23
Unknown
So I hope everybody gets what they're looking for, though. And, I really, really hope these trade wars end soon because they are not good for us normal people. All right, guys, let's talk about a recommendation for this week. I want to tell you about a game that I've been playing that I am really enjoying. And, I am a old school RPG gamer.

00;45;59;23 - 00;46;25;11
Unknown
I grew up playing games like Zelda and Final Fantasy. I've never been a Dungeons and Dragons guy, but I definitely get the appeal there. I just I've never played it, never had anybody to play with, have played things like Baldur's Gate and definitely very much enjoyed those which are obviously based on the indie. But anyway, JRPGs have always held a really special place in my heart.

00;46;25;14 - 00;46;50;15
Unknown
The old super Nintendo Final Fantasy games are some of my, you know, absolute favorites of all time. And they haven't been great as of late. I got both the Final Fantasy seven remakes, and while I enjoyed them, I don't know what it is about square, but it seems like they just they throw everything they can at the wall with the combat to see if it sticks.

00;46;50;17 - 00;47;18;04
Unknown
And in my opinion, it usually does not stick. So, you know, everybody's always looking for that great turn based combat jRPG that still has, you know, up to date visuals, really great storytelling, etc.. And boy oh boy, have I found the game. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's called, Claire Obscure expedition 33. I know that's a mouthful.

00;47;18;06 - 00;47;44;05
Unknown
Most JRPGs are a mouthful. It's actually a French company, that produced this game. And it is very much a French game. So you're going to see things like, you know, classical music throughout. It's like a concerto is basically the soundtrack. People have very French, you know, dress ensembles. I've there's a mime in the game, so it's definitely got a lot of French to it, but that's not a bad thing.

00;47;44;05 - 00;48;22;20
Unknown
It actually paints a very, realistic lived environment, is what you see and what these people are going through. And the premise of the story is actually really unique. I'm only about ten hours into it so far, but essentially there is this character called the painter Chris, who is this, like, giant monster thing that lives way off in the distance and essentially she appears one day and she paints a 100 and the sky that you can see from, you know, a thousand miles away or, or whatever, because it's so big.

00;48;22;22 - 00;48;56;11
Unknown
And everybody on the planet that's 100 years old instantly vanishes like a Thanos snap. They just kind of disintegrate into nothing. A year goes by and then she repaints it as a 99, and then everyone who's 99 years old vanishes into nothing. So you set off as the 33rd expedition, and the game actually opens up with the, well, one of the main characters losing a loved one who was 34.

00;48;56;13 - 00;49;23;05
Unknown
So that's why they call it expedition 33, because they're the 33 year old people who, if they don't stop this villain, supposedly, I think that she might not be a villain, but we'll have to see, by the end of the year. Then all of the 33 year olds will disappear. Anyway, the story is actually really good. I know that sounds weird and far out there, but they actually they really, really make it work in this game somehow.

00;49;23;07 - 00;49;39;12
Unknown
The graphics are gorgeous and they run really well on old hardware. Like I'm playing it predominantly in my living room because it's a great game that you can play with a controller. You don't have to use a mouse and keyboard. It's also on Xbox. I know you can play it on Xbox. I think it might be on PlayStation.

00;49;39;12 - 00;50;10;14
Unknown
Not 100% sure. But anyway, old school turn based RPG and just really, really well done with some very interesting mechanics that don't make it feel like older, stale. There's a lot of stacking. There's the, you know, cross-play you can add between characters and highly, highly, highly recommend you check it out. Another awesome thing about it, even though it's very much, in my opinion, a triple A game as far as visuals and storytelling and action are concerned.

00;50;10;17 - 00;50;34;21
Unknown
It's only $50. And how great is that? Because darn near every game these days is $70 or more. Did anyone preorder switch two? I did preorder, I switch to I don't care if Mario Card's $80, I have to have it. Switch is the only console that I still have. My wife's an Xbox player. She plays Xbox and I actually got her a Steam Deck, and she plays that more than anything now.

00;50;34;23 - 00;50;58;09
Unknown
So I guess she's more of a PC gamer. Go figure. But anyway, switch to had to have it, Mario Kart World, open world Mario Kart looks incredible. I can't wait to get it. I think that's coming out in early June. And then, I guess final little pop culture thing I will mention to you, I saw today that Lego is releasing a new Simpsons set.

00;50;58;12 - 00;51;21;23
Unknown
So I am a huge fan of The Simpsons. Like, it's had a bigger impact on me than any pop culture in my life by far. I'm one of those guys who's constantly quoting The Simpsons, and it drives my wife insane. But anyway, years ago, before I got back into Lego, they released a Simpsons house. So, you know, Evergreen Terrace and 42 Eragon Terrace.

00;51;21;25 - 00;51;47;21
Unknown
And they also released the Kwik-E-Mart. So those two sets at the time, they were like $200. I was like, who was paying $200 for Legos? But I didn't know anything about Lego back then. Knowing what I know now, I would have gladly paid $200 for those sets. I didn't get them and Lego retires sets, so after they've been in circulation for a while, they pull them out of circulation so they can let new stuff out because they're constantly making new stuff at Lego.

00;51;47;24 - 00;52;15;25
Unknown
But anyway, they are doing a Krusty Burger set, so it's going to be $200. I think it comes out June 6th. It's either June 1st or June 6th. There's a gift with purchase through Lego. So if you go online and buy it or go to a Lego store and buy it, they'll give you a, Simpsons living room gift, and that'll go perfect with my 3D printed Simpsons TV that plays seasons one through ten on a nonstop random loop.

00;52;15;27 - 00;52;33;24
Unknown
That's a really cool project I did. You can check it out on my TikTok if you ever want to see it. But anyway, super, super cool. Definitely enjoy that. So, guys, I'm, like I say, I'm getting back into the swing of things. I know we normally go full hour, and I know I'm a few minutes short of the full hour.

00;52;33;24 - 00;52;52;18
Unknown
I hope you'll cut me a little bit of slack, though. I want to make sure we get this episode up tonight, because I don't want to keep anyone waiting any longer. But we will be back next week. Actually, I'm trying to get the interview. Hopefully before next week's show. We'll see how things go, but I'm trying to get that set up now.

00;52;52;18 - 00;54;38;26
Unknown
I just got to finish configuring some software. But that is coming in the very near future. So couple couple really cool interviews on the horizon. So we hope that you you'll join us for that. So you have been listening to the Astro cast. I am your host drew. And as always Clear skies.