Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

A traveler, a beggar, Cephandrius, Topaz, Wit and Hoid walk into a bar. He says "Ouch".

Alien, hahaha, that's a great mame! The best way to align your finderscope is to do the alignment in the daytime. Pick an object that's pretty far away like the top of a tree, a neighbors chimney, etc, get it lined up in your scope and then adjust the finderscope's altitude / azimuth knobs until the finder scope is targeting the same thing as your scope. You can do it at night using the moon or jupiter, but the earth is rotating so whatever you have lined up drifts out of view. And for the first stage of alignment you're going to want to use your lowest magnification eyepiece ( 25 mm, 20mm whatever has the largest focal length) because you're going to have a wider field of view. Jupiter is so cool! The Jovian day is just a little under 10 hours, so if you were looking at it over a 2 hour period it will have rotated 1/5th the way around or 72°! There's a free version of Sky Safari that let's you zoom in on the planets from earth, and shows the orbital positions of the moons too, so you can figure out what you're looking at. If you can see the bands of jupiter with your scope, you can probably see Saturn's rings and probably Saturn's moon Titan too. Yeah, I have the Peterson field guide (solid info) and The Whitney's Star Finder, with the skymap with the rotatable disc which is very cool. One of the easiest ways to get your bearings and figure out what you're looking it during summer is to look for the Summer Triangle asterism formed by three of the brightest stars in the summer sky, Altair in the constellation aquila, Deneb in the constellation Cygnus, and Vega in the constellation Lyra. The red triangle is the Asterism Summer Triangle, the red cross is the Asterism The Northern Cross in the constellation Cygnus. The relative positions of the stars (with few exceptions) is fixed for our lifetime, so once you recognize some of these patterns it easy to figure out where something else in relation to a known star, constellation or asterism. Another thing that is cool is that the three brightest stars in the head of Aquila, Alshain, Altair and Tarazed form a line that points right towards Vega. Also, just a little over 1° of sky away from Vega is a double star that should easily be imageable in your scope. The brighter is magnitide 4.7, and the dimmer is magnitude 6.2. The cool thing about this double star system is that if you have the magnification power and your telescope collects enough light you can see that each star in this double system is also a binary star. So it's really two binary star systems!

Christmas is canceled. Santa's social distancing. Shoes work best on your feet.

@Scarletfox, what kind of telescope do you have? What have you been looking at lately? It's not the best conditions right now with the moon at about 90% full, but my daughter and I were looking at Jupiter and Saturn last night. My poor astrophotography setup of shakily holding my phone in front of the telescope eyepiecex dogesn't get the best pictures, but using the 25 mm eyepiece (magnificatiin 80x, with an apparent field of view of .65° of the sky), I got a good enough picture to show the nearly aligned orbital positions of Ganymede and Io. Here's what Jupiter and its moons looked like in Sky Safari: Celestron makes a pretty sweet phone holder for imaging through telescopes, binoculars or microscopes. It's adjustable along tge x, y and z axes, and it's on my Christmas list, might be able to finally get some decent shots. https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-3-Axis-Universal-Smartphone-Adapter/dp/B07D7V3B8M Here's one thing that I learned pretty recently that's useful to know, you can figure out the magnification of your telescope with different eyepieces doing some easy math. The magnification is equal to the focal length of your telescope (let's say it's 1000 mm) ÷ by the focal length of your eyepiece (let's say it's 25 mm). To get the magnification of the setup above you have 1000 mm/25mm=40x magnification. Here's a pretty useful article on telescope magnification: https://www.telescope.com/mobileProduct/Telescope-Power-Magnification/99813.uts Also, if you know the Apparent Field of View of an eyepiece (usually specified by the manufacturer) you can figure out the true field of view for that eyepiece for your scope, which is basically the amount of sky you see through your scope in angular measure. From horizon to horizon is 180°, what you see through your scope (the true field of view) is going to depend on the magnification of your scope (focal length of scope ÷ focal length of your eyepiece) and the apparent field of view of your eyepiece. True Field of View = Apparent Field of View ÷ magnification. Here's an example, my Plossl eyepiece with a focal length of 25 mm has an apparent field of view of 52°, when attached to my scope which has a focal lengtg of 2000 mm, the magnification is 2000 mm ÷ 25 mm = 80x magnification. The true field of view is 52°/80 = .65° of the sky. The full moon has an angular size of about .5 °, so with this scope setup I'll be able to see the entirety of the moon. As another example, if I were to use my 8 mm plossl eyepiece, the magnifaction would be 2000 mm ÷ 8 mm = 250x. The apprent field of view is 52°, so the true field of view for this eyepiece on my scope would be 52° ÷ 250 = .208° of the the sky. Less than half the diameter of the full moon would be visible through my scope, and I would see less than a third of the portion of sky visible through the 25 mm eyepiece. Simple math, but very cool stuff. @Experience thanks, it's a super nice telescope, but you can use binoculars and a tripod to see most of the same stuff you can see with a telescope. I have a pair of binoculars that have a magnificationof 8.5x, and I saw 3 of the Jovian moons with them the other night. The first telescope that Galileo used to look at the same stars and planets that we look at was a refracting telescope with a magnification of 8x, easily beatable by almost any pair of binoculars out there. He eventually developed a telescope capable of 10x magnification, but again most binoculars have much higher magnification than that. If you don't have binoculars they are pretty easy to find at thrift stores and are usually pretty cheap ($10-$15 bucks). The tripod I use with my binoculars was $3 at a thrift store. In other news, the moon is going to be at last quarter this coming Thursday, so moonrise is going to get later and later, and it's going to be darker sky for observing. And the September Perseid meteor shower peaks this tuesday, with at peak 5 meteors per hour (nothing as spectacular as the Perseid's August peak with 50 meteors per hour, but still nice to know about).

Doh, didn't see that it had moved on.. Granted. You're fluent in every single language in the world. You can read, write and speak every known language. Your bane is that you think exclusively in Klingon and dream in Esperanto. I still wish for a personal submarine that can hold 4 people.

Awesome! Everybody starts somewhere, the idea is the Astronomy club is a place where anyone can ask questions, talk about what they're currently looking at, and just have fun talking about Astronomy. Post away! And what's your telescope named and what kind of telescope is it? Granted. Instead of glaring they make you a nice piping hot thermos of hot chocolate and get you a chair and a blanket. Your bane (though I don't think it's much of a bane) is that they want to go out and look at what you're looking at through your telescope. I wish for a personal submarine that can hold 4 people.

Granted. Every night you dream a similar dream, after you fall asleep you feel yourself rise above your body, fly through the ceiling and rise faster and faster above the earth until you see the orb of your planet dwindle to a small pinpoint of light. Faster and faster you hurtle past nebulae and stars until you begin the approach to your destination for the night. The small point of light grows until you can see the planet/moon/comet/asteroid that the life form that you will be sharing experience with lives on. Onward your consciousness rushes, until you merge with the extra terrestrial being to experience the equivalent of a day on the interstellar body that they call home. Your bane is that by far the most prevalent form of life that is able to inhabit the extreme environments found on terrestial bodies in the universe are the single celled varieties, namely Archaebactria, Bacteria, and the Protists. So most of your dreams involve slow cellular fission in the cold icy cores of comets, or the absorption of and conversion to energy of lethally strong levels of ultraviolet light, or the fixing of nitrogen on planetoids with atmospheres choked with methane gas. 3 or 4 times in your life though your consciousness will merge with a more evolved form of life, and you will get to spend one of their days immersed in their completely alien culture. Also, the Nightwatcher feels kind of sorry for you having to spend most of your sleeping hours living the life of a non motile single celled organism, so at any point during your dreams you can decouple your consciousness from the organism and fly freely around the planet/moon/asteroid/comet that they live on and explore that alien landscape. I wish more people would join the 17th Shard Astronomy Club:

Nicely put together @asmodeus! One other point that is further support for your Hoid shopping around for the right radiant order theory is that Hoid was at the gates of Kholinar when Taln the stoneward herald showed up, and the extended metaphor that Hoid was working up into a magnificent punchline had to do with timing. With the commonality of their shared vow to always be where they when they are needed, it does beg the question whether the stonewards as an order will share Hoid's unwitting prescience.

If you live where you can get blackberries, I'll send you the recipe, it's super simple and ridiculously delicious. My wife and I are going back to our late season blackberey spot with our dogs this Friday, if they grow around you they're still out there ripe for the picking. That sounds way better, I just used Google translate. I'll edit my post, thanks! It was really good, heated up with some Umpqua vanilla ice cream on top. Sublime!

It was soooo good! In memoriam of another pie that was with us for too brief a time, here are some famous quotes about pie: "Four score and seven pies ago I was a somber, unhappy man. Now I'm smiling all the time" - Abraham Lincoln "Vini, vidi, pie comedi" (I came, I saw, I ate pie) - Gaius Julius Caesar "If one were to but recall the multitude of plates upon which one has enjoyed pie, it is possible to attain Nirvana if one's stack of plates be sufficiently tall" - His Holiness the Dalai Lama "Tis better to have eaten pie and been painfully full, than never to have eaten pie at all" - Alfred Lord Tennyson "When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love, to eat pie." - Marcus Aurelius

I personally like Sja-Anat. We know she views spren as her children (corrupted ones at least), she is ostensibly trying to switch sides (the communication was not openly hostile, but was rather an ultimatum to change course), and Renarin under the influence of Glys could have hidden the Ruby and penned the Spanreed communication. Also there's the bit about not being able to trust the Honorspren, maybe the reason they have retreated to Lasting Integrity is because they are worried about Sja-Anat corrupting them. This would seem a little far fetched if it weren't for the fact that Shallan has been tasked by the Ghostbloods to pursue Sja-Anat, that Sja-Anat has communicated to Shallan that she wants to switch sides, and that we know from the recent book description that Shallan's journey through Shadesmar has Lasting Integrity as its destination. A lot of the narrative pieces fit, this is circumstantial proof to be sure, but I think it would be narratively compelling.

Not surprising fraud is happening with all the Covid Relief money sloshing around, way to the right thing! That's rad about casting in Aluminum, what are you casting and how are you doing it?

Hmm, I think it's maybe a little different. I think Brandon is building this system to mimic electronics, I think he is saying that Zinc and Brass are essential because they function like variable resistors connecting the source of power (stormlight) to the phenomena producing component of the Fabrial, the spren. So by themselves they would cause an effect, but diminishes and amplifiers could be built into the control cage (really just a circuit) to amplify or dimish the triggered phenomenon. This would be like the difference between a pair of headsets with a volume control knob (that has no amplification to the signal) versus a speaker with an amplifier.

I think this is mostly right, the way I see Zinc and Brass working is Zinc by drawing forth a particular spren causes the phenomena that they are associated with to manifest, while brass pushing away the spren causes the opposite of the phenomena to be expressed. Both are used as control systems, like potentiometers (like little volume knobs) to control the strength at which the desired effect manifests, and pewter and tin would be added into the control system to amplify or diminish the effect. The ecology of Roshar doesn't really have tropical or dessert areas, but I see inverse Heatrials being a prime export to Southern scadrial, especially if the spren leaving Roshar problem is solved and if the Rosharan AC units can be run off of medallions. General AC would probably pretty quickly displace personal temperature control. I think the Navani spanreed communication is proof of another secret society on Roshar, namely PETS, People for the Ethical Treatment of Spren. Or possibly SETS, Spren for the Ethical Treatment of Spren. We'll know if its PETS or SETS, depending on whether Navanni gets Red paint dumped on her at Urithiru or in Shadesmar. I honestly hope that this doesn't tempt Brandon to adda Dobby character, yeesh what an annoying side plot that was in Harry Potter. I have to say, I'm a little disappointed that fabrials manifest in Shadesmar as just spren frozen in place with their eyes closed, and that we got so little description of this interesting phenomenon. Does the fabrial itself appear in Shadesmar? If so do the captive spren just hover in position above the fabrial, or do they hover and maintain their orientation to the fabrial when you move it around in Shadesmar? Like if Navanni brought her painrial into shadesmar, would a painspren be sticking out of it with its eyes closed, or does the fabrial just not materialize and a pain spren is just hovering near Navanni? Also, not much information on how the 4th Bridge is actually flying, just some handwavium bits about it being obvious from the principles already established and a repeat of the isolating force along planes. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun chapter, just a little disappointed in the superficial gloss of explanation, but it's a big book, there's still plenty of time to explain these mechanics better. I really liked Syl turning into the 4th Bridge, she's adorable!

I picked enough late season blackberries to make 3 blackberry pies! And while I was picking them, I saw honey bees drinking the juice from the ruptured pips. And a cool inch worm!

Granted, your friend has been split into 13 separate tiny yet proportionally equal individuals. Your one friend who was 80lb 5 ft 6" is now a collective entity composed of 13 6.15lb 5" shrunken versions of their undivided self. They can still get into PG-13 movies because technically they are 13. I wish for hiccups to have a magical effect.

Holy crap, that's awesome. The Kraken of the Shadesmar seas, I like it!

This is a place to talk about what you're looking at in the Night's sky (or daytime sky), share cool pictures of astronomy related things, share links to articles that are interesting, and basically just talk about the Universe and our place in it. Also, if anyone has astronomy related questions, this would be a great place to ask them. My father in law gave me his Celestron NexStar 8se telescope a year ago. It's an 8" Cassegrain Schmidt reflector telescope with a motorized GoTo mount, and during the times of the Covid I've finally gotten around to really figuring out how to use it, and it's pretty amazing! When it's setup right, it can slew to any object in it's internal catalog, and it compensates for the rotation of the Earth. My daughters and I have been looking at the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars a lot this summer, and my eldest daughter and I saw Venus for the first time through the telescope. It was really cool to see that Venus has phases like the moon. Also, it's been fun to view Jupiter on successive nights and see the Jovian satellites in vastly different orbital positions, and it's always great to see the great red spot and the bands of Jupiter. One of the other transformative and life changing decisions that I made (other than to actually figure out how to use the scope) was to purchase Sky Safari 6 Pro for my android smartphone (available for I-phone too). I can say, unequivocally, it is the best app for mobile ever made. Not only is a fully featured simulator of the night sky, including 29 million stars down to 15th magnitude, a catalog of 784,000 galaxies down to 18th magnitude, not to mention an extensive collection of Earth Satellites, Asteroids and Comets, but it really is a fully featured pocket planetarium and a time machine. Details about this amazing app are spoilered below because it's got a lot of animated gifs showing off some of the amazing features. I have the opposite of an astrophotography setup, I use my phone to take pictures through the eyepiece, but I've gotten some cool shots and I'll post them later. I would love to hear what you all have been looking at, and if you have an links/pictures/info to share. Onward and Upward! *EDIT* I just found out that NASA has a new solar system viewer that shows all the currently operational spacecraft in the solar system (and near solar system). The models for the 3D spacecraft are amazingly detailed, and you can see in real time what is happening in our Solar System, sweet! This works great on mobile too: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/orrery/#/sc_perseverance The above link starts you off looking at Perseverance at its current location on it's trip to Mars, but you can very easily select any other Solar System object of interest. You can also view HD maps of some of the solar system objects, and it's pretty freaking sweet. Spoilered below is a view of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter over the HD rendered surface of mars. Also, if you want a bit more control, you can download the JPL desktop NASA's eyes app. It doesn't support HD resolution maps for the solar system objects but you do have time flow controls, and there are some curated tours of different missions that are pretty cool (Cassini, New Horizons, Voyager, Juno, Dawn, Curiosity Entry and Descent Landing). https://eyes.nasa.gov/ Here's a view of the Trace Gas Orbiter orbiting Mars, it's so fun to set the time flow controls to slightly greater than real time, set the view to Ride-along view, and watch the red orb of mars spin beneath the orbital path of your selected Spacecraft. Rad indeed. If you do get the Desktop app or look at the link above, try and find the Asteroid Arrokoth. It's a Keiper Belt object that the New Horizons spacecraft flew by and imaged in January of 2019, and it seriously looks like a space turd. If you want to just jump to the point where the New Horizons space probe is at it's closest approach to Arrokoth, select the New Horizon's spacecraft, and manual enter in the time shown in the Spoilered screenshot below: Last Update about the JPL NASA's eyes app, it turns out all of the controls in Advanced mode have sub controls that are super amazing, here's a screenshot of the Advanced Control sub controls spoilered below: You can easily pick any solar system object in the catalog (Like the Mercury MESSENGER observer) and click to a curated moment in it's mission flight. The screenshot above was from the 2nd Flyby of Venus. Also what's displayed is completely customizable too. I don't know what range of dates the simulation is valid from, but if you are interested in exploring our solar system or are interested in unmanned space exploration, this is the app to use! *EDIT #2* NASA has some amazing free to print 11x17 posters of the Planets, major Moons, major Asteroids and Comets in our Solar System. Some of them are breathtakingly beautiful: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/925/solar-system-and-beyond-poster-set/ At Costco, you can get a 12x18 print for 3.99, so you could get posters of all the planets (including pluto), the moon, and 4 other of your favorite solar system Objects for $60! The form factor is a little off, so I'm going to make custom 12x18 versions that include information about the solar system object (orbital distance, diameter, mass, orbital period, rotational period, gravity, weight of a 100lb person on the surface (I have kids so that is a fun way to show gravity) and a solar system diagram ( or if a moon a planetary orbit diagram). I'm going to get the full planet set, the moon, Enceladus, Ganymede, Europe, and the Beyond Our Solar System Eagle nebula one. If anyone is interested I'll post a download link to the full printable collection with my modifications when they're done. *EDIT 3* Office Depot does self service 11x17 color printing @ $1.18/print, and you can get glossy card stock @ $.29/sheet, so you could print out a set of 15 NASA solar system posters without modifications for the ridiculously cheap price of $22.05.

This is just another interesting aside, spoilered below so you can read or ignore it.

The Nightwatcher says "Easy". "You'll be on earth" "Orbiting the sun, in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way Galaxy." "And your bane is that on your 30th birthday you'll lose an eye in a tragic accident involving a confetti canon and an intoxicated clown." "I feel kinda bad for ya kid, so as a consolation prize, you get this magic eyepatch." A full length mirror materializes in a puff of green luminescent mist, and you see that your right eye is covered by a very slick looking eyepatch. Every expression that you make is translated to the eyepatch and rendered as a glowing green anime style eye. And you notice if you close your left eye you can see through the eyepatch like you are looking through night vision goggles, and sources of metal glow brilliantly. Fast forward in time, your eye is put out on your 30th birthday, and your magic eyepatch materializes like you knew it would. And you get back to your archeological dig site in the Valley of The Kings, confident that no precious Egyptian artifact will escape your magically enhanced vision. I wish that that my dogs could talk and that I could understand their speech and talk with them too (other than saying "Whose a good boy? Youse a good boy.")

Hmm, that's a good point. Also as to the craziness of the Tukari soldiers, that could just be Ishar using his Bondsmith powers of Connection (wonder if he still has those powers without his honor blade?). Maybe he can share his craziness with his followers. I find it strange that the Shin didn't join Dalinar's coalition, and they are sitting on a stockpile of Honor blades (if the surmise is true that their war of conquest was just an excuse to round up blades and plate then possibly a stockpile of shardblades and shardplate as well). Seems like a suitably strategic enough goal for Odium to deploy his agent of Dissension to keep those out of Dalinar's hands. Also, with Dai-Gonarthis' name being somewhat based on Dagon (who was depicted as a merman in ancient Asyrian art) and him being referred to as the Black Fisher, and also the fact that he was involved in the scouring of the islands of Aimia, I wonder if he is a water spren. Maybe his area of influence is limited to the coastal regions of Roshar. If so the places to look for his effects would be Shinovar, Iri, Rira, the Reshi Isles, the Purelake, Babatharnam, Marabethia, Herdaz, New Natanatan (the Puuli interlude), Thaylenah, Tukar, and Tashikk. Those are all the ones I remember being mentioned that have major coastal exposure, but the map of Roshar is spoilered below if anyone else has any ideas.

Wow, look, it's the ellipses edition... I forgot what I was saying... Ground control...It's about major Tom... I'm lost...Mounds...or Almond Joy.... Fred...but you died...in Bedrock! Never trust animal trainers...missing fingers...

The Nightwatcher says, "Well wished. You now have that which nothing is mightier than, use it wisely." Looking down at your pen sword, you see that it's one of those really classy fountain pens, with a platinum plated nib, a gorgeous resin barrel and the resin coated cap features a platinum clip. You test out your pen, and you can write on any surface, the ink flow is amazing and the Nightwatcher told you it will never run out of ink. With the cap in place over the pen nib, if you twist the back end of the pen and pull, a luminous bar of pure green investiture that's 5 feet in length and the diameter of your pen pulls out from the cap. It works just like a lightsaber. Your bane is that you have now have the mouthparts of a cuttlefish. I wish for a pen sword too, that's a great wish!

Granted. It's all about May Aladar riding her Rhyshadium, picnicking with doe-eyed bright lords and ladies in laits, weaving coronets out of rockvine tendrils, and singing saccharine songs about how someday her highprince will come. I wish for a new type of sandwhich, that is delicious and nutritious.

@Bzhydack, this is such a good theory, do you have any theories about what Dai-Gonarthis was doing during the events of WoK, WoR or OB? Just off the cuff, it seems odd to me that the Iri aren't part of the Coalition, and further that they are on the move, do you think this might have anything to do with DG? Or maybe that DG is parked in Tukar, and is actively provoking Tezim the God King, otherwise known as bat-rust-crazy Ishar. Would be fun to look for subtle signs of emotional manipulation on a re-read.