Hope everyone is well! Women Astrophotographers · Linda · ... · 8 · 99 · 0

ac4lt 1.81
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It's been a unprecedented time in the world, at least in our lifetimes. I hope everyone and their love ones are staying safe. I've been fortunate enough to work from home while Virginia is under our stay-at-home order but I know many people are not as fortunate. And many are first responders or health care workers and putting their lives at risk for us.

On the lighter side, I had hoped to distract myself with some imaging but we've had exactly one clear night in the last month and the wind was blowing strongly so no distractions there. With my small refractor isn't optimal for galaxy season but I was hoping to try my hand at Comet C/2019 Y4 (Atlas) but so far Mother Nature is intent on making sure I get a full night of sleep.

How has everyone else been spending their time?
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olga_ismael 1.51
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hi linda!
as i'm still a student, my classes are online now. i have a lot of things to do, like homeworks, trying to learn new content without my teachers, etc. this doesn't take so much time though.
i had 4 or 5 clear nights, but i have only imaged in 2 of them. in the other 3, the moon was bright and i didn't knew how to polar align my mount. i want to photograph the rosette nebula and i want to use my 70/700 achromatic telescope to see if i can get something nice.
in brazil, we don't have so much coronavirus cases yet, but as we are a under developed country we may face trouble with our health system. people will suffer a lot. quarantine must last until july, september. i miss my  friends, i miss my family... but it's not so bad as missing someone who passed away. i hope so much to things get better as soon as possible for everyone.  <3
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carastro 8.04
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Yes it's a terrible worldwide situation.  We in the UK have been on lock down for 2 weeks now with no end in sight.  You can only go out for food, medicines, to look after a vulnerable person, essential work (listed), and allowed half an hour exercise per day only with one person living in the same household and keeping 2 metres away from any-one you encounter.  Some people are not obeying all the rules so I expect the exercise part to be removed, though that will be hard on people living in flats.

Only part of our rubbish is being collected, the recycling stuff we have to store until normal services are resumed again.

I managed to get out and do a bit of widefield imaging a couple of weeks ago, but like you  my refractors are too small for galaxies, so this time of the year is a bit of  "No Go" as regards imaging, plus I live in Bortle 8 so no chance to get to my nice dark sky camp.

Been occupying myself making various masks for me, hubby and my children and grandchildren, some styles better than others.   Today I cleaned the Dome of my observatory, and tomorrow I plan to clean out the inside (lots of spider corpses).

Walking the dog is my half hour exercise per day, plus I got my treadmill out and have set it up again.

Our Prime Minister is in Intensive Care with Coronavirus (I expect you have heard), all very worrying and scary and quiet surreal.

Carole
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ac4lt 1.81
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Olga, I hope the virus never gets well established in Brazil...it definitely puts a strain on the health care system when 20% of those infected need hospital care.

Carole, yes, we saw the news about the PM last night. It's not quite so bad here (yet). Normal services are continuing, at least here in Virginia. Our governor issued a stay-at-home order but that's handled on a state-by-state basis here and not all governors were as proactive (see Louisiana and Florida). My fear is most people don't understand that successfully flattening the curve means extending the time people need to stay home in exchange for fewer infections and deaths.

We are getting our daily walks in the neighborhood but limiting excursions to once every week or two for groceries. My company actually told us to work from home a week before the statewide order came out so I've been home for a while. The first week was hard but I've mostly got used to it.
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Snjór 11.96
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Doing ok here now, seem plateau here perhaps. I cycle to hospital in mask
then when leave shower and put on fresh scrubs and mask before ride home.

Hope all well and listening to advice, this very serious illness. Be safe and be well!
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MrsGnomus 0.00
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The Milne’s are also all well although our middle son has ended up stuck in his university accommodation as travel home for students is no longer considered necessary travel. Fortunately he still has 6 other students living with him so he at least has other people to interact with. I wasn’t very happy that he didn’t come home before all but essential travel was stopped and have been tempted more than once to drive to collect him - he is only 34 miles away by the shortest route - but he contacts us everyday and we have got used to the idea that we won’t be seeing him for a while.

Our dog is enjoying the additional walks that she is getting particularly with our youngest son who manages to cover between 4 and 5 miles in an hour. Fortunately we live in a relatively rural area - there are less than 500 people in our village so the chances of coming across other people when we are out walking are pretty slim.

As we are both retired not a lot has changed for us other than shopping less frequently and missing the occasional visit to our favourite restaurant.  We obviously can’t meet up with friends either although we did have a get together for a lot of old work colleagues at our home four weeks ago (before things like that were banned). We are half expecting to be contacted and asked if we will go back on the medical register and return to work but so far that hasn’t happened - there probably isn’t a pressing need for forensic psychiatrists at the moment!

The biggest impact has been on holidays that we had already planned and mostly paid for. We had to cancel a landscape photography tour that we had planned in Southern Utah and are still trying to get our money back from a couple of hotel bookings - the irony is that the bookings that were supposed to not be refundable processed full refunds immediately whereas we are still waiting for a refund for two reservations that were supposed to be fully refundable - we won’t be using that particular internet booking site again! The opera festival that we go to every August has also been cancelled and we are waiting to see if the same applies for the Salzburg festival.

Fortunately the weather here hasn’t been too bad and we have managed to do some imaging from home.  We are also still getting data coming in from the remote telescopes in Spain.

I have spent even more time than usual cooking (trying out new recipes and techniques) and baking. The panic buying in the local supermarkets has resulted in a complete absence of flour (and yeast) so I am now buying freshly milled flour from a windmill about half a mile from our house. The man who runs it is now only selling to local people - just before the “lockdown order” he had people driving more than 50 miles each way to buy flour - they bought all that he had available at the time. Now if I want flour I have to contact him with my order then wait for a phone call to say that the flour is ready and be given a strict time and location to collect it - all very odd.
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ac4lt 1.81
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Elisabeth, Sigga, glad to hear you are doing well!

I live in Loudoun County in Virginia and all the Northern Virginia counties are experiencing higher infection rates than the rest of the state. That's not surprising because the population density is higher here but, fortunately, people seem to be taking the instructions fairly seriously. Although only about 20% of the customers at the grocery store wore masks.

I have family in the medical field in Maryland, Florida, Maine and New Hampshire and thankfully they are all well but one is an ER nurse and another is a respiratory therapist so I tend to worry about them the most.

Fortunately, our grocery stores have been fairly well stocked although I hadn't looked at flour or paper products last time out.

It looks like the US as a whole is slowly starting to flatten the infection curve. The rate of increase in new cases is slowly going down although that varies from state to state. Hopefully we can turn the corner but it will take a while before things can start to return to any sort of normalcy. Let's hope our state governments don't relax too quickly and reverse the trend.
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carastro 8.04
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Sigga:
Doing ok here now, seem plateau here perhaps. I cycle to hospital in maskthen when leave shower and put on fresh scrubs and mask before ride home.

Hope all well and listening to advice, this very serious illness. Be safe and be well!


Well done Sigga, one of the Heros on the front line.

Relieved to say the UK Prime Minister was discharged from hospital today, and is now going to rest for a bit to fully recover.

Also our recycling collection turned up unexpectedly yesterday (Easter Saturday!!!) and no-one knew they were coming, so it was quite amusing seeing every-one charging around trying to get their recycling out for collection before they arrived at our individual properties.

I didn't have any holiday booked as yet, but did have some excursions booked in London which I was going to take with a visitor from abroad who has now cancelled her flight, but trying to get hold of the excursion people is proving difficult.

We lost a distant family member (related by marriage) to Coronavirus yesterday, he was in his 80s with other health problems,  and I know of two others who have had it and recovered.

All very scary really and I can't see any proper way out until they develop a vaccine.

Carole
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debraceravolo 0.00
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Hi Linda and everyone. Hope all are well and safe. Here in the southern interior, British Columbia, Canada, things are very quiet. Virus cases are very few, so far, thank goodness. There are many older folk that live here, due to the warmer weather, so things could be a lot worse. So far so good. However, our little town is a vacation destination and will suffer great economic loss. We locals know it will be a long time for life to restart.

My husband and I are extremely fortunate in that we already work from home, and enjoy a great views on our mountain. Work has slowed but allows us to do what we love most, astronomy, telescopes and photography. I have finally learned how to completely operate our observatory and all the equipment myself. Something I have been wanting to do for a long time but was always too busy. I now have a new respect for people that do image acquisition, there is a lot to know! And it is hard! If anything positive comes from this pandemic, perhaps it will be people who have learned new skills whatever that may be.

Be Well
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