Star in Focus

A first relatively long drive with the car today, out to Tamworth and back.  The car is supposed to do all sorts of clever things if you use the sat nav in combination with the hybrid system. The car guide says it will optimise the use of the battery if it knows the destination. The first experiment tends to suggest it prioritises the battery over the engine and despite setting a round trip well over half the battery's capacity had been drawn on as we reached the shops.

As expected the battery was completely drained before we got back home, but it was interesting to note that it was partially recharging under braking and it kept drawing on the battery until it drained again. Shall be keeping an eye on how this goes.

I was outside charging the car when I noticed the clear sky. I've bought an aid to focusing on the stars for my astrophotography. Despite being able to use live view and zoom in, I still had some disappointing results in the past.  This is the pattern for in-focus stars when using something called a Bhatinov Mask (see extra) I bought recently. The idea is to make a symmetrical pattern crossing through the star. It seems to work well, though the clouds came across before I got the chance to test it further.