Great to get rid of the bad weather for a while and even better, the nights are drawing in. Had a chance to take a few RAW images of Cassiopeia tonight. I think I even spotted Andromeda tonight.
Hi, Had my first go with a MS Lifecam Studio and a PST on the sun this evening. Conditions were far from ideal, only got 20 mins before it went behind houses, but I can get nearly all of the disc in focus. I have circular lines, probably arising from the Bayer matrix on the sensor and the PST and it also looks like I need to fit an IR filter. Still it's a start.
well finally hacked the canon eos 300d , for mirror lock up!! at last, been thinking to do this for months, i used the unduchable mod, i downloaded the canon software for update 1.11 and replaced the fir file1.11 in the down loaded folder with the unduchable one , just dont mix them up has there the same number 1,11!!, now then did all that but could not understand why it was not updating? you have to open the card reader cover then shut it to start the down load to the camera!! opps! did i f
Weather and conditions too indifferent to get the Dob out, so opted for the binoculars instead. Despite the not too dark skies, still managed to see a pair of my perennial favourites, namely M31 and M13. Tried to see a couple of other Messiers (M51 and M101) in the vicinity of Ursa Major. I thought I was pushing my luck more than a bit as Alcor and Mizar werent really that separated with naked eye observation. As suspected, no joy on this occasion, which is a pity as my neightbours house is rath
Finally added version 1 of the setting circle. Printed out onto about 8 sheets of A4, cut to size, sellotaped together and then covered in sticky backed plastic. Total cost was 64p. Spray mounted onto the top of the upper base board. Made a pointer from two pieces of metal. Time for the moment of truth! Base was level to about +/- 0.5 degrees. Used Altair and Polaris to check the setting circle. Not spot on when switching between the two, but mostly within about a degree or so. I am assuming it
Seemed to be nowhere near as dark the second time around. Still, it was a good excuse to work on my star hopping skills. First job was to align te RDF. Seemed easy enough to move left - right, but no joy with up - down. Finally got out the tools and took the RDF to bits and found a very badly placed spring. After replacing the spring and rebuilding, all semed well. Now I wasnt having to compensate for a misaligned RDF any more. Only managed two extra Messiers tonight, M27 and M71. Had a quick lo
Well, I guess Im not the only person who has been cusring the Rain Gods recently! Having ordered my new Dob far too many weeks ago, it duly turned up. My first impression when the delivery driver was unloading the two boxes was that there must be something missing. Thankfully, I was comforted by the words Box 1 of 2 and Box 2 of 2 on the delivery. Later that day, despite near deluge conditions outside I set about unpacking and assembling my new scope. As far as scopes go, it is rather a good loo
well i got up early hours Friday Saturday and Sunday hoping to see something but usual gray cloud cover here disappointed again. although Venus and Jupiter were just visible but no stars out.
V3 (latest), here in this post: So the next question is what next.. So basically the app will get some additional features to exercise the cameras (and yes you'll be able to set up a sequence of shots). When will I add filter wheel support in the sequence? Well after the driver is running.. I'll be putting some focus back into AOSX itself with the driver becoming a camera module, the filter wheel will also be supported and anyone can then use it :) I've been talking to Craig Stark (of PHD and
Get it here: http://stargazerslou...-alpha-release/ V3 is a few posts down, here: :D I still have more todo.. but after fixing a titan bug I've added a bit more..
well started the pier tonight. for th the eq 5 head. height to go up to 54 inches. WELL i have abandoned this , i built it up, and to be honest it was 45 inches high and unstable and looked like a chimney stack!! i will put a pipe in to the concrete base, and fill with post create (fast setting) oh and make my own pier plate has there £45-55 each!! need two bottom and top . see other post in opps dont fit.
Having broke my back laying the base, joke, tried the EQ5 on tonight and one of the legs are hanging over!! :eek: can you believe it. Mind you some one did comment on " it don`t look like it will fit" DOH!! All his not lost!! i have a cunning plan!! i have been toying with the idea of building a brick pillar mount., Because i did not fancy dragging the heavy pod and eq 5 head out. watch this space! ive abandoned the brick pier job it was unstable at that height and looked like a chimney stack!
Some Doubles in Andromeda Perhaps there are some who think doubles are merely two stars close together and they may be right, just as one may be right in saying great music is only a bundle of notes strung together or that literature is just a large collection of words. But as with most things in life, if you spend time with doubles, hunting them out and learning from them, you come to realise that the grand majority radiate an aesthetic beauty quite unlike anything else. As with any art, there
nice full moon rising in east,bit of a orange glow,but soon went to white bright has it got higher set up the mak 90mm in back spare bedroom put eos 300 on and shot a few frames, the moon dont half shift and climb, ahh i have a eq1 motor which i put on iv`e had it a while but not used it ,now then getting the speed right was a little tricky, i did wonder if they actually work! and yes it does ! on the note of the new scope evoststar 120 not tried it yet, the Eq5 weighs a ton! hmm i may have to m
I've had the AR152 up for sale since I got the C9.25 reasoning that The C9.25 should be able to do everything the Refractor can do and with more aperture. But I never had the chance to put them head to head. The SCT can operate at F/10 with a focal length of 2350 mm - a nice long focal length for planets. With the reducer lens it can operate at F/6.3 an effective focal length of 1480 mm - getting down to reasonably low power for wide field cruising. I had over spent the scope budget last year a
I had a recent message about this blog, good to know I haven't been writing into thin air!.. and of course I've added nothing for too long. So.. where are we? 1. Mount functions: Slew works Guiding Works PEC kind of works.. I have a new PEC algorithum which should improve things. Park, needs adding GOTO needs adding, software written with this in mind. 2. Drive needs propper PCBs and dsPIC in the base to allow GOTO (spherical maths, needs sin/cos/tan) 3. Base unit needs boxing up. 4. Hand
Got the new scope today, ordered Friday, got this am via fed x , good service fro FLO thanks martin. Now hope for some clear sky's, had a play at some chimney pots to align star finder scope, optics are very crisp and clear!! I don think the wife was impressed with the size!! with a comment "where you gona put that!!" tutting and shaking her head, "it was either this or a 10 inch dob!! i said" mind you the mount and head weighs a ton!! i already have a bad back!! just started with. I call the sk
Lunar Observations and Sketches This week, I've decided to wake up early and view Jupiter. This has been far from an easy task, but surprisingly, seeing has been rather good at these early hours of the morning and Jupiter’s two great bands and Giant Red Spot were easily visible every observing session. I drew an image of what I saw at around 4am, returned to Jupiter about an hour later to draw another field sketch and then wound the practice down as the sun rose around 6am. With these sketches
Just back from The Table Mountain Star Party in Central Washington. It was our first star party proper (overnight) - and our astro pal Neil had persuaded us we were ready for the big one - all night under the stars with some serious astronomers ... He also persuaded us with stories of buying hot dogs at 1.00 am ... There would be caterers and scope gear vendors all there too. We couldn't find an RV for rent - they were rented out months in advance so we settled on a mini van. It was a Kia Se
A very basic form: Now i'm going to get myself a beer an find out why the Titan's image is pooched. As always it's something you did before but so simple you forget about it..
Just a basic identify, connect and press the button to take a image (no temp setting or image save at the moment)... I'll tidy it up for people to try.. I'll also make a youtube guide.. note it's very basic functionality at mo..
I upgraded to Mountain Lion (10.8) and it appears my Parallels 6 doesn't work. Looking for a patch to get it to work has resulted in an 11 page thread on the Parallels forum full of vitriol about being forced to pay $60+ on a parallels 7 for very little gain. Parallels blaming Apple however to develop a product like this requires lots of understanding and planning.. peeved/livid - yes I am. So in order to use ASCOM I now have to pay $64.. so 13.99 for ML costs more than you think...
After much deliberation between the sky-watcher skyliner dob 8 inch or 10, ive opted for the sky-watcher evo-star 120 on eq5, i know people say go for aperture but its storing yet another scope, and its size will be massive so ive read, iv`e had one of theses evo`s before and i sold it ,has i did not have a suitable mount for it. i could not afford it. i regretted selling it.
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