April 2012 Blog Posts (5)

As promised, here are the results of testing my ELF panel, an electroluminescent panel designed specifically for making "lens cap" type flats. That is, by placing the panel directly in front of the telescope. This technique does not provide the highest possible accuracy, but when done properly it works quite well and has the distinct advantage that you can do it in the middle of a shooting session without bothering anyone. ELF is designed to fit snugly around the end of your scope so that…

I was out for six months with nonstop fog, and then Trevor got it with bad weather for like 5 months, and now, just when my new observatory, solid pier, paramount, off axis guiding with rotator... and now, fog rolls in three days now. It's thick fog that never leaves. It's going to rain on thursday that'll clear it out, but it'll just build back up again.

This is caused primarily by La Nina, or colder than normal ocean temperatures. They say La Nina lasts two years on average, this…

So I'm thinking of starting my own website to upload photos and post a thought or two and looking out there in the virtual world there appears to be plenty of options.

What I think is important:

Right Click protection, Watermarks.

Being able to have my own style and Logo.

Image size is not restricted or "resized" on upload.

Multiple Image file types (png, tiff, FITS, RAW if possible)

Large amount of storage.

Private folders as well as public. Password…

Since I retired from a career in designing electronic products (mostly related to imaging), I've often had to rely on the skills learned over the years (and learn some new ones) to solve problems that came up in astronomy. Thinking that my friends in astronomy and astrophotography might benefit from the solutions I developed (and having little else to do), I decided to make some of these solutions available as real products. My intent is not to make a big business from this and it's not…

I saw the arduino boards sitting on the shelves at Radioshack and I figured I would try to make a focuser controller for the motor focuser I bought a few weeks back. This is mainly due to that the 100ft wires were too flimsy to last and secondly that I can then precisely control the focus, even without a focuser program.

The core of the focuser is an arduino…