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Charles Dunlop's Blog (62)

holy moly it worked

My setup totally worked, I'm kind of in disbelief. Took a shot of M5, short exposure, not very good visibility tonight, but I'll combine and post no matter how it looks just because it's sort of monumental for me to finally have a setup working. STOKED!!!!

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 23, 2011 at 11:15pm — 2 Comments

clear patch

Going into a clear patch, and begging for my computer system and everything else to be fully operational and stable. Tonight is mostly clear, and then sunny until next week. holy moly. I'm on it!!! Need that computer system to work out.

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 23, 2011 at 10:01am — 1 Comment

Computers computers

windows 7 64 bit uinstable for me. IT guy thinks I might have a bad peice of RAM, will figure that out next week. But for right now, I went to work on a laptop that was sitting around the office, 32 bit XP pro, we installing windows now and will reinstall all my software once again.. Kind of a lot of work actually. oh well, I'm on it!! Just want CCDware to be stable and working without issue, it's an amazing program when coupled with SkyX pro and CCDsoft. :)

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 21, 2011 at 5:05pm — No Comments

Planet Nabu

Tomorrow is the end guys, been nice knowing you, think I'll go visual scoping tonight, and find the planet Nabu crashing into us to destroy humanity.

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 20, 2011 at 2:09pm — 1 Comment

New Ambry commercial

http://youtu.be/e4wa7PBrlpQ

Lol.

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 11, 2011 at 11:52pm — 3 Comments

So i finally get my setup working...

and it goes cloudy. lol. couple days next week look promising. Still had one issueon my mock runs I'll investigate tonight, and that's likely a video driver error as the whole screen went blue and the computer rebooted in the middle of an image, so I'll investigate that if it comes back up which it likely will, but I managed to work out all the computer issues last night and take some shots of clouds. lol. Was just happy to get the components all speaking to each other and… Continue

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 7, 2011 at 10:41am — 1 Comment

computer issues are the worst

I've had it, so many computer crashes and programs not working correctly, I've got my IT guys at Ambry installing XP pro and wiping the hard drive. Last night for instance I was fixed on a star cluster and CCDautopilot crashed... then I restarted and did the same cluster but just with CCDsoft and SkyX running, and it crashed again. Something is wrong, and I'm tripping out. So I wiped the drive and am starting again with XP, which we know works well with all of these programs.

Added by Charles Dunlop on May 3, 2011 at 9:23am — 7 Comments

Mechanics of Observatory

Damned I'm learning a lot. Pempro is a fantastic program. The polar Alignment wizard is really awesome.

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 29, 2011 at 10:42pm — 2 Comments

wowsers

almost getting all the bugs worked out. CCDautopilot is awesome, except it's bugging out at the alnitak flip-flat connecting phase. grrrr. Getting close, was playing around until 11 PM. Think I'll be in action this weekend. Setting up the CGE pro mount tomorrow as the adapter plate is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. So I'll play around with polar aligning perfectly and then play with pempro, perfectly polar align and nail in, and then for sure check the PEC and reprogram the mount.



The… Continue

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 27, 2011 at 10:49pm — 3 Comments

My weather forecast

unbelievable. 0% precip chance, zero clouds, great visibility... for like 10 days!! No chance that's real, except, it appears to be.

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 26, 2011 at 10:16am — 2 Comments

Clear skies forecast

I'm forecast to have five clear nights Tuesday onward. Holy ,ply not sure how to handle that!!!

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 25, 2011 at 6:59am — 2 Comments

Hawaii Five-O

It's Official the Hawaii Five-0 episode featuring Mauli Ola Foundation airs on CBS May 2nd. The episode is entitled “Ho’ohuli Na’au”. Stoked.

Mauli Ola is my charity, I know the guys at Hawaii Five-O and Scott Kahn the actor guy and Kala Alexander a good friend convinced the writers to write my charity into the episode. it's a big deal!!

www.mauliola.org

YOOOOOOOOO.

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 19, 2011 at 9:04am — 5 Comments

Observatory almost functional

Software conflicts resolved, was playing last night with just slewing and focusing, etc. Downloaded the trial of CCDware and will be playing with that. ALMOST there. Things to do include figuring out orion starshoot autoguider in CCDsoft, and finding a thermometer that hooks up USB that is compliant with CCDware as you can refocus at set temperature changes, like 2 F change, it'll refocus on next shot, that's pretty awesome. So I'll be posting shots before you guys know it!

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 16, 2011 at 6:38am — 8 Comments

yes!!!!!!!!!!!

Got my software conflicts figured out. Downloading CCDautopilot and hoping all works. STOKED!!!!

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 15, 2011 at 8:52pm — 1 Comment

Telescoping

Love this damned hobby!

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 14, 2011 at 3:56pm — 4 Comments

Customer service

I've had very interesting cuts,er service experiences in the last two days.



Orion. Asking them about ccdsoft driver for their autoguider, the guy emails me back saying he doesn't use ccdsoft. So I point out in prefer ccdsoft and he writes back, "yeah but I dont". Wow



Skyshedpod. After waiting like four or five extra months for my adapter plate for the pier, they snail mail it, so I upgrade mounts when the thing finally arrives and reorder another plate, and they are… Continue

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 13, 2011 at 6:28am — 15 Comments

building the observatory (finally)

Got the rubber flooring down, the electricty coming up from under the deck, and am just waiting for the plate adapter coming tomorrow. Need a longer firewire or extension to set up the remote USB hub but other than that I'm ready to set up and roll.

Added by Charles Dunlop on April 3, 2011 at 5:51pm — 11 Comments

Blue skies

Supposed to be clear skies tonight. Finally. Unfortunately the southern California fog has returned as well. Hopefully i can get a shot before the fog invades.

Added by Charles Dunlop on March 30, 2011 at 7:29am — No Comments

plate adapter

It's finally showing up this week, and it should be sunny this week as well. FINALLY, that took I believe what, five months? Can't wait to finally get it all set up and my system working. Lot of new upgrades that haven't been played with, MaximDL Pro, Moonlite autofocuser, pier, dome, USB hub cabled into the pod underground. There's going to be a learning curve right off the bat just getting everything going smoothly. Back in the game this week though!

Added by Charles Dunlop on March 27, 2011 at 3:22pm — 5 Comments

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