Posts Made By: Donald Siwek

Unencumbered by knowledge, I am learning the vaugeries of focusing a CCD. I saw Artificial stars for sale and thought of a way to make a small battery powered portable one EASILY.

I used one of those keychain LED flashlights that are everywhere (even at CompUSA!). I took an exceedingly fine piece of wire (from a grill brush) a made a small hole in a piece of tin foil. I positioned the hole over the lens of the flashlight, and taped it in place. Switch it on and bingo a very bright, very small point source of light. I mounted the foil-wrapped apparatus in a plastic eyepiece cylinder and threaded a nylon thumbscrew (Home Depot) through the cylinder to depress the momentary switch on the illuminator. Total cost maybe 15 bucks. Portable, small and cheap. Works well and the tinfoil permits the greation of very fine pinholes.

Unencumbered by knowledge, I am learning the vaugeries of focusing a CCD. I saw Artificial stars for sale and thought of a way to make a small battery powered portable one EASILY.

I used one of those keychain LED flashlights that are everywhere (even at CompUSA!). I took an exceedingly fine piece of wire (from a grill brush) a made a small hole in a piece of tin foil. I positioned the hole over the lens of the flashlight, and taped it in place. Switch it on and bingo a very bright, very small point source of light. I mounted the foil-wrapped apparatus in a plastic eyepiece cylinder and threaded a nylon thumbscrew (Home Depot) through the cylinder to depress the momentary switch on the illuminator. Total cost maybe 15 bucks. Portable, small and cheap. Works well and the tinfoil permits the greation of very fine pinholes.

I just got a JMI Next Gen focuser. A "real" DRO for this unit costs more than I paid for the focuser, so being inherently "Scotch" I set about finding an alternate solution. On Ebay I discovered machinists "Indicators"! These are devices used to measure changes in distance, consisting of a spring loaded plunger and some sort of read out. They come in analog dial indicators and in digital forms. I found a small digital with 1/2" travel (same as focuser) that has a small form factor that can almost certainly be mounted on the focuser. Cost $39. See pic belowI'll post some pix and ideas when it arrives. I just got excited and wanted to share the love!

I just got a JMI Next Gen focuser. A "real" DRO for this unit costs more than I paid for the focuser, so being inherently "Scotch" I set about finding an alternate solution. On Ebay I discovered machinists "Indicators"! These are devices used to measure changes in distance, consisting of a spring loaded plunger and some sort of read out. They come in analog dial indicators and in digital forms. I found a small digital with 1/2" travel (same as focuser) that has a small form factor that can almost certainly be mounted on the focuser. Cost $39. See pic below. I'll post some pix and ideas when it arrives. I just got excited and wanted to share the love!

Anyone hqve any experience with 60 Amp hour 1Kw portable power supply from Xantrex? 3 110 v outlets 1 or 2 Ciggy out's?

A terrible seeing night. Windy and humid. For idle amusement I ripped off a few avi's using a QC4000 Pro, Nexstar 4 and Vega Software. This is a single frame.

Experimenting with filters in Photoshop. Found that a light filters/stylize/emboss applied to a background copy and then blended with a "soft" option really helped to raise the relief nicely. I was actually amazed that I was able to see ANY detail given the conditions.

HEY! This is FUN! I like it. Now if I can only get better

The link below takes you to Intellicast's "Clear sky map" of the USA...I THINK it's new?

http://www.intellicast.com/Local/USNationalStd.asp?loc=usa&seg=Star&prodgrp=Forecasts&product=SkyWatch&pid=none&prodnav=d2_00

I know I often am. Many times I seem to drive my images into the ground. I passed a site that has a demonstration of some image processing that is well laid out and helped me clarify my understanding of HOW TO DO IT. Aside from the numerous good books etc, this site apppealed to my simple side.

http://www.mv.com/ipusers/astron/CCD_image_processing.htm

Once again unencumbered by knowledge I came up with a Rube Goldberg way to do an STC collimation after installing some Bob's Knobs on a C8. I needed a daytime solution since it doesn't get dark(ish) here until about 9:45 PM.

1) I made an artificial star from one of those new keychain LED flashlights and a pinhole in a piece of aluminum foil. These little devils are impossibly bright, so I was able to see it easily on an overcast afternoon in Boston (is there any other kind now?).

2) I replace the phillips head adjustment screws with the new knobs as instructed. I quickly became frustrated by having to move back and forth while adjusting. There HAS to be a better way.....BONG!

3) I attached a Logitech QuickCam 4000 (Mogg adapter and field reducer) and started the native Logitech software application. I was collecting a nice fast frame image when the dullness left my mind and I realized that the Logitech Image Studio comes with an image ZOOM feature YES!

4) I zoomed the image to 300% and framed my out of focus "star" and collimated live on the laptop screen. SOOOO much easier! If you have a webcam give this a try even without the zoom feature.

By so doing I have now pretty much guaranteed that the clouds and rain will continue unabated for at least another three days. But then, what a perfect time to try this stunt. I also got a chance to clean the secondary.

See posting in CCD section under same title.