Posts Made By: John Love

December 4, 2008 06:52 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Lead Acid Batteries?

Posted By John Love

"Never use a car battery if an AGM is within walking distance" ;o)

I use a couple 200 amp AGM batteries to run the scope drive, DSC, 2 cameras, 2 laptops and dew straps when needed. I charge with solar panels during the day and have spent a week out away from power in the DARK of New Mexico. I use "Anderson power pole" connectors on everything so it is simple to set up and multi-port adapters are available. I can even power my Ham radio gear from the batteries. The attached picture shows the batteries on a shelf of the tripod which makes great ballast that improves stability.

John
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

December 17, 2008 11:42 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Is this a Vixen Super Polaris or a clone?

Posted By John Love

It looks like the "real deal" to me. The square section where the Dec axis mounts to the RA axis is not used on clone mounts that I have seen.


January 6, 2009 06:42 PM Forum: Ham and Shortwave Radio

Favorite Shortwave Radios

Posted By John Love

When I was a teen I had a Sony ICF-5900 that was a great portable SW radio. I wish I had not sold it.

John
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

January 20, 2009 04:06 AM Forum: CCD Imaging and Processing/Deep Sky

M78/NGC2068-2067 area

Posted By John Love

I love M78 and plan to shoot it again sometime soon.

I shot this image of M78 at Okie-Tex 2007. After midnight the seeing settled down for a few hours. I wish there had been more time to get more data but it turned out better than I expected. You gotta love DARK skies.

L=90m 5m subs
RGB=30m ea

HX-916 CCD
Meade SN-8 @ f4
CI-700 Mount guided with ED80 and HX-516
Captured and processed with Astro-Art v4

John / CCD-Freak

February 5, 2009 10:48 PM Forum: Equipment Talk

Powering laptop in the field?

Posted By John Love

Do a Google search for "12v Travel adapters" I found really nice 12v travel power supplies for my Toshiba and Dell laptops. As I remember I only paid about $40 for one and $20 for the other. I power everything from 2 100A AGM batteries and charge with 45w solar panels during the day. The batteries make great ballast for the tripod. I spent a week out in the dark skies near Datil, NM and the system worked great.

March 31, 2009 09:00 PM Forum: Pet Pics

Let's hear some chatter!

Posted By John Love

Here is Phobos my son's "kitty".
Phobos is just a big ole "puddy tat" even though he weighs in at about 25 lbs.

John
CCD-Freak

March 31, 2009 09:09 PM Forum: Pet Pics

Let's hear some chatter!

Posted By John Love

I took this picture down in Bisbee, Arizona.

Dog + Cat + Mouse = "Buds" ... "who would have thought!"

John
CCD-Freak

May 27, 2009 06:17 PM Forum: Wildlife Photography

Macro of a wolf spider baby

Posted By John Love

Wolf spiders have very interesting "faces". I found this one "already expired" so it was not hard to get a good closeup. I have several more pictures I will post later when I locate them.

No clear weather so I have been reduced to imaging dead spiders. G ;o)

CCD-Freak

August 16, 2009 09:25 PM Forum: After Dark

Dark sites to go to without being harassed...

Posted By John Love

I found this link on the Clear Sky Chart page. The Cincinnati club has this near Peebles.

http://www.cinastro.org/dss.htm

Is it available any time?

The OVAS has several dark sky sites listed.

http://www.ovas.org/ click obsersing sites button at top.

The Columbus club has this site.

http://www.the-cas.org/ObsSiteAEP.html

And the Clear Sky Chart page for Ohio may have others as well

http://cleardarksky.com/csk/prov/Ohio_charts.html

Hope this helps

John
CCD-Freak

August 17, 2009 05:44 PM Forum: After Dark

Dark sites to go to without being harassed...

Posted By John Love

Our group uses the LBJ National Grasslands operated by the US Forest Service. They may have public land in your area as well.

John
CCD-Freak