Daniel Bisque's Blog

Paramount MX Serial Number 1

Daniel R. Bisque — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:49:00 GMT

In 1996, Software Bisque delivered the very first Paramount to Fairbanks, Alaska. Michael Rice, then Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, installed his mount in a remote observatory that was accessible for much of the year by a 50 mile snow cat ride…or a three day dog sled excursion that would have given even Balto pause.

Mike occasionally shared with us the trials and tribulations of operating an observatory in the middle of nowhere, with temperatures routinely dropping to 50 below. He also learned a thing or two about the need for ultra-reliable equipment for remote observatory operation.

After retiring as Vice Chancellor of UAF, he and his wife Lynn founded New Mexico Skies, a new-style “bed and breakfast” geared to the astronomer.

In 2002, Steve Bisque took a road-trip to Cloudcroft to personally deliver the very first Paramount ME to Mike and Lynn’s place. The ME quickly became the backbone of a new business venture hosting remote telescopes under world-class skies.

Today New Mexico Skies and Fairdinkum Skies in Australia host over 40 remote observatories that rely on the Paramount ME for consistent, reliable and precision performance.

As we finish assembling the first production run of Paramount MXs, it’s only fitting that Mike and Lynn receive the very first one to herald the dawn of a new era in “truly portable or permanent use” robotic telescope mounts.

We’ve placed Paramount MX delivery responsibilities in the hands of United Parcel Service this time. And, much to our UPS driver’s dismay, the next several months (and hopefully longer) will bring a deluge of Paramount MXs shipping from of our offices here in Golden to destinations all over the globe.

We want to express our sincere thanks to all who have placed deposits for the Paramount MX during the past several months. Now that Paramount MX #1 is out the door, we’ll do our best to deliver your mount to you as quickly as possible, and will let you know exactly when your mount is ready to ship.

We’re also looking forward to learning where astronomy takes you.

Paramount MX on the Road Again...

Daniel R. Bisque — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:40:00 GMT

Paramount MX at the SCAE this weekend!

...(read more)

Sub 10 Arcsecond All Sky Pointing Accuracy

Daniel R. Bisque — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:21:00 GMT

There’s a really exciting new feature in the TPoint Add On called the “Super Model”*. The Super Model automatically determines the best pointing model for your imaging system. With a single button click, TPoint performs an extensive statistical analysis of the pointing calibration data and converges on an optimal pointing model using all the processing power of your computer. It goes far beyond the iterative approach that was required to create a pointing model in earlier versions of TPoint.

What does this mean? You’ll achieve the best possible pointing accuracy with the minimal effort and spend more time imaging.

To demonstrate, the above TPoint scatter diagram (with Jupiter superimposed for scale) shows 7.4 arcsecond all sky pointing accuracy from a Super Model. (Jupiter’s apparent angular diameter from Earth varies from about 30 arcseconds to about 50 arcseconds.)

So, for this system**, slews to objects fall within an area the size of Jupiter. Not bad for an amateur telescope!

You can read more about the Super Model in the TPoint Add On User Guide.

* The Super Model feature is exclusive to TheSkyX Professional Edition for Mac or Windows version 10.1.10 or later with the optional TPoint Add On.)

** This pointing calibration data was collected using the Automated Calibration feature on a permanently mounted, accurately polar aligned Paramount ME carrying a ring mounted C-14 with the mirror locked in place. The SBIG ST-8 was rigidly attached to an Optec TCF-S focuser and all cables routed so that there was no drag or sag on the system.

Discover Gas Giants

Daniel R. Bisque — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:07:00 GMT

Software Bisque's first iPhone/iPad application has arrived at the Apple App Store!

Gas Giants shows Jupiter's and Saturn's major moons for any date and time, and is a really handy tool for visual observing. Richard Wright, our primary iOS developer, has done a great job with Gas Giants. Judging from early feedback this simple app is an invaluable tool for visual observers.

Please let us know what you think!

Gas Giants Web Page >

TheSkyX Professional Edition Has Landed!

Daniel R. Bisque — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:26:00 GMT

We're pleased to announce that TheSkyX Professional Edition is now available on the Software Bisque Store. We encourage everyone to visit the Software Bisque Home page to read about this exciting release, including the new Add Ons and the Universal Subscription.

For me, it's been a long day, and I'm off to get some sleep. Thanks to everyone for your patience, and have a great weekend.

Farewell Dr. Dave

Daniel R. Bisque — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:18:00 GMT

Dr. David B. Toth, a long-time friend, passed away on February 26, 2010. The Bisque brothers will miss him dearly.

An emergency room physician by profession, Dave was a passionate, intelligent, articulate man who loved life and pursued many interests; one of them happened to be amateur astronomy.

Dr. Dave, for whatever reason, was a champion for Software Bisque. He first met Tom Bisque in 1992 at the Texas Star Party and they quickly became buddies. Since then, Dave has attended almost every conference, star party, and astronomy-related event with us, in the role of “adopted brother”. He always went out of his way to help, including spending long days in our booths fielding questions. All on his vacation time.

Dave was also a valuable contributor to SB, and many other astronomy-related forums. He was even known to hop in his plane to visit a stranger, just to lend a hand.

Friends like Dave don’t come along very often. Our condolences to his wife Ronda, and his two sons Michael and Christopher.

Paramount ME Assists "Super-Earth" Discovery

Daniel R. Bisque — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:24:00 GMT

A few years back, we wondered what Harvard University was up to when they purchased eight Paramount MEs. I'm always fascinated to hear about how the Paramount ME is actually used "in the field" by amateurs and professionals. We learned later that the Paramounts would be part of an exciting project called MEarth. Located at the Fred Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, the eight mounts, each carrying a 16-inch RCOS telescope and an Apogee CCD camera, search small red-dwarf stars for transiting "super-Earth" objects.

Six months into the project, MEarth today announced its first "super-Earth" discovery! Exo-planet GJ1214b, the second-smallest ever discovered, is orbiting the star GJ1214 located about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Ophiuchus and most likely contains water. Now the Hubble Space Telescope can be used to further characterize the planet.

Check out the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Nature and Time.com web sites for more information about this exciting discovery. Wow!

Even though we're not directly involved with MEarth, it's great to see Software Bisque products making contributions to cutting-edge astronomical discoveries. Far out stuff!

The MEarth (pronounced "mirth") Project is an array of eight identical 16-inch-diameter RC Optical Systems telescopes that monitor a pre-selected list of 2,000 red dwarf stars. Each telescope perches on a highly accurate Software Bisque Paramount and funnels light to an Apogee U42 charge-coupled device (CCD) chip, which many amateurs also use. (Photo credit: Dan Brocious, CfA)

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:39:00 GMT

"It’s now December 2009 and TheSkyX Professional Edition has not been released! How is this possible? Your developers must be a bunch of monkeys that sit around and Facebook all day... it is high time to lock those guys up and release TheSkyX Pro already!" -Anonymous Customer

Harsh assessments like the above can be a good thing. They make us take a hard look at what we’re doing and where we’re headed. Yes, despite our best efforts, and blue sky release date estimates, TheSkyX Professional Edition is not shipping. Stepping back, there are many reasons why.

Have you noticed the computer industry is rapidly changing?

On the Windows side of the world,

Windows 7 is showing promise as a viable replacement to XP Pro. Is it time to finally upgrade your ageing observatory computer?
Windows computers with 64-bit processors (so that the 64-bit OS Editions can be used) are now particularly affordable and really, really powerful.

SB purchased a brand new Dell “box” from Micro Center last weekend. It came with 8 GB RAM (remember, 32-bit applications cannot access this much RAM; 64-bit apps can), 1 TB HD, a relatively fast ATI video display adaptor (critical to OpenGL applications like TheSkyX), and Intel's new Core i5 quad core processor running at 2.66 GHz. (Four processors can do lots more work than just one!)

All for $800.00.

The new Windows operating systems (both 32- and 64-bit editions) mean there's new technologies we're trying to exploit (like concurrent processing that takes advantage of every core in your computer) and extensive testing to be done. This takes time.

On the Mac side of the world, or should I say "universe",

Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) is now 64-bit end-to-end and includes many exciting new technologies like OpenCL and Grand Central Dispatch.
Apple's coming out with (and selling) so much new killer hardware it makes my head spin.

Again, wrt TheSkyX Pro, here's yet another new OS with new features and technologies to use. More time finishing TheSkyX Pro.

Then there’s the software development tools side of the world:

TheSkyX is built on Nokia’s Qt , IMO the world’s best development environment. The trolls at Qt Software just released version 4.6 of their latest framework yesterday. This latest framework has tons of features and powerful technologies for Windows 7, Mac OS X, 64-bit hardware, scripting, and on and on and on.
Qt 4.6 (and the previous recent release of Qt 4.5) on the Mac side is based on Cocoa (the future of Mac application development).

TheSkyX Pro, when released, will be built on the latest version of this powerful new framework. We hope to offer true 64-bit versions for both OSes, too. Did I mention this takes time?

Then there’s the TPoint Add On side of the world:

Patrick Wallace recently released a new version of the venerable TPoint Telescope Pointing Analysis Software. Among the exciting new features is the ability to create the “ultimate super model” from your pointing data, with a single button click. No more guess work adding terms when building a model.

We're busily trying to incorporate this new version into the TheSkyX Pro's TPoint Add On.

Then there’s TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition side of the world:

TheSkyX SAE users are providing great feedback. Thanks everyone!

All the suggestions, changes and improvements in TheSkyX SAE go directly to TheSkyX Pro.

So, in the end, incorporating and digesting all the exciting new technologies into TheSkyX Pro has conspired to delay its release. Should we be locked up for trying to make our products better in this rapidly evolving climate? Hopefully not.

But the answer to the $64,000 question, "When will TheSkyX Pro actually be released?" will have wait until after the new year.

At the end of the day, we cannot express how much we appreciate everyone's interest in TheSkyX Professional Edition. Thank you. We hope you have a merry Christmas season and a happy new year.

Blast from the Past...

Daniel R. Bisque — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:04:00 GMT

I recently ran across this YouTube video of a Computer Chronicles show that featured TheSky with "push to" telescope control from in 1992.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2525578882968773249

My how times have changed!

TheSkyX Student Edition Review in S&T...

Daniel R. Bisque — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:22:00 GMT

It's always truly exciting when one of our products reviewed in a major astronomy publication. Sky & Telescope's April 2009 review of TheSkyX Student Edition is no exception. Woo hoo! If you have not done so, please check out the S&T Test Report section on pages 38-39.

After reading the review, there's a few items I wanted to point out:

TheSkyX Student Edition accesses a database of over 25 million IP addresses to automatically turn your computer's IP address into a longitude and latitude. Pretty cool stuff.
TheSkyX Student Edition update addresses the "no automatic download of minor planet data" and the "minor interface bugs" items in the "Things We Don't Like" column.

Thank you S&T for considering TheSkyX Student Edition as "review worthy", and thank you Mr. Heafner for another positive software review! (See the November, 2007 edition of S&T magazine for his Seeker review.)

Please Bear With Us...Changes They Are Coming!

Daniel R. Bisque — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:27:00 GMT

Or, this blog could also be titled: "Why TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition is not yet available on the Software Bisque Store"

The answer might seem trivial, but it’s not. True, we released TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition last month at Macworld. After four days of demonstrations and discussions with the Mac community, we came away with a list of “you should really change this and this to make TheSkyX Serious better”.

That's one project we're currently working on. And, TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition will be that much better for it.

Concurrently, (and more importantly) in order to better serve our loyal and devoted customers, as well as the entire astronomy community, Software Bisque is finalizing a completely new web site infrastructure (specifically, we’re updating and revamping our web servers, web site, web store, web access, and more).

Here are just a few of the benefits our new web site will offer:

A secure, easy-to-use, account-based and cart-based Software Bisque Store that will immediately process your order and give immediate downloadable access to your software products. Once this site is in place, and provided you have access to the web, if you want your Software Bisque software now, you can have it now! (No matter where you reside on the planet and no matter the time of the day or day of the week).
All Software Bisque software products can optionally be purchased as either “Downloadable products only” -OR- “Downloadable+Box” products (Downloadable = you download the software product installer; nothing “physical” like a DVD-ROM is actually shipped to you; Box = we ship the software box and media to you in addition to having downloadable access to your software). You can save money by purchasing just the downloadable product. If you live outside the US, you can also avoid costly import duties and shipping delays.
Manage Your Software Bisque Account - After signing in to the Software Bisque Site (exactly as you sign into the Software Bisque Support Corner now), you can visit the My Account section to view your invoices for the new products you've purchased, along with your product serial numbers, your ship to and billing addresses, access and download the products and updates you’ve purchased, view the "shipped" status for boxed or hardware products, and review your software subscription status*.

Other important benefits:

The new site uses the same “Software Bisque Support Corner-like” engine that you are already familiar with.
The new Software Bisque web site uses battle tested, proven technology used by sites like My Space.com (70 million users), Intel, Visa, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, NASDAQ, MSNBC, Chevron, Dell, the NFL, and Match.com, to name a few.
You will be able to contribute to the Software Bisque Community by writing product reviews and add/edit content to our Wiki.
The Software Bisque Web Site resides at a physically and electronically secure "co-location" (web-server farm) for fast, reliable software downloads and minimal “downtime”.
Sign in to the Software Bisque site using the normal sign in name/password technique, or use your OpenID (a free, single digital identity that is now used by many sites to simplify the sign in process).
The new site brings the “social networking” aspect of the support corner to a whole new level. Make new friends, start conversations, upload media. Have fun!

*Subscription-Based Access to Software Downloads/Updates

Software Bisque software products that you purchase after our new site is on line will be “software subscription based”. What does this mean?

It means when you purchase a software product from Software Bisque, in addition to the normal software license that allows you to use the software as you always have in the past and for an unlimited period of time, you also receive a one year software subscription that provides:

web-based access to download the full product installer
web-based access to download the most recent product updates (updates include bug fixes, changes, improvements, enhancements, support for new hardware, etc.)

After one year, in order to continue to receive the above benefits, you will be able to choose to renew your software subscription or not. The cost of the annual software subscription will be approximately 20% of the retail price.

To reiterate, when you purchase a Software Bisque software product, there are no restrictions to running the software on your computer and you still have a full year’s access to full product downloads and product updates.

I know the million dollar question that I still have not answered is:

“WHEN CAN I BUY THESKYX SERIOUS ASTRONOMER EDITION?”

Provided all the parties involved in this “significant” undertaking come through as scheduled, the best answer I can give is mid-March, 2009 Revised estimate: Early May, 2009 May 8, 2009.

I hope the above sheds light on what’s going on behind the scenes here at SB. Thank you for your patience.

Post AIC...

Daniel R. Bisque — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:42:00 GMT

A little more than two weeks after AIC, the question "When will TheSkyX Professional Edition be released?" still rings in my ears. It's nice to know there's so much anticipation for this new version.

The goal is to release TheSkyX Pro for Mac/Windows/Linux in July 2009 September, 2009 (estimate revised on April 20, 2009) November, 2009 (estimate revised on July 22, 2009).

In the short term, SB will release TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition (SAE) for Mac at MacWorld 2009. TheSkyX SAE for Windows will follow shortly afterward. For the Windows OS, TheSkyX SAE will be a replacement for TheSky6 SAE , and will include telescope control for many commercial mounts and push to control systems (including AP/Celestron/Gemini/iOptron/Meade/Temma/Vixen/Push To telescopes) as well as an optional "Add On" for TPoint telescope pointing analysis. TPoint version 1.0 for Windows customers will be offered an upgrade path to this add on. (TPoint for Windows will not be compatible with TheSkyX).

In addition to all the new features, Mac users will enjoy telescope control and optional TPoint modeling with TheSkyX SAE.

What is TheSkyX Professional Edition? TheSkyX Professional Edition for Windows will be able to completely replace TheSky6 Professional Edition for Windows. CCDSoft, and your favorite Windows-based third-party software (CCDAP, CCDCommander, etc.) will still be supported.

The first release of TheSkyX Professional Edition will bring technologies like Image Link, automated astrometry, Paramount ME control, optional Orchestrate-like scripting, optional TPoint telescope pointing analysis, optional dome control and more to the Mac and Linux operating systems.

For now, back to wrapping up TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition!

2008 Advanced Imaging Conference

Daniel R. Bisque — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:15:00 GMT

After a three year absence, I'm headed back to the Advanced Imaging Conference this weekend with Steve Bisque (who seems to attend every astro conference) and Matt Bisque (a first time AIC'er). Tom's holding down the fort for a change.

I hoped to have some beta copies of TheSkyX Serious Astronomer Edition to hand out, but there's just too many things going on at SB right now. So, attendees, you'll just have to wait to get your hands in it. My apologies in advance.

We'll be in booth 20, and hanging around the hotel all weekend. Sushi anyone?

See you at AIC!

TheSkyX and Iridium Flares

Daniel R. Bisque — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:53:00 GMT

One of the most fascinating and just plain fun features in TheSkyX is the ability to predict, and watch simulated Iridium flares. Sure there are sites that can predict flares, but TheSkyX lets you actually see what the flare will look like from your back yard. Many flares are naked eye, so all you have to do it take a few minutes to step outside and look in the right direction. No equipment is required.

And you never know what other goodies you'll see while observing. Last night I was out with my family to watch a "so so" flare of Iridium 61, and happened to call my sister (a neighbor) to watch it too. Although we (my wife and I and my three young kids) missed the flare, my sister and her son saw it, and they also got to see (by pure chance) a spectacular view of the International Space Station pass near the waxing moon a few minutes before. Way cool! (And educational, too.)

If you're interested and own TheSkyX, watch the Iridium Flare Tutorial (Flash required) on how to use it to predict and simulate Iridium flares. For the next "bright flare", have your kids and neighbors participate in a fun, spontaneous astronomical observing event.

Latest Seeker Update and Videos...

Daniel R. Bisque — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:57:00 GMT

I still get excited every time I launch Seeker and gaze at our Earth. It's simply stunning.

We posted the latest Seeker patch this week on the Downloads page. Remember, to install the larger update (~300 MB) first, then the latest patch (~12 MB) after that.

One exciting new feature is support for the 3DConnexion mouse. I've not tried one yet, but feedback indicates that using this device with Seeker is a sweet mix.

Richard's also posted some Seeker-generated videos on YouTube this week:

Although the videos are really cool, IMO there's really no way to recreate Seeker's realistic views, and the sense of "awe" you get when watching "real time" on a high-end system.