Richard S. Wright's Blog - All Comments

re: The Case for One Shot Color

starstone — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:04:47 GMT

I have started to notice, "Hey a little more red here would be nice...". Several friends have been recommending I do the filter surgery on the thing. I'm concerned that the clip in replacement won't be as good for daytime photography. I've seen these and they look easy enough to use. Someone at AIC even told me they removed the filter themselves and it's easy to do. I tend to break things when I do this... I might have to have a "pro" do it for me.

re: The Case for One Shot Color

trimil — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:28:52 GMT

Richard,

No shame in using a DSLR -- the latest ones offer tremendous value for the price. The only real drawback in my mind is their general lack of sensitivity at Ha caused by the front filter. Even that issue can be fixed and there are several new drop in filters that sit behind the lens allow for normal daylight shots, or astro use minus the LP lines that plague many suburban sites..

re: The Case for One Shot Color

Ernie — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:48:52 GMT

Data collection and calibration is easy. At least if you're using equipment like the ME or MX. It's purely mechanical. It's the processing that is hard. If you're spending a lot of time processing your one shot color images, then you're working way harder than I am on my LRGB images. In my mind, people who spend more than a few minutes processing an image are artists doing art, not (amateur) astronomy. Alas, I have no artistic talent. As for the sun, we're very much looking forward to receiving our first Ha solar scope later this month. Naturally I'm looking forward to doing some solar imaging!

re: More Field Testing

trimil — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:15:43 GMT

Richard,

Thanks for dropping that DSLR hint -- now I'm _really_ looking forward to your AIC presentation next month!

re: PATS Post Mortem

starstone — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 04:06:43 GMT

I thought it was a bit subdued too. The crowd Saturday wasn't too bad. We had a lot of interest in the new MX, but Sunday it was pretty dead. I usually save up to do some shopping at these things too, and I found really only OPT and Woodland hills had much "shopping" potential, and they had far less than they had at NEAF it seemed.

re: PATS Post Mortem

Ernie — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:34:48 GMT

Sorry guys, I didn't stop by the Software Bisque booth at all this year, so whomever the trouble makers were, they weren't me. :-P

I have to say that I was disappointed with this year's PATS as compared to last year. Far fewer vendors showed up this year. The atmosphere was far more subdued this year as well. The vendor booth cost is a bargain, so it must be the economy being even more in the tank this year than last. Bummer.

On the bright side, parking was easier and lunch across the street at the mall was good as ever.

So what was your impression of PATS this year?

re: I need more power Scotty!

starstone — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:09:34 GMT

Sounds like your set then. Weight is an important factor for me. For what they can do at under 6 pounds... it's amazing. If not for our battery, I'd have probably went for the 4x 12v system. I don't want to think about how heavy that would have been to lug around. :-)

Richard

re: I need more power Scotty!

Ernie — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 02:27:59 GMT

Well, the batteries I'm using are 220AH and last for about three nights powering everything (including mount, camera, my power hungry laptop and my dew headers on full blast) when discharged to the 50% recommended depth of discharge level. Three nights is about my grunge/comfort limit when camping, so that works out fairly well. They were $75/each at the local Costco superstore with $30/each of that being a refundable core charge that I get back when I eventually return/exchange them. In other words, very cheap, at least in the short term. Yes, they are also most unfortunately quite heavy. I'd would never buy that wonky Kendrick stuff. For one thing, he uses cigar lighter sockets. How lame is that? For that price I'd buy the far superior Software Bisque power pack. In a heartbeat.

re: I need more power Scotty!

starstone — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:15:23 GMT

Oh certainly a 12v to 48v converter is an option. Bear in mind that a 5ah 48v battery is like a 20ah 12v battery though. It's also much much lighter ;-)

If you only need to run for a couple of hours, your solution could work just fine. I suppose it depends on the size of your 12v power supply and how much your willing to carry around. I've seen a monster supply from Kendric that comes with wheels... it's also $900.00.

Richard

re: I need more power Scotty!

Ernie — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:25:42 GMT

By comparison I solved the power efficiency problem by using a 12V to 48V DC-DC converter. When used with the 12V battery of my choice, it has better than 90% of the efficiency of a 48V battery and a much lower more palatable short term cost. Long term I have no doubt the Software Bisque LiFePO4 battery wins hands down.

re: On The Job Training

starstone — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:06:12 GMT

Thanks Jim for the pointer there. I'm trying really hard to just use the Mac for my Workflow. I think I'm starting to see why the Mac is having such a hard time getting established for IP. If you have an arsenal of tools and hardware, and just one of them requires Windows... just having to reboot or use Parallels... it's just not worth the trouble sometimes.

I've been using Nebulosity for the time being for acquisition and stacking. Those days though are numbered. CCD Soft does all this too on Windows... now if we just had some of that working on the Mac. Alas, only so many hours in the day ;-)

re: On The Job Training

trimil — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:41:52 GMT

Richard,

Competent beginner -- I can relate to that! -- going on two years now in my case. Image processing removes the excuse that we can't practice this hobby on cloudy nights. If you haven't tried it yet, take a look at Deep Sky Stacker (I run it under VMware Fusion). You feed it a set of image files and it grinds away while you sleep. Aligns, scales, rotates, calibrates using darks, bias, flats, amazing software for $0.

deepskystacker.free.fr/.../index.html

Jim M.

re: Finding your Mojo

erikduop — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 11:16:03 GMT

That's a pretty idea I Agreed! Nice find .. Good stuff! it's really a good and flexible job....

www.downloadvlcplayer.org

re: On The Road Again

trimil — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 04:38:06 GMT

Richard,

Gas Giants is great running on iPad. Future upgrade: go for broke and add the moons of Mars, Uranus, Neptune and (the almost/former planet) Pluto.

People often ask me "Does the Paramount really work as well as they say it does?", and all I can do is mutter "yup", and nod my head. Zero drama after 4+ years -- turn it on and it goes. The PME is like a two-cylinder Kubota diesel tractor, put it in the crawler gear and it will move almost anything.

re: On The Road Again

Ernie — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:46:31 GMT

Laugh, I did the exactly same thing when set up my first ME: wiped it down with a lint free cloth to get all the little polystyrene foam bits off. I still keep a can of compressed air handy to gently blow off any accumulated dust.

Try putting two levels on it for über convenience and check to see if they give the same reading.