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Category Archives: Astro Equipment
50mm Binocular Objective Finder
I wanted a 50mm right-angle finder, but didn’t fancy paying the £90 to £100 they seem to cost, so after someone mentioned it was possible I decided to make my own. I picked up a 50mm binocular objective, cheap diagonal … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Projects
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Microsoft Lifecam Cinema Planetary Camera Mod
Thanks to the cloud rolling in rather early last night I decided to do the conversion of my Lifecam Cinema for astro use. I was intended to fit it into a Billetparts adapter, but they’re out of stock and I … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Astroimaging, Astronomy
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Xbox Live Camera on Linux (Part 2)
Last night I discovered that I wasn’t able to change the gain setting on the camera using the V4L2 API. No matter what setting I used all my captures turned out the same, using what I presume to be the … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy, Linux, Projects
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The Beginning of a New Dobsonian
I recently had the chance to acquire some bits left over from a damaged Skywatcher 250mm Flextube dobsonian telescope for not very many pennies. As a result I’m now the proud owner of a the mirror and cell, spider (with … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy, Projects
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Notes on Using the SPC900NC for Planetary Imaging
A while back I was looking for information on which codec was best for data capture from the SPC900 cameras and found several web pages suggesting that YUY2 (aka YUYV, I believe) was best on the grounds that it generated … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Astroimaging, Astronomy
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Why Can’t We See The Flag On The Moon?
I answered this question for someone the other day, whose work colleagues wanted to know if he could see the flag left behind on the moon from the first lunar landing using his new 300mm telescope and thought I’d write … Continue reading
Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy
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127 Mak Star Test
There were patches of blue sky this evening, but plenty of thin cloud too, Jupiter and Venus were visible before sunset though, so I decided to get the Mak outside cooling and hope we’d have enough clear sky to do … Continue reading
EQ3-2 DEC Drive Gearbox Stripdown
With a new DEC motor drive in place, I decided I’d take apart my old DEC drive gearbox to see if it could be improved at all. Once split from the motor I used two pairs of pliers to hold … Continue reading
EQ3-2 DEC Motor Strip-Down
Having done a fair bit of work trying to improve the motor drive for my EQ3-2 mount I wanted to look particularly at the DEC motor to see if I could improve its performance at all. It’s had a tough … Continue reading
127 Mak Collimation
I’ve been doing a fair bit of fiddling around with my 127 Mak recently. The initial reason for this was that the mirror had become loose on the carrier mechanism, meaning lots of trouble getting reliable focus. To fix this … Continue reading