Science Daily: Uranus
- New images reveal what Neptune and Uranus really look like January 5, 2024
- Ringing in the holidays with ringed planet Uranus December 19, 2023
Science Daily: Pluto
- How Pluto got its heart April 15, 2024
- Evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets February 15, 2024
Science Daily: Kuiper Belt
- How Pluto got its heart April 15, 2024
- Evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets February 15, 2024
Sun-Earth Day 2008
The Sun-Earth Day is a focus by NASA on what it means to be "living the the atmosphere of a star." The related NASA website has numerous activities for students and educators, podcasts and more.
Focus Testing
Robert Reeves suggests testing the focus of your lenses as the infinity mark cannot always be trusted. This isn’t necessarily because the manufacturer was sloppy; certain long focal-length lenses may significantly affected by temperature and at some temperatures they will focus beyond infinity (Buzz Lightyear, take note). I decided to do a quick test of …
DIY: Webcam modifications
Here are some links to webcam modifications that I found useful. Ashley Roeckelein Astronomy Pages has several webcam modifications and case designs well worth looking over.
Eyepiece Projection
Recently we purchased T-adapter and T-ring along with the variable adapter for eyepiece projection imaging. The real intent was to start out taking a series of lunar photos at Newtonian focus using an 35 mm SLR. The 1200 mm focal length of our Newtonian should put an image of the (full) moon approximately 10–11 mm …
Wayback Machine is Way Cool!
I knew it existed and always thought it was a cool idea, but today I got to use it. For those of you who think I’m talking about Peabody and Sherman ("Help me Mr. Wizard!"), no, I’m talking about the the Web Archive. For those of you too young to have a clue about Peabody …
Philips ToUCam
Although I wasn’t able to find this at the sort of discount I received on the QuickCam VC, this camera is still worth the money. All comments by users on the QCUAIG mailing list indicate this is a great webcam for astronomical use. I purchased the camera in early April, and have only tried to …
QuickCam VC
I purchased a QuickCam VC from Computer Geeks when they had a batch on sale for about USD $15. I keep going back hoping to find another batch, but so far no luck. Up until this, I had been using a Sony DCR-TRV310, a digital videocamera. The QuickCam VC is similar to the other QuickCams …
Sony DCR-TRV310
We originally purchased the Sony DCR-TRV310 for home video of family events. On a lark, I decided to point it into the eyepiece on night and was pleasantly surprised that I got reasonable images. It just so happened that I picked the moon as a target and it was only slight after the new moon. …
60mm Refractor
About a year ago, someone on sci.astro.amateur mentioned that they had a couple of old 60 mm refractors in the closet. At the time, I was looking to buy one used and had been scanning garage sales and for sale ads without any luck. So I half-in-jest asked if you wanted to donate one. He …
Equipment
I’m trying to reconstruct my “old” page of equipment information and hopefully, I’ll be able to add some links with pictures to what I currently have since this is ahem, a bit outdated. Of course, I may be too lazy to ever get it systematically organized.
