John McClintock We had all three grandkids this weekend, which is always a recipe for mayhem. In the backyard, Job had managed to get Rose pretty wet so she was mad and went in. Then he threw a wooden rubber band gun which hit Bri in the butt. He had to, he was out of ammo! But … Read more
I’ve been thinking about the problem of evaluating my flat field lighting and target, and two approaches came to mind. One is to make some flats, rotate the camera 180 degrees, make more flats, and then measure the difference. I haven’t done that, but it seems like it should work. The other method is to … Read more
I haven’t been paying as much attention as it deserves, but Lytro has provided two updates to its software that completely fulfill its promise. Jeesh. I wrote earlier ( https://www.jjmcclintock.com/?p=104 )that Lytro had to offer two things the lightfield tech is capable of but wasn’t yet delivering: deep focus, and the ability to generate stereo … Read more
No moon, the evening started with thin cirrus clouds that disappeared, I think an hour or so after sunset. With those kind of clouds, I’m never sure, I think they are actually there to make halos and generally degrade the image, but you can’t see them. I thought good enough for a focus run with … Read more
We had our deer hunting season after Thanksgiving. I’m not a hunter, but we let some friends hunt on the farm as a way of controlling the influx of strangers who often trespass during the season. We are usually offered some meat in exchange if they have success. Our Amish friend Daniel got an 8 … Read more
Last night was a nice transparent night, the moon about a day from full. Jupiter hovered an inch from the Moon’s head. A good night for fooling with the system. My polar alignment should be pretty good, but the scope still doesn’t know where it’s pointing. My Meade finder scope often has a mind of … Read more
I installed a Astrophysics AP1200 mount in my roll-off roof hut, now actually more than a year ago. It’s intended for remote imaging from the comfort of my living room, and if I can get it to work from my living room to the Hut, it “should” work from living room to New Mexico. I … Read more
My grandson helps demonstrate nystagmus, an involuntary eye movement resulting from trying to maintain orientation while spinning. Also known as Crazy Eyes!
I often collect PDFs off the web, and save far too many of them. But often they are tear sheets, product blurbs, or rocket science I don’t understand that I don’t want to have cluttering up the hard drive. When I have finished with a PDF that I want to trash, I use an … Read more
After being down for maintenance since Sept 17, GOES 13 is back in service. Which is good because my AppleScript more or less broke while it was down. “The trouble stemmed from a motor vibration, which caused a lubricant buildup that obstructed the spinning motion of the filter wheel in the sounder. A team of … Read more