Posts

Nine years after the last post, the site is back, rebuilt with Hugo.

Introduction I never thought that I would be starting an article containing the statement “moving from Linux to Windows”, but this is exactly what will be happening with my main imaging scope set up in a few days. For those who don’t know anything about me, I have spent decades… (hmm, yes it is now measurable in decades!) using Linux based operating systems - since the early Red Hat days of the late 1990’s, and being comfortable with that environment, it has always been the first port of call for any home project, such as a telescope mounted observation control platform. ...

History Regarding computer hardware I have had to hand in the last two years or so, things have been in flux, you might say. I have not had ready access to a proper non-work Linux desktop environment where I could happily run Docker and Python. This has meant that keeping my Pelican blog up to date has been rather difficult, and hence the content has somewhat languished. I’m back to where I want to be now, having procured a new desktop machine quite capable of hosting a Docker environment effortlessly, so thought it was time to look once again at breathing life into this site. Here follows a description of the new publishing process! ...

So here begins the June 2020 roundup. This month is a bit of a random collection of the moon, satellite passes, star trails and an inner Solar system planetary conjunction! ...

Introduction As well as the telescope pier I like to have a DSLR (an astro-modified Canon EOS 450D) on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer mount around in the garden. It makes for a nice little mobile arrangement that can be set up at a moment’s notice. Usually the set up consists of the camera, a lens warmer, power for the mount and an intervalometer for controlling the timing of pictures being captured. Having really enjoyed setting up a Raspberry Pi 4 running KStars, EKOS and INDI for the pier based telescope I thought that putting a ‘one stop’ solution together, able to do the same as the above plus a few extras, for the DSLR would be a great little side project. ...

It has been a strange couple of months, what with the current Coronavirus epidemic raging around us, but I have managed to capture a few astronomical events from the garden in any case. So here begins the April 2020 roundup. ...

Introduction Setting up a new telescope is not an easy task. It takes some planning and thought to get the set up right first time. I have made an attempt to plan out everything that I will need before getting started. Using a handy copy of Visio I had lying about I have put together a handful of block level diagrams to help me out. This process gives me an overview of what is needed to make sure that the system is complete and that everything has been thought of, as far as possible. Following is a run through of my plans and my thoughts regarding what issues they raised. ...

Introduction This series of articles will chronicle the process of building a permanent astronomy telescope pier in my garden. A permanent pier makes the setting up process for an night of astrophotography or visual observing far less laborious. This is because the pier is already aligned with the celestial pole, via the North peg on top of the mount adapter. Power and network adapters are immediately to hand, removing the work of laying cables out from the shed and putting them away later after each observing or astrophotography session. ...

History Regarding computer hardware I have had to hand in the last two years or so, things have been in flux, you might say. I have not had ready access to a proper non-work Linux desktop environment where I could happily run Docker and Python. This has meant that keeping my Pelican blog up to date has been rather difficult, and hence the content has somewhat languished. I’m back to where I want to be now, having procured a new desktop machine quite capable of hosting a Docker environment effortlessly, so thought it was time to look once again at breathing life into this site. Here follows a description of the new publishing process! ...

Progress This post follows on at quite a distance from my last post on the subject, and until recently I had not realised quite how long this project has been languishing on the bench. Like many of the electronics projects I undertake they need to be able to withstand being outside and exposed to weather conditions, dealing with packaging them to handle harsher environments is always the most difficult part. For the same reason as above, I have also changed one of the key measurement components, the humidity sensor. I am also dropping the Arduino Uno in favour of the Arduino Yún. I wrote a brief article on the Yún some time ago. ...