My long awaited DMK21AUG618 webcam arrived on Friday. This probably explains why most of the weekend there was either total or partial cloud cover. Got all the drivers and software loaded on the pooter, plugged it all in and Bingo – everything works. The USB 2 hub on the pier didn’t like it when I tried to run the camera off it – saying there wasn’t enough power- but just plugging in the power…
Sunspot 1476
Well I think I’m starting to make progress. I’ve been trying to get a converter that will turn the .MOV files outputted from the Nikon 5100, into an AVI format that can be read by Registax. Despite lots of forum reading and various questions asked, every software converter I’ve tried has failed. I’m not sure if it has something to do with the fact I’m using an iMac with Registax running in a…
Sunspot Watching
Taken on the Friday. The following day. I’ve been trying to remember the last weekend where we got two clear nights back to back, but last weekend we got them. With all the technical issues of the mount now resolved, we built up a 10 point pointing model and used that to refine the Polar alignment. It’s probably not accurate enough for long exposure photography, but fine for the current program of visual observation….
The DBO Pheonix
I got hooked on Astronomy in 2001, which four years later resulted in the building of my own permanent observatory – the DBO – in 2005. After an initial burst of activity resulting in a couple of dozen images, there seemed to be a period of a couple of years where the observatory was permanently covered in cloud. So much in fact that, I lost all interest in taking astronomical images, for something more…