Shot some footage with a Microsoft Lifecam modified for prime focus on the 16″ Meade Lightbridge – with a 2x Barlow lens. The moon is made of blancmange (apparently)…

All the wibbly-wobbly stuff is due to the atmospheric conditions at the time.

At 0:09 you can definitely see the paw print of a giant space bear on the far left – next to the crater with the bump in the middle – or to give it’s proper name Cratère Avec Une Bosse Dans Le Milieu.

Share

1 comment

We helped out set up a science room for a local school. Most of the things we found had an obvious function, but we were unable to figure out a couple things. Anyone got any idea what these do?

Item of mystery #1

(…nothing to do with Harry Potter…)

Item of mystery #2 Patented Item of Mystery #2

(The patent search didn’t really turn anything up…)

Item of Mystery #2
Share

7 comments

…my best Orion Nebula yet.

March 11, 2012

Up til today I thought this was my best Orion Nebula image: Until I got the hang of image stacking, now *this* is the best: A stack of 12 images and 6 dark frames, combined with DeepStackStacker. This is as good as the single image I took at the dark sky site – so it’ll [...]

Share
Read the full article →

…Orbital Spex for under a tenner (dollars that is…)

March 10, 2012

Sure, you can buy those centrally-located LED miner’s lamps, but nothing says 90′s geek chic like your very own Orbital glasses. Now you can recreate those halcyon (harr harr) days of almost pitch black gig-ness (“When do Orbital come on?” – “They’ve been playing for the last 10 minutes”) I needed a pair of these [...]

Share
Read the full article →

…fixing up the optics in a Meade SN-8 reflector telescope.

February 29, 2012

I got to take the telescope out to a “dark field” site over the weekend – the difference in viewing was amazing. Really clear, and hundreds more stars visible to the naked eye. Managed to get some colo[u]r out of M42 – although it soon became obvious that I had a problem with the focal [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Jupiter and Andromeda (again)

February 13, 2012
Thumbnail image for Jupiter and Andromeda (again)

It was murderously cold outside last night. But I stayed out long enough to attempt a photograph of Jupiter. This time I had bought a Microsoft Lifecam 1080p webcam, and removed the focusing assembly so that it was just a bare sensor. This was attached to a 2X Barlow lens and installed in my 8″ [...]

Share
Read the full article →

…observing the Orion Nebula

January 31, 2012
Thumbnail image for …observing the Orion Nebula

Last night was a pretty cool night for astronomy (both figuratively and literally) – there was a great deal of stuff visible, and since I traded my old iPhone for one of the new Droids I was able to take advantage of Google Sky* and some of the other location apps to find interesting stuff [...]

Share
Read the full article →

Hey, it’s been awfully quiet around here…

December 16, 2011

Yes it has, during the run up to Christmas things get a bit crazy in the Hobley household. That’s not to say I’ve not been very busy on the CNC router, but mainly producing presents and other festive stuff. I have been working on a tip-top secret project featuring the Ebow-clone I put together in [...]

Share
Read the full article →

…infringing patents (probably)

November 23, 2011
Thumbnail image for …infringing patents (probably)

I’ve been meaning to build one of these for ages. Can anyone guess what it is? It’s not a Taser, or one of those shocking buzzer things – the clue is that the coils are well “potted” and have very different gauges of wire. Answers on a postcard please, or in the comments… UPDATE : [...]

Share
Read the full article →

…Treasure Finder for MAKE:Projects

November 19, 2011
Thumbnail image for …Treasure Finder for MAKE:Projects

This was my favo[u]rite of all the MAKE projects I’ve been working on. This project uses 2 oscillators in a configuration very much like a Theremin to create a beat frequency (BFO) metal detector. Range is a few inches for the smaller detection coil, but the detection range can be increased by adding a larger [...]

Share
Read the full article →