May 31, 2008

Web Cam Astrophotography Basics

Filed under: Planet — banpot @ 4:40 am

Web cams have changed amateur astrophotography profoundly. You
can now have a CCD for a fraction of the cost. Web cams can take awesome planetary and lunar astrophotos right out of the box. You can use the capture software that comes with the cam for capturing your shots and then use freeware to process the results. Can’t get much cheaper than that. Of course for better results it is you should use specialized software, but that is available on the cheap as well.

And if you are a do-it-yourselfer, web cams can also be adapted to take long exposure astrophotos, pretty cool right? Plus there are ready to go, web cam based planetary imagers now available from Celestron, Meade and, Orion. Meade and Orion also have imagers for long exposure, deep-sky imaging. All these include software. They are however more expensive.

If you already have a web cam great, you only need some software which can be downloaded for free, and an adaptor to connect the web cam to your telescope. If you don’t own one the following cams have proven to be good for astrophotography and good deals can be found on eBay for example.

-ToUcam Pro by Philips PCVC740K or PCVC840K ToUcam PRO II. I have both of these. I am leaving the new one as a dedicated planetary imager and adapting the PCV740K for long exposure astrophotography.

-Vesta pro also by Philips. I haven’t personally used this web cam but others have with great success. It can also be adapted for long exposures.

-Quickcam pro by Logitech. I used to have one of these, but I prefer the ToUcam. It does a good job though and can also be modified for long exposures.

-There are other web cams which are good for astrophotography but these three are the only ones I have experience with.

Now for the adaptor to connect the web cam to your telescope. I use a Mogg adaptor, made by, surprise Mr. Steve Mogg. More information and purchasing can be found at: http://webcaddy.com.au/astro/adapter.htm
For either ToUcam you will want the UWAT-F, for the Vesta Pro the UWAS-F, and for the Quickcam Pro the UWAL-F. He has adaptors for other astrophotography web cams as well.

Next you will need some software to make this all work. Good news it won’t cost you a single penny. First you will need some capture software. K3CCDTools version 1 is absolutely free. It works very well to capture astrophotos with web cams. I use version 3 which costs $45.00 because I use some of the other features it offers but you won’t need that for basic planetary work (yet). You can download it at: http://www.pk3.org/Astro/index.htm?k3ccdtools_download.htm.

To get really nice detail in your shots you will need to combine(stack) multiple images. A really nice piece of software is called RegiStax. It is also freeware. You can download a copy at:
http://registax.astronomy.net/html/download.html.

The next article in this series will be on setting up your web cam and software, capturing your first image during daylight, then getting your first astrophoto (the moon).

Carl Gilbertson has been involved in amatuer astronomy for over 30 years and astrophotography for over twenty-five years. Learn more at his site: Web Cam Astrophotography

Tags: astrophotography, , , planetary imaging, web cam

May 30, 2008

Do You Believe in the Powers of Planet Alignments

Filed under: Planet — banpot @ 2:17 am

Many people believe that during times of planet alignment magical things can happen. Others say no way; that is utter hokum. Perhaps you have an opinion on this subject? Can Planet alignment affect the Earth and the Earth’s path?

Now then with regard to planet alignment, indeed the planets are very far apart and thus somewhat insignificant. However many nearby planets all aligned could ever so slightly change the resonance of the normality of Earth and ever so slightly move the all the planets a little off their exact (atomic clock amounts in micro seconds stuff) path.

Insignificant yes. But mankind does not have enough power to do that yet? Well unless he can put a large yield nuclear weapon on a fault line and trigger something like the Sumatra Earthquake nearly cracking a tectonic plate. Something to think on.

Additionally Eclipses are significant because they will provide for slight changes of Earth’s resonance. Some say that in fact human beings seem to pick up these things, even Full Moons as they seem to have an innate ancient hunting need during those times which comes out. Any policeman will tell you that they have significant troubles and lots of arrests on full moons, as people will do some pretty crazy things.

Could it be a double factor? Resonance changes picked up by the brain, body, bio-rthyms or the full moon triggering mammalian old part of the brain seeing the full moon? Yet over cast full moons also have huge arrest rates in large cities, when no one can see the moonlight. Now then does this mean that they can they feel it subconsciously? Lots of questions here and few answers and those are my main thoughts this issue. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Tags: Believe, , Powers Planet Alignments

May 29, 2008

Planet SSARG [Chapter Seven ‘Legs of the Spider’ with Two Parts]

Filed under: Planet — banpot @ 4:21 am

Part Seven of Nineteen
[See notes for overview]

Planet SSARGLegs of the Spider
And the Great Planes [two parts]
[Part of the: Cadaverous Planets]

[Lets of the Spider] The Tarantula Nebula. Around our Galaxy resides two separate galaxies: the large being Magellanic Cloud (LMC: 30,000 light years from earth); and the small, Magellanic Cloud (SMC: 160,000-light years from earth); the galaxy [s] looks similar to the legs of a spider. Our galaxy the one our solar system is in, the one our earth calls home, is the Milky Way; and these third galaxy seems to be slowly enmeshing with our Milky Way, as is, Andormeda Galaxy too: so Siren had learned. But we are only concerned here with one, at the moment: LMC, which is about the one where SSARG’s at; let me try to explain the best I can so you can have a certain idea of where Siren is at and her new planet is at, as Siren has just learned also: the location. The Three galaxies I have mentioned besides the Milky Way, will someday I do believewill someday go together, entangle and become one, especially the two Magellanic Cloud galaxies, as I have mentioned. The LMC Galaxy has many stars in it, and its Nebula, Tarantula, has many. Tarantula has about 800-light-years across it. A big hole you could say: again, called ‘The Legs of the Spider,’ with a great mass of gas, ultraviolet radiation of embedded starsthese stars are young, as are the planets therein; I would say three million years old. And yes, SSARG is no older than they are.

Rotma, SSARG’s moon, covers the gassy environment to a certain degree, for the Planet SSARG, by blocking its overpowering ultraviolet radiation, and there is a second smaller moon, more on the order of a large asteroid, in Rotma’s orbit, which blocks, or helps block some of the rays on Rotma. There is no air or life on this smaller asteroid-planet, called Amtor. Amtor is about 250,000-miles from Rotma, and does not have all that much gravitational pull on Rotma, for the most part.

It might be of interest also, that on SSARG, there is no Arctic or Antarctica [or north or south poles]. That seems to allow for a more stable balance in its weather.

[Advance to Chapter Seven/about the narrator]: SSARG, a planet of grass beyond the Milky Way Galaxy: this is the continuation of the nineteen-sketches of ‘Siren of SSARG,’ to include her mother Jokaneen, from the cadaverous Planets, as narrated to him telepathically Dennis L. Siluk, at his condo in the high mountains of the Andes of Peru, in the city of Huancayo; Siren, which has Moiromma blood, through interplanetary space ended up on this stranded planet of sorts, a bit smaller than Earth, but larger than Earth’s moon.

The planet has several frontiers: vast desert plateaus, and immense prairies of long grass; while other sections have towering cliffs, and still others caves; through here time here on the planet she has found insuperable obstacles, but has defeated all.

In this strange land, this planet where the grass can grow twenty feet high, there are no oceans, nor are there poles, as we know them to be on earth, but there are several great lakes, as larger if not larger than Lake Superior on earth, as large if not larger than the state of Minnesota; and some 2000-feet deep. There are cadaverous enemies in these deep waters, monsters. There were even wars in this underwater worlds, in these gigantic lakes: in these waters there are ‘Children of the Deep,’ who are seeded by serpents of flesh, onto pods and grown like wild flowers, heads like babies, and bodies like frogs; a stem attached to their heads: they are called ‘Frat Serpents,’ and can grow to be as big as whales, if allowed. And now, the narrator has just picked up some telepathic narration to distribute:

Chapter Seven: The Great Plains

As Siren continued west, back to where her tree house wasout of the Land of the Dawn, as she called it, or land of the Manticore might be more proper, she started to see birds, with yellow and blue feet; rivers that ran uphill, and fish jumping several feet out of the air, from a huge lake, and grass as tall as twenty-feet. The birds were huge, about half her size. The water was cool and sweet. When she had come to the cliffs, she turned from to go back southwest.

She noticed a few of these upright Manticore’s following her behind, they walked like kangaroos, somewhat. It was a most hideous sight she pondered, and now they were crossing one of the several plains they had crossed to get to where they had been: journeying back now.

Siren looked a few times at Blaze, the reason being, he looked a bit confused, if not strange, possibly it was the first time he had eaten flesh and animal at the same time, the Manticore meat he had devoured after the kill: it seemed he was craving more of it. Nonetheless, they proceeded forward crossing the long prairies.

Each night Siren built a fire and the animals, the rats and the vipers, and the Manticore’s behind them, wicked-eyed, but not threatening, would come close to the fire, about twenty feet, at first it was more than a hundred feet, they had build, slowly build their way to twenty feet in front of the fire, then they’d go back to their campsite about three-hundred feet from theirs. As they went from day to day, they ate what they could: nuts, fruits, bugs and some kind of food growing on green stalks, which all seemed to have an acquired taste, and of nutritive qualities.

It was several weeks in the marching forward to their home, when Siren had some dreams where she visualized in the southern meadows, coming up, she visualized this, that an attack, soon an attack would take place: the vipers and rats would attack the hundred or so Manticore’s and thus exterminate a race, and disturb the balance of the planet, imaginative it was, but real it felt to her. The Manticore’s could not fight the massive amount of vipers and rats, yet they felt threatened: perhaps jealous or perhaps feeling their queen was in danger. No peace was made between the Manticore’s, not like it was forced upon the rats, by Siren, with the vipers, and this planet had not leaned grace was a virtue, so it could break out at anytime, and before she could stop it, it would be all over; perhaps the one hundred Manticore’s were but a small company of the race, she didn’t know, and they were on a fact finding mission. Everything on this planet was sectioned off, kept secret from one species to the next.

As Siren awoke, she started to walk through the thick grass, it was pre dawn, and the grass was wet with dew, and tall, and she knew the Manticore’s could smell her, hear her, perhaps taste her on their tongues but none leaped out upon her: although they were wild and savage.

As she stepped out from the high grass to where the Manticore’s were camping, they all stood erect, noble like,–then a great roar of hissing started, with flanked animals all about them: black, red, and brown headed stakes, and hairy rats; the rats snapping their jaws, and the snakes hissing and moving back and forth, and siren halted them throwing back her head.

[Chapter Eight: The Chamber City]

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

Tag: Chapter Story
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