Astrophotography

So I have recently restarted my interest in Astrophotography, which had been hampered by a lack of good equipment and added too by a lack of the correct equipment (at least that is what I remembered from the previous time ;-) ).
Solving both of those wasn't easy, but now I have some good equipment and the night sky is mostly cooperating with my pursuits.

I now have a fairly "large" Celestron CPC (fairly large is contrasted against one of my dream telescopes, which are not portable... hint: the CPC still is "portable" like maybe 50 ft if your really feeling strong). I also have a Canon Rebel XTi with a T-ring and adapter (which can hold eyepieces for magnification) and a Lunar Planetary Imager (essentially a 640x480 webcam stuck in an eyepiece tube).

So now I am all set to get some awesome shots, right?

Well sort of...

Ah the challenges of life.. ISO what? Exposure time? Vibrations? Tracking / time delay? I found it funny that any photo experience that I had before with my manual 35mm, was all thrown out the window by owning these stupid "point and shoot" cameras over the past 8 years or so. I had actually forgotten how to operate a relatively simple camera (XTi isn't exactly a 5d ya' know) and manipulate it to do what I had wanted.
The robot cameras have taken over our lives!

So Astrophotography, just like many other pursuits I "enjoy" doesn't lend itself to the easy way, every thing is done manually... repeat everything is done manually. There is no "easy" button here. Now it is at this point that I remember, that it wasn't just the equipment which made me put away my astro-photo equipment before... a very strong point could be made that the lack of decent equipment made the results so poor that it wasn't worth the headache of going through all the other procedures and manual operations just to get a grainy shot of the lunar surface, or a barely discernible speck of light that I would point at and say "really, that is Jupiter".

So here is where the old story ends and the new one begins, dusting off all the "old skillz" and learning how to force my camera to do what I want it to do, as opposed to what it has trained me to do (autofocus doesn't work here, remember?) and connecting that up to some really good optics that can now display very very good detail (non-grainy) of things in our solar system and beyond (especially under good conditions)... I have found a sliver of happiness as well as encouragement in the results obtained so far, which drive me to delve deeper into this.

As I explore, I will share my learning's as well as my fruits with y'all here... hope you have as much challenge and fun as I do in whatever you pursue. If you like what you see, want to know more or want to offer advice on how to make it better, drop me a note to let me know..

Here is a URL to some moon shots taken with the new "scope" and the Rebel XTi:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sub.moa/Nov2008MoonShots#

And here is some taken with the "fancy webcam" and the new scope:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sub.moa/MoonShotsWithDigitalImager#

You should be able to see some pretty big differences in the clarity of the shots..

Until the next post...take a peek in the night sky just after sunset on Nov 30th - Dec 1st, you will see Jupiter / Venus and the Moon in all very close to each other, this is the last time that will happen again until 2052 so please take the time to check it out, it should be quite the show and maybe the first / last time we will have to see it within our lifetimes (one never knows).

May your sky's be stable and with low light pollution... :-)

bloggidy blog blog blog...

Saturday evening..

Saw the new 007 movie.. thought that the action was good.
I remember the days of yore.. when the bad guys were tracked down and then set straight by JB... now we are on installment two.. and we still have no clue who the bad folks are yet.
Hoping that we get this all sorted out by the 3rd installment.

At least the "Potter" series had a different plot for each installment, the "Solace" movie was merely a continuation of the "Casino" movie, again not saying it was bad.. because it wasn't. The director though, man he needs to lay off the caffeine and stop cutting back and forth on all those shots. I have strong "sea-legs" and I was getting a little frothy after only 5 minutes in that movie :-).


Well another wonderful post.. likely due to my bad ankle, which precludes me from being out somewhere with my telescope.

Until the next post..

Taking things for granted...

Funny... you hear this over and over again:

1) you don't know what you miss until it is gone

2) don't take things for granted

Oddly enough, I had a bit of a wake-up call this past 9 days... I tripped on some stairs (ascending) and messed up my ankle and wrist.

I went through a couple days of being unable to tightly grasp things with my right hand, which was a minor issue but still drove me nuts as I was unable to perform some normal activities.

My ankle was a completely different story... for the first 3 days, it hurt badly but I continued to walk on it (stupid) slowly / gingerly, but still walked on it... until of course, I started to feel a very painful "grinding / popping" coming from the ankle, which was accompanied by swelling to about 3x the normal size of the ankle and a feeling like my foot / ankle was on fire!

Went to the Doc's finally, and was told... 'no fractures, but man I haven't seen a sprain this bad in quite a long time' followed by, 'do your shoes even fit anymore? your foot and ankle looks like a block of flesh with no normal foot outline'... then came the real fun: 'I need you to wear an ankle brace, use a crutch and take these NSAIDs, until things normalize'.

Now this is where the fun comes in, did I mention that it was my right ankle / wrist? That essentially means I cannot drive so I have been locked up in my house everyday for the past 10 days.. sweet! .

Ok, long example that kind of proves out the "wisdom" of not taking things for granted, in this case I can now appreciate all the things I was able to do previously and am unable to do now, like running, playing soccer, walking, having unlimited mobility, going where and when I feel like it .

Good thing is.. the swelling is now going down.. and the foot / ankle is finally starting to look like a foot again.. in all likelihood, I may actually be able to start moving around again without the brace and crutches within 3-4 more days (by the looks of it).

Hopefully I can remember those feelings of denial / anger / frustration / hopelessness and ensure that I appreciate everything just a little bit more:

- my interactions with family and friends

- exercise

- astronomical observations / photography

- breathing, walking and just about everything else

Wishing all health and happiness

 

The Tao Of Ham-Kune-Do

Yes, I cheezily played off of the "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" of Bruce Lee fame, but that aside... and oh, by the way I did indeed say "HAM-Kune-Do" the way of the HAM. No, I am not referring to the way of Miss-Piggy or some other swine, I am speaking of Amateur Radio (aka HAM Radio) the practice of radio communications engineering.

Today is Oct 19th, 2008 (no not 1968) and I am here to tell you that HAM radio is alive and transmitting..er ah, kicking.

This weekend, I participated in Pacificon 2008 in San Ramon, Ca.

I spoke briefly with some of the organizers and volunteers at this weekends convention and was very surprised to here that this years participation was up about 20%, yes... even in a "down-economy" (aka: recession).  Add to that I recently spoke with a testing team, whom stated that they are seeing upwards of 200 - 500 new Technician licensees per month (Technician is the first level of FCC licensing on Amateur Radio) and with 4 testing sessions per month, there are approximately 800 - 2000 new HAM's every month!

So what are all these HAM's doing?

1) High Frequency (HF) / Ultra High Frequency (UHF) / Very High Frequency (VHF) Radio Transmissions

2) Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS)

3) Amateur Radio Packet Data

4) Fast Scan Television

5) Satellite Radio Communications

6) Low Power Radio Transmissions

7) Morse Code Transmissions

8) Emergency and Community Communications

There is something for just about any geek around, what could be better than a good ol' practice of engineering methodologies and hackin' around with radio wave propagation?

So some quick things about HAM radio as a hobby that I found interesting:

1) If there is an emergency (civil or otherwise) HAM radios are usually the primary form of communications during the emergency. For instance in the recent earthquakes in China, the HAM operators there had communications up and running again in a day (when all cellular communications were totally wiped out). So, in an emergency, chances are good that HAMs will be around to "save your bacon" (forgive me for that one, I had to say it... :-) ). Living in California, I think it is a good idea to have a mechanism for communications as part of your emergency plan.

2) Look around the next time your at a parade or running, cycling or other civic event, it is likely that you will find HAM's around helping out and reporting into the event organizers, telling them the current status in their "zone".

3) You can use a HAM radio to communicate with the ISS or Space Shuttle.

4) You can combine radio communications with the Internet or satellites to extend the reach of the radio and explore new forms of communications. 

If your interested in HAM radio, there are many places to get you started, for example:

• www.arrl.org
  
• www.qrz.com/i/howtoham.html

Take care and as HAMs say "73's"

Ken 

(KI6SCQ)

Week in review

Last week I was either travelling to or in Paris, sitting in meetings all day. I did make it out of the hotel three times.. twice to travel to the office and once for dinner on the last night of the meetings.

So much for Paris, traffic in that town is unbelievable, be glad you live in the good old "US of A" where it only takes 1 hour to travel 30 miles.. in Paris, it took 3.5 hours to travel the same distance!

Anyway, back to important stuff:
The Invaders soccer team is doing very well, while in Paris the kids won a game 3:1 and this past weekend, had a great 3:2 game which they also won (and we incorrectly had a goal taken away from us, which the ref later admitted was a mistake - glad it didn't decide the outcome of the game!)

Only two more action packed weekends left in the regular season, with games on both Sat / Sun for each of the coming weekends (so much for my marksmanship practice). I am looking forward to the kids finishing in a very good position this year, and also looking forward to seeing how they do in the post-season tournament. This was one of the best teams I have ever had the pleasure of coaching.

Until the next time..

Sitting in O'Hare en route to Paris

In this blog I will complain about business travel.. well not really complain but gripe.

Oakland Airport sucks.. "warning Will Robinson!" do not fly out of Oakland if you are flying United, there were only two counter people but about 300 people that needed to board 6am flights!

Then there is my layover to Paris.. I will be stuck at O'Hare for 5 hours! Well that is what I get for attempting to make United my "carrier of choice". At least I will make my Tuesday meetings with little to no headache..(unless my luggage.. dooh, I don't even want to think about it)

Of course, the reason why this is even a problem at all, I don't really like to leave my family to fly on business.. it is one thing to have them fly with me, but a totally different one to have to be away from them for a week.

I guess that is why I make the "small bucks"..

That is it for this post..

First Place in the Mustang Stampede Tournament!

The team did an awesome job on Tuesday night, defeating the Danville Flames 3-1 for the Mustang Stampede Tournament first place finish for u12 Rec+.

I was very proud of how the kids played, they have been listening to the coaching and learning more each practice and game.

This weekend will be interesting as I will be away on business.. so I will miss the Sunday game, Tuesday practices. Hope the kids will do well anyway.

That is it for now.

Soccer Update 9-25-06

First off, if anybody out there is reading this blog.. sorry for not posting for awhile. Work and travel have kept me out of the blogging business of late.

Now on to the real news..

The kids are progressing nicely, we went to a tournament this past weekend and placed first in our section, meaning we get to play the team that placed first in their section tonight for 1st place!

The kids have been working hard and actually listening during the practices, it shows in how they are starting to play the game. If things keep going as well, I am sure the kids will have a much greater appreciation for soccer and teamwork.

Well off to work now, I was up till 12am last night working on a couple of patent proposals.

Go figure.. work never stops... but I am happy as long as the money keeps coming.. ;-)

Mentorship and giving back

A couple of thoughts for the day:

- Mentorship (getting and giving)

- Giving back

For mentorship, I have been approached recently by a couple of peers, requesting some of my time for mentoring. I am very flattered by the request, but unsure of how to take it to the next step. I was being mentored by a well respected individual in my organization, but never seemed to get to any actual mentoring (at least not in the way I expected).
I find these as keys to any relationship, including mentoring;
- as in any relationship, stating your goals and expectations
- open communication on both sides
- setting aside the time to listen intently to the guidance or challenges

I am pondering whether I am capable at this time of giving the time and efforts necessary to do justice in a mentoring relationship.

Giving back is the other subject of thought lately, I wasn't raised with a "silver-spoon" in my mouth, nor did I have all Ivy-league friends in school. I want to find a way to enhance the lives of others, helping them to acheive more than I have been able to thus far.
I guess mentoring is one way, but that would be for people already well in the path of their careers (at least mentoring those at work). I should probably look into some type of program for low-income individuals, wherein I could use my professional skills to guide them down a different future or career path.

Well that is it for now..

Training hard for my first 5k

Today I covered 5.5 miles in training for my 3.10 mile race, the pace was ok but I wasn't working at the pace I would for a race.

I am going to continue to push my way through this, I have less than 1 month to go.. Oct 8th is the big day. I will then see if I really like the running stuff and continue, or try to do something different.
So far, I like it and can see myself committing to a half-marathon.. but one step at a time bronco. :-)

September 12th 2006

Things seem to be back to normal again..

The news is reporting financial data, accidents on the road, the weather and the middle east conflicts (yes, plural).

Here are some problems for the next millennium:
- How to reconcile the differences between the different religions and ensure the world can live peacefully.
- How to stop war in Africa and other hot-spots around the world (is it food, religion or other?)
- Demolishing the digital-divide (can we really use the "Internet" to spread "good" knowledge)
- How to bring developing nations into the future, while maintaining our leadership globally (but with a different tact, so we do not appear to bully people and countries)

I don't know if these problems can even be solved, I know they cannot when viewed from the current perspective ('problems cannot be solved from the same perspective in which they were created'), what is needed to take a fresh look at them and the possible solutions?

September 11th 2006

Rest in peace to all those that passed away in the tragic incidents of 9/11.

May your families find comfort in knowing that "we" didn't forget.

God bless...

Soccer update

My son did pretty well today, he played center mid for most of the game and got two shots on goal, close but no cigar on either.
Then we transferred him to left-forward and with 1 minute left, he nailed one in the top corner to give the team the insurance goal it needed to win the game 3-1.

All worked out well today.. he was very happy to put one away.

Soccer update

Very interesting goings on in the local soccer world.

1) We currently have practices on Wed / Fri nights
2) We have games on Sat / Sun mornings-afternoons

One could ask themselves, how can you have decent practice on Friday and not be too tired to play on Saturday? I ask myself this very question.

The kids had a good practice on Friday night, then tried to play hard on Saturday morning. They played pretty good overall, but seemed sluggish and unable to play hard. I think it is time that I suggest to the head coach (I am assistant only) that we should rethink our practice strategy in order to give the kids the best in coaching as well as enough rest to play games effectively.

Today is another game, we will see how it goes. Maybe yesterday was a fluke.

Patience is a virtue

As Bruce Lee was alleged to have said "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something", well it may not have been Bruce Lee that said it ... but that is definately how I feel some days.

Have you ever had a day when it seems that everyone elses mind is working far slower than yours?
I guess sometimes we all get caught up in the things that we do on a daily basis and expect that others should have this knowledge too.
Things are always working so fast at work, that I just don't seem to have the patience in guiding folks along.. sometimes it seems as if I get things done 100 times faster if I just do it myself instead of teaching someone else.

Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia the four classic virtues are:

• Temperance
• Prudence
• Justice
• Courage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue

Since patience isn't listed there.. I guess I am ok.. :-), well at least in the classical sense.

ok, move along.. nothing to see here..

What a day..

Presented to the engineering team working on one of my projects, getting everyone on the same page as it pertains to how all of the development efforts come together to make a product, how that product fits into our product portfolio, why it is important to our company and where we need to take this product in the future.
So far on this product I play the following roles:

• Technical Marketing Engineer (scoping the project for engineering, using customer requirements to define the development efforts)
• Product Manager (defining the marketing requirements and materials)
• Product Architect (designed the project from whiteboard to individual designing efforts)
• Chief Evangelist (evangelizing to other groups)
• Corporate Architect (defining how the product fits into our overall company solution-space)

Now those aren't really all within my job description, but you do what you need to do.. ;-)

Back to the presentation, it went very well and I believe I got the team energized and understanding where our direction is and should be.

This was a very good, but tiring day.

:-)

Putting the world on my shoulders...

Todays topic is the amount of time that I put into work each day. Currently I put at a minimum 12 hours (minimum that is) in at work each day, I spend about 8 in the office, then the rest of the time at home working on the laptop.
It is way to common that I come home from work, eat dinner with the family, put the kids to sleep, then work until 1am or so only to awaken at 6am, resuming where I left off.

There are many reasons for this unhealthy behavior, I shoulder the burden for most of it:
- I have the only income in the house, so I want to ensure my revenue stream is ok
- I always want to be the best at whatever I do, so I work hard to be on top ("if I am not in the top 10% at what I do, then I should be doing something else")

Then there are the work reasons:
- I get stuff done, so they give me more to do
- There is always something to be done and not enough time to complete all the tasks at hand

The real questions are:
- What will all this work really mean in 10 years?
- What is life, health and my personal time really worth?
- Does the company really care if I worked 10 vs. 12 hours or more?

Life is a pretty fragile thing, it is here one day.. and you should enjoy it at that time, as you have no guarantees for having more.

These are some of the things I am thinking about today...

Labor Day Weekend

Overall this was not too bad of a long weekend, I would have rather been camping.. but no-go this time around as we planned a bit too late and all the campgrounds in California were totally booked up.

We did get to see my 91 yr old Grandmother though, the whole family enjoys the time spent with her, which isn't often now that she lives about 2 hours away. :-(

Today, I am going to work from home in the AM, then off to the local office, no need to drive all the way down to SJ today. I have several papers and such that I need to catch up on so this works out quite well today.

This week, while short.. should be very action packed as way too many things are "popping off" at work at this time.

Almost forgot! I took the kids to the range this weekend and man are they getting good. My son used to be only interested in shooting the scoped .22. But I have been working with him to show him how to use iron sites on a shorter "kids" .22.
This weekend, he almost exclusively wanted to shoot iron sites! When he saw that he was able to shoot better with iron sites, than most of the adults using scopes on the 50 yrd range (unsure why they would do that other than sighting in the rifle, but some were at it all day!) that sealed the deal for him.
My daughter was having fun with the scoped .22 and she was doing very well, she is very receptive to the coaching and is really intense when shooting. The intensity in concentration for both of them, grows each time we get out there.

Happy Tuesday..

Thoughts...

It has been a few days since my (first) last post, way too much time spent working to have time to post a blog I guess.

Here are some thoughts that I have been pondering lately:

1) I appreciate genuine people, but seem to deal with many people that do nothing more than position agendas for their own good.
example of genuine: How many people do you meet a day that ask "how's it going?" and really mean it, are truly interested in knowing how your life has been going and care to listen?
example of other: When they ask "how's it going?" they don't really want to know the answer, it is just a way to open a conversation, to get to the points they wish to address.

2) What changes could I make to my life that would enhance:

• My Atomic or Nuclear family lives or interactions
• Others less fortunate
• Global Warming or other Eco-concerns
• My health and well being (so I could do more of the above)

That is it for today..

Invaders Soccer

My son's team finished 2nd in their first tournament of the year, this was not too bad at all considering the following;

• We have not had a full team participation in practices so far, due to vacations, etc
• This is the first time that many of these kids have played together
• We have some relatively new (to soccer) players on the team
• 60% of the kids are at the lower portion of the age limit (U12)

I was very happy with their performances overall, they passed well and talked to each other a lot. This year should turn out to be a very good year!