- “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
- “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
- “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
- “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
Archive for the 'Noteworthy' Category
It’s so interesting to disassemble a telescope especially those have a very precise and big gears. I’ve disassembled my computer since I was 8 and 8 years later I disassembled my LX90. I will tell you how to do so step-by-step. However, take it at your own risk, I will not responsible for any damage done to the telescope. I suggest that you read all the procedures before you do anything. If possible, read one more before you start and it’s advisable to print this article with you or leave your monitor on when you are doing your work.
In the Part I, I’m going to tell you how to disassemble the corrector plate. The photos below are clickable for a larger version.
(1) First, unscrew every screw on the black housing in front of the OTA. There are 4 on the top and 3 at the bottom. The screws have to be unscrewed by Allen Wrench. I have 3 from Meade when I bought the scope.
(2) Afterthat, you have to remove the screws on the ring which have the specification of the telescope. Please make sure that you don’t point your scope down at this moment just in case the corrector plate fall down and result in severe damage.
(3) Caution! Although you have all the screws undone, don’t remove the corrector plate now or you will regret for life.
(4) Now, check whether the Meade engineer made a marking over the edge of the corrector plate and the black housing. If he did, continue to the next step. If not, you have to do your own marking. Make sure that it’s visible!
(5) Do you see 6 pieces of cork slices filled in the gap between the corrector plate and the housing? I suggest removing them before you proceed to remove the corrector plate. After removing them, hold your hand on the secondary mirror (the center obstruction) and turn the scope down. If the corrector plate doesn’t fall down at this moment, try the way below.
(6) You suppose to see 2 big gaps, don’t you? I used a knife which was small enough to fit into the gap and insert it to the maximum (the knife holder may touch the corrector plate now). Use the way that you open a tin with a spoon to remove the corrector plate. I heard a loud “boom” when I successfully remove it. Do you still have the secondary mirror mounted on the corrector plate? You better have it untouched because once it’s removed, you can’t put it back precisely. You have to call UPS and pickup the item back to Meade. Haha… Frankly speaking, I did remove it accidentally. Luckily, I made a marking on the screws that hold the secondary mirror. Luck really plays an important role. I was able to put it back almost the same as before.
(7) Okay, the corrector plate is removed. What shall I do next? I did cleaning of the corrector plate and removing of a toothpick which was ACCIDENTALLY dropped into the OTA via the baffle tube.
(8) Let me show you the back of the corrector plate which faces the primary mirror.
(9) No more, I am going to put the corrector plate back now. I restore the cork slices first. Wish you a happy removing! 
The camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) captured its first light of Mars in the mapping orbit, thus the high resolution image is obtained.
The image is acquired by High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) acquired at 8:16 PM. The image scale is 29.7 centimeters per pixel. At this moment, the spacecraft was at the altitude of 280 kilometers. To be more accurate, at this resolution, a people is visible in the image.
Tomorrow, I am going to share some plugins to enchance your Adobe Photoshop CS2 in astromical usage.
My friend March05 has contributed very much this time. He has done the lunar eclipse sequence photo. Credits to him! The photo above was taken by his lovely Casio EX-Z750.
What about mine? I still have to adjust some of their brightness and crop them out. It’s quite time consuming.
Oh yeah! I just received my copy of Sky & Telescope magazine directly shipped from US this morning! This is my first magazine subscribed from US as well as my first Astronomy magazine. Not to mention that the contents are really good; however, the advertisements are just too many that I can see them most of the time. Nevertheless, they are quite informative as I know more about the astronomical instruments after reading them. Credits to all the editors!
Don’t you feel that this photo is nice? I used my home garden as the background in this photo. I like it so much!
This articles is supposed to be posted yesterday night but when I online today, I just found that this is still in the drafts. There must be something happened to my internet connection. Anyway, it’s here now.
Continuing the Pros and Cons of DSLR Astrophotography, Pros and Cons of CCD Imager is here. The chip of the DSLR is not as great as the specially designed CCD imager’s chip. Let’s look at its speciality!
Cooling system
Operating the imager under low temperature allows you to easily capture a library of fixed-temperature dark frames always needed in serious astrophotography.
Left: SBIG’s STL11000M
Noise is also significantly reduced becaused of the low temperature. There is a form of cooling called TEP (Thermo-Electric Power) fixing the temperature at a certain degree kevin. This is the best cooling system ever used.
Convenient
All of the imagers are controlled by a computer. You don’t have to click on the shutter or press on the bulb cable. As far as I know, every imagers are compatible on all of the commercial telescopes. Whenever you get a new scope, you don’t have to get an adapter.
Cost-saving
You could get a built-in autoguider imager to save the cost to buy a guide scope and a autoguider or another autoguiding capable imager. However, some of the autoguiding capable imagers are more expensive than the combo of guide scope and autoguider.
Antiblooming
Antiblooming is a must-have for long exposure imaging or the stars in the view will have long tails. Blooming is caused by the overwhelming photos in a pixel. Nevertheless, non antiblooming CCD has higher sentivity which shortens the exposure.
Others
Smaller chip is able to focus faster and transfer the data faster to the computer. B&W (Black & White/Monochrome) chip allows LRGB (Luminance, Red, Green and Blue) imaging by using a wheel of filters set and etc. B&W chip is always more sensitive than colour chip. Therefore, the photo by combining LRGB images into colour is more cheerful than one shot colour chip. A monochorme chip with a certain colour filter is more sensitive to that certain colour. It comes in handy to stress on certain features.
Cons
I would say that the only con of CCD imager is a large CCD chip is very expensive. Let’s say the SBIG’s STL11000XM Monochorme CCD imager. It costs USD10,000! It is possible to take a large image with a small imager by doing mosaic. It saves money but it takes time.
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