Take Note Kiddies: This Is How You Do It

A Very Busy Day

A connector for 120,000-volt electric equipment.

T-28 Trojan

Caught this beautiful silver T-28 Trojan sitting on the ramp in Brenham.

Peanuts

PC and Pixel

Third Jupiter of the Year, Part II

A little sharper and a lot cleaner. I'm still frustrated though. I see other folks using similar gear to mine turning out better shots, and I don't know what I can do better.

10" LX200, 250 frames LRGB, DMK21AF04, Televue 2.5x Powermate

Third Jupiter of the Year

Not necessarily the final image from tonight, but the first of four processed. Pretty good seeing; call it 3/5 with a slow undulation.

Second Jupiter of the Year

A little soft in worsening seeing. The moons are Ganymede and Europa. If I had stayed up another couple of hours we could have tried to catch them in front of the planet. Oh well. Finally got the LX200 remounted in the observatory--I told myself I was going to wait until we got a break from 100-degree days. We may have a few left, but it IS September, right?

250 frames ea LRGB, DMK21AF

More Drawerings

Since the heat and/or clouds have been keeping me in, you get to look at stuff from my day job.

Drawering

Drawing a milk jug is harder than it sounds. There's a reason the handle is hidden behind the pitcher.

First Day, First Grade, Take Two

Just like last time. And the time before that, and the time before that ...

Courtesy of my Mother-In-Law

How to say 'I love you' in 25 languages

English I Love You
Spanish Te Amo
French Je T'aime
German lch Liebe Dich
Japanese Ai Shite Imasu
Thai Phom rak khun
Italian Ti amo
Chinese Wo Ai Ni
Swedish Jag Alskar
Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Florida
Nice ass, get in the truck

Four Craters

Looking at the southeast edge of the Moon, one day after full. The four craters, from top to bottom: Langrenus, Vendelinus, Petavius and Furnerius. In the upper left are two small craters with a "comet tail." Those are Messier and Messier A.

DMK21AF04.US, C6 @ f/10, 3 frame mosaic

Jupiter in the C6

First Jupiter of the year. Shot this at the dam through the 6-inch Celestron SCT. Not quite as much resolution as I'm used to getting, but I'm pretty happy with the results through the little scope. Poor to average seeing. Altitude 30°. LRGB, DMK21AF04.US, C6 @ f/25.

We Mosey Very, Very Fast

A Cool Space Shuttle Photo

Came across this photo on Space.com today:

Hey, That's Me!

Check out the byline.

Sadly, it's not me. But it would be cool if it were!

An iPhone App I'd Like To See

Since I've been using with my iPhone for a while now, I've come up with an app I'd like to play with: all six primary flight instruments, aka the "six pack."

I've been looking at other apps and thinking how this would work.

1. Airspeed. Easy enough. There are speedometer apps that use the info from the GPS. Wouldn't be true airspeed without a pitot tube, but close enough for make believe.

2. Attitude Indicator. Get the info from the iPhone's accelerometers. I found a couple of not very nice-looking apps that do this already.

3. Altimeter. Found a couple of good-looking apps that do this. Uses the info from the GPS, so subject to the inaccuracies there.

4. Turn Coordinator. This might be a little harder, but should be doable. The ball is just a level, easy enough. I think you could do the turn needle using the iPhone compass and measuring the rate of change.

5. Directional Gyro. Uses the compass built in to the 3GS phone.

6. Vertical Speed Indicator. Measure the rate of change on the altimeter.

As far as the interface, I'd start with a screen showing all six indicators in the standard layout. Tapping on one would blow it up to full screen. Tapping again would return to the wide view.

Easy enough, no? I'd pay $4.99 to $9.99 for a really nice, realistic-looking, app.



Version II

Same info as the six-pack, but combined EFIS-style Primary Flight Display.

Endeavour + ISS

Caught the Space Shuttle Endeavour followed by the International Space Station through the Big Dipper, Ursa Major.

Thoughts on New PCs

On one of the message boards I read, a poster was talking about the new Windows PC she just purchased. There were several replies about "be sure to install a firewall," "make sure you update the anti-virus software," and suggestions for a malware scanner and removal tool.

The poster's reply was "Thanks! It's at the shop right now, having my old files transferred to it!"

All this got me to thinking, "Does this sound normal to most PC users? That buying a new machine involves an immediate need to install a bunch of 3rd party tools before connecting to the internet, and that transferring data requires a professional?"

You see, I was thinking about my last new Mac. I took it out of the box. I turned it on. I connected a Firewire cable between the old Mac and the new one and Migration Assistant moved all of my info over. And that was it.

So, do those of you using PCs really think that her experience was normal? 'Cause to me, it sounds like a big pain in the rear.