The guard said no photos but said I can keep my picture when I offered to delete this.




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In line for 3g version of ipad

Interesting while in line they came by to let people know that onecan only be purchased with a credit card.

For some kind of security reason perhaps due to resale issues.

I quized the sales associate what would happen if I pulled out cash and wanted ti pay that way since there is no contract but maybe there is sone kind of one with iTunes. I thought legal tender issues might cause a problem but apparently Apple somehow has there bases covered or do they?

Can apple contract law overcome federal laws of legal tender?




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Observatory was not open today

We had a little key mixup that prevented me from opening up the observatory. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. I was tired anyway, but went by a friends house to chat about astronomy and perhaps look a bit at the sky.

I took my little nexstar 4 se and the little 4.25 inch homebuilt newtonian telescope with me.

At Harold's house we chatted a bit and I pulled out the small f4 reflector to see if we could view mars and the beehive in the 40mm eyepiece. Last week I could see them both but now they are farther apart and can't be seen within the same field of view.

I was able to see them both with an old pair of 10 by 50 binoculars. But thereis some astigmatism in my eyesight or the binos aren't that good. I could see them both but Mars and the beehive were not all sharply focused. Looked like coma triails for one or the other. I have not noticed coma in the binoculars before. Maybe I dint really look for it with most viewing.

Here's a picture of the nexstar on the floor as I'm bringing it inside. Didn't use a celestron at all tonight. Conditions are some thin cloud cover over parts of the sky.





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Huron metropark

End of astronomy event at metro beach.


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Checking out the ipad

At Detroit science center


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Detroit science center astronomy

Here we are.


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The weather will keep the observatory closed this weekend

The observatory will be closed during the weekend, it will be cloudy.


There are a couple of astronomy events this weekend. One is already going on at the detroit science center from 9 to 4 pm.

They would have solar observing, but it's cloudy so there will be a few tables with some displays inside.

I'm going to try to check it out and take some photos to post later.

There is also an outdoor event at metro beach area. It's going to be cloudy so it will likely be a series of speeches and presentations and some display. That's and evening event. I don't have many details and did hear about it at the meeting. Nobody created a poster and I
Probably should have sought more information since I edit the star stuff newsletter. But I was very busy during the last month so I didn't realize no flyer exited.

Faac astronomy club meeting tomorrow at hfcc

There will be a faac general meeting tomorrow. I may show off the iPad if we have time, but I think there won't be extra time at the meeting. There never is.



-- Post From My iPhone

Mars and the beehive 4-19-2010

Mars was near the beehive star cluster. I viewed this at home and took some quick stills of my quick setup. I was really excited when a jet flew threw the view in my f4 newtonian, but i didnt have a camera to take a shot of that.

It was late and conditions were not that good but I decided to go by the observatory Monday night to try to get a still of both Mars and m44 also called the beehive. The 80 mm refractor at f7 should get them both and it did.

I even did a quick write upon a PDF with some of the photos in it.



Photo of part of the PDF below.

To get a copy of the entire page (PDF) check out this link . .

www.scribd.com/doc/30311796/Mars-and-the-Beehive-3







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Showing off the ipad at Buffalo Wild Wings in southgate

I've been spending time getting final edits in for the Star Stuff News letter. Now if I head out to a WIFI spot and pull out the iPad, people often will just start asking questions and want to know what I think. I often end up breaking into a demo and sales pitch, just showing the device to folks basically sells them on the idea. Many hear about it but haven't seen one yet and I end up showing them different APPS and almost always the Astronomy Star Charting programs. Everyone continues to be impressed.

Sometimes I'll just throw out a quick blog and a photo to show them how great BlogPress is on the iphone and how I can basically throw out a quick blog entry here anytime I want to with the iphone. This is great for breaking news or announcing something about the observatory. I'm hoping things will start to finally settle down next week as we work on doing some final fixes or driving a steak through the heart of a system that is malfunctioning.

I'm hoping for some good skies and some rest to be ready to go out and open up and get more things setup at the observatory.

My days have been long at work and very draining on my energy, just because of the long hours and constant need to do more with less human resources or help. Everyone seems nice, but many are pretty busy and many even are into their vacations and getting away. It can make it tough to fix a system when all the people you'd deal with are constantly gone. Oh well, that's why they call it work.

I'm hoping to get some really good experimentation and knowledge in using the Celestron telescope and hooking it up to a new SKYFI box that just arrived in the mail. This SKYFI box will allow an iPod touch, iPad or IPhone the ability to link and control the telescope wirelessly. Even over the internet, if we get the router configured properly. This would be a really interesting novelty at least. I'm looking forward to getting this to work and at least testing the system. Right now I need to get a Losmandy cable however, as I only purchased a cable for Celstron telescopes.





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Asteroid occultation tonight

An asteroid will move in from of a star and cause it to be dimmed tonight.

This happens at 3:30 in the morning and at 15 degrees above the horizon.

Because that's a bit late and the c 14 may not be able to look that low on the horizon due to the height of the wall I don't plan on being at the observatory for this event.

Also this is a dimming of a magnetude 9 star down to 14 for a few seconds. It's not a group viewing type of event but something for an astronomer with his own telescope.


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Clouds due tonight

The observatory won't be open


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Sorry about the all the typos

My iPhone skills are falling off as I play with the ipad more.


I forgot I can rotate blogpress on the iPhone.

As usual I'll try to correct typos later because the iPhone cannot correct google blog posts for some reason.


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Bad news from bufallo wild wings

This wifi router is always jammed or not functioning bit it could be the ipad device trashing their router.

One waitress claimed their router has been acting up.

Blogpress on the ipad posted a blog entry very slowly, if you can't see it, the post about Sunday night, it's because blogpress on the ipad failed to post it.

A pain of course.

My mac is doing no better.

I actually wonder if theipad has some kind of defect designed to mess with routers, kind of line a Chinese spy program or or something.

If the Chinese start to invade the parking lot here, kind of like a scene from red dawn the sequel, I'll let you know.

It may not be a flaw in my iPhone however because the router is down.

Sunday night for two quick hours we worked with Larry Hoffman on the star
Model in the Losmandy mount.

I'm still amazed that I have three apple devices here and I have to post this via 3 g network using the iPhone.

I like blogpress for iPhone. I just realize I need a 3g version to be able to post better withthe ipad when wifi flakes out all over the place.

I really hope my ipad isn't screwing up public routers out there.

Would have stayed out at the observatory last night had I been more rested. I thought we'd be there for a short time and leave and we were there for only two hours of dust ti night sky conditions. A great working session an I have to put a log in to the paper log. I forgot to do that.

I had a long difficult day at work, 11 hours. I have to get home and get some sleep.

Below is a night shot of the parking lot. Not exactly an astronomy photgraph, but well be posting some soon again.

We are still awaiting news on a replacement camera for the observatory camera. They are on back order.



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Test of gotomeeting at observatory

Greg Ozimek and I tested gotomeeting on the pc in the observatory today.

Everything worked out okay. The only drawback to e test was I was unable to get a canon eos utility to work on the pc.

A cheap webcam worked however and provided Greg feedback over the net and control from his remote location over the sky software on the computer and the webcam software.

I tried holding up the webcam to the solar scope with little luck as the webcam is not setup with an alignment tube or device to mount it squarely with the eyepiece.

Overall it was a good daytime test.

I also tried logmein ignition, but it would not work due to firewall and administrative issues. Perhaps to be solved at a later date.

Using both together can provide some really interesting remote observatory and training options.

Tomorrow night we plan on setting up a new model in the mount and learning how to do this from Larry who owns a Losmandy goto mount.

Larry mentioned today on the phone many Losmandy owners practice alignment setup with the mounts 30 times or so indoors before taking them out in the field.




-- Post From My iPhone

Fortunately sky conditions were not that good last time out

I wanted to get up and visit the observatory during last nights rain storm to check again for leaks. I think it might be aa others have suggested, a leak from the shutter. There was water on the step ladder near the shutter. It would have been great to have been inside during the rainstorm, but by the time I made it out much of the rain subsided.

Hopefully I'll catch it the next time or perhaps attack the dome with an oversized super soaker.

I also thought a half a dozen little pails or perhaps a live webcam feed with some lights aimed at the dome would provide a clue as to the exact leak.

I guess there's no substitute for being there.


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On break found another ipad user

Test blog entry


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Location:Ferris Ave,Lincoln Park,United States

Quick survey of sky tonight

The sky wasn't supposed to be that good tonight, but it's warm and I'm out late. . . It looks clear and although I'm really tired and in need of sleep I decided to stop by for a quick look at Mars to see how good conditions look.

Sky conditions were not very good. And as I tried to look at a few objects clouds moved in. I checked the WIFI connection for my laptop at the observatory without any luck. Either the signal was to weak or the setup isn't allowing the laptop through the firewall. I think it's the signal strength. Without some kind of repeater or something in the observatory I doubt we'll be able to connect other laptops. I'm going to have to chat with George about this because I thought he might have been connected, but it may not have been via wifi earlier.

On the positive side Mars was centered even in high powered eyepieces with the current model in the scope, however our model was re-synced to an area near Mars and I didn't have time as it was late to play with the model or see how far off it would be for other objects.

It's great to be outside in the warm weather. I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow but I do.


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Location:Champaign Rd,Lincoln Park,United States

Tim Hortons routers are configured somewhere else

My ipad thinks I'm in Canada





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Ipad review

I'm working on a nice little review at applebees.


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Clody night and I'm at applebees

Test post


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At sprint store at the mall

Test post with friend. This will be deleted later.

Andriod being looked at.


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It's awesome

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The line in front

The line at Apple store


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The line

The line


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I'm going to review a bunch of iPhone apps for astronomy

Over the next few months I plan on reviewing a bunch of iPhone apps that I like to toy with.

Amateur astronomers are gadget freaks and love to play with and sometimes build gadgets.

The iPhone is a great tool for astronomy.

Of course it's more expensive than older technology. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch already and are into astronomy the apps are so affordable, it's almost impossible to not load a few up.

Here's a screenshot of some apps or shortcuts I have on my iPhone for astronomy.

Blogpress
Google earth
Clock GT
NASA 3d sun
Starmap Pro
Star Walk
SkyVoyager
Hector j robinson clear sky chart shortcut
Shortcut to my blog for this observatory.
I'll. Be covering some of these over the next few months.



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Clear sky chart

The clear sky forecast is wrong sometimes.


The Hector j Robinson observatory in Lincoln Park was under mostly overcast skies last night.

The clear sky chart we use actually corresponds with Detroit Michigan.

Check out the clear skies in Detroit today. Photo from New Center overpass aimed toward Dearborn. It's still cloudy in the suburbs, but clear in Detroit.






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Visitor at the observatory

Was able to take a quik look at Orion nebula.


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We are heading out to the observatory

Leaving the executive meeting will be there at about 8 pm.

One of the problems with posting quick blog posts on the iphone continues to be my bad typing skills.

Unfortunately I can't edit the posts on google using the iphone and have to wait until later to edit them.

Hopefully I'll be little more careful with the iphone posts before posting them. Although there is a spell checker sometimes it will choose the wrong word and I may not catch it.

If I was using an iPad with it's bigger screen for on the run posts then I'd likely be spelling a little better. But of course the 3g version of the iPad will be a little pricey and with the data plan for 3g access being $14.99 or $30 a month, that's a little high for online access and posting a few posts to the internet. My thought is the 3g access might be a little over-rated to many at first, because it's adding another bill, like a cable bill or something. A person may not use the iPad on the run as much and may be sitting somewhere, because it's bigger. If they are near an open wifi, then they won't need the 3g access. It would be nice for gps routing while on the road, but it doesn't have a true GPS in it, and it's size might make it a better accessory for a passenger, not the driver. So it's a breakthrough product and could help me with on the fly posts, but it's size limits the quick access.

Another thing of course is the iPad is kind of like a laptop and an iphone, but it's not exactly like either one. Because it doesn't have a built in camera, and that would make it cumbersome, you can't take a quick video and post it. So you're still stuck with a separate camera. I've used an ipod Touch and they are pretty nice, but the iphone with online access is much more usable because obviously a person is on the move and you will not be staying in a wifi zone while moving about.

I hope that the iPad astronomy programs like StarMap Pro for iPad will have a manual over-ride for "location" settings that allows you to plug in the true GPS location and not rely on triangulation. It might not matter that much but it would be nice to have the exact location you are at, and if a serious astronomer has a iPad, they might already have the phone or other GPS co-ordinates and being able to "plug-in" the exact location (just as we can do to a modern goto mount) would be a plus. It might not matter that much for the actual star positions and how they are displayed. If you're off a little bit in your GPS position it might not make that big a deal. After all a few degrees is a long way on the ground but it's not going to change the visual view of the sky on you're display that much.