During a recent private showing of a new traveling display on The Cosmos at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery here in town (the Miami Valley Astronomical Society meets there, and the Museum's Curator of Astronomy is a club member), we had a chance to try out a remote control astrophotography camera. You just select the object to photograph (there are six choices), enter an email address, and when they're ready, you get the pictures emailed to you.

Naturally, I couldn't let this opportunity pass by.

Four of the six pictures I 'took' turned out.
M13
M82
M42
Jupiter and the Galilean Moons (Jupiter itself was bright enough to make the pixels bloom, but the Galilean Moons are plainly visible)
In addition, the specs on all the pictures (camera, time, date, place, exposure, etc etc etc are in a text file here.

Wanna try it yourself?

http://www.microobservatory.org/

Have fun...

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"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.

Thanks Charlie, I'm going to look into that tonight and see what it's all about.

BTW, since you're a binocular expert...my relatively new binocs have a spec in one of the lenses...how did it get in there?? How do I get rid of it or am I stuck? They weren't cheapos and are supposed to be TIGHTLY SEALED and I'm really annoyed. I'm also annoyed that Orion charges $25.90 for a lousy little L-adaptor to mount them on my tripod. No one said astro-supplies were cheap, huh?

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Sunset

Die Sonne scheidet hinter dem Gebirge. In alle Täler steigt der Abend nieder
mit seinen Schatten, die voll Kühlung sind.

Were the binos new? If so, and the speck is objectionable, send 'em back. If you're willing to risk it, and you know where in the optical chain the speck is, you can unscrew things and GENTLY clean 'em (google for what to use and how to do it). A little blop of the paint or flocking or whatever can come loose inside...just for the heck of it, GENTLY shake the binos and see if the speck will come loose and fall somewhere that it's not visible. There are bino repair outfits out there (google -- lots of hits) that will disassemble/clean/purge with nitrogen/reassemble the binos, and for that service also clean out/ream your wallet...bino repair is NOT cheap.

__________________
"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.