By Douglas Bullis Douglas Bullis has lived all over the world in search of perfect skies. He finally retired in the arid Karoo highlands of South Africa, one of the three or four darkest regions in the world. After a forty-year career writing books about business, world cultures, art, and […]
With each new advancement in the technology available to amateur astronomers, the line between amateur and professional – already barely distinguishable – is further blurred. There may be no better example than the feats of the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search (with the enviable acronym, “BOSS”). Boss represents an amateur collaboration […]
The SBIG STXL series is a high performance astro imaging platform supporting large format CCD sensors. It includes support for self-guiding filter wheels, and the AO-X adaptive optics accessory. The STXL-11002M uses the popular 35 mm, 11 megapixel KAI-11002 sensor. The STXL-16200 is a 16 megapixel, APS format camera. The […]
Field Tested Systems was established by Tom Field in 1995 to work directly with leading STEM educators, curriculum experts and scientists to create learning tools that are both effective and economical. Its latest product, a Periodic Table of Spectra, is a prime example of its focus on education. The table […]
Unihedron SQM-LU-DL: The names Unihedron and have become synonymous with measurement of sky brightness. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a Sky Quality Meter tool that has had greater impact on quantification of local light pollution. Unihedron’s original SQM set the standard and has since evolved into a comprehensive range of […]
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has the potential of revolutionizing every industry whose products incorporate physical components, by delivering mass customization and eliminating cost-prohibitive set up and production complexity. It was only a matter of time before the benefits of 3D printing were deployed in the manufacture of custom telescopes […]
By Mark Zaslove Mark Zaslove is a two-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the coveted Humanitas Prize. Mark is a born-again astro noobie, who once had an Optical Craftsman scope as a kid, and is now recapturing his youthful enthusiasm (with a digital twist) and having a lovely time […]
By Gary Parkerson, Managing Editor of Astronomy Technology Today Telescope Support Systems’ website describes the company as, “… founded by a pair of guys who live and breathe astrophotography. Between us, we have over 40 years of experience. While we currently shoot with CCDs and DSLRs, a peek in our […]
The MallinCam Micro Series camera is a small video CCD camera capable of 1/100,000 all the way up to 17 seconds exposure, making these cameras versatile with any object to be viewed live on a monitor. MallinCam has now announced that the Micro Series is now available as a complete […]
Clear Sky Lab’s AstroPiBox, a French-language autonomous autoguiding platform, is based upon the Raspberry Pi Linux platform. Recently released out of beta, the platform leverages the Raspberry Pi for autoguiding, offering several distinct advantages: (1) Power consumption of only a few watts, which makes it possible to use a portable […]
The 2017 Total solar eclipse on August 21 promises to be a once in a lifetime event and many people will lean heavily on their smartphones to participate in the eclipse. In our article – Using a Smartphone to Photograph the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse – we covered a number […]
Deep-Astro Instruments had a couple of seemingly mundane goals in mind when designing its new line of Dobs: They had to be easy to transport and to set up, plus they needed to be accurate and robust. The resulting telescopes, though, are, as you shall see, far from mundane. Indeed, […]