The Astrotron is the result of an initial small bit of inspiration, followed by lots of feature additions, and then finally conversion into something that I can share with other dark-sky enthusiasts.
Basically, the Astrotron tells you what you need to know about the sky for shooting deep space objects (photos, I mean) or making telescopic observations – how dark is it, really, and is the weather co-operating – as well as providing considerable insight into the northern auroral conditions. You can take a look at the prototype here.
The project is as portable as I can make it (if you have suggestions to improve this, by all means, send them to me – see the readme file.) However, you’ll still need some skills to get a local version running. You need to be able to create cron table entries; you’ll need either an OS X system or a Linux system hosting a webserver, and last (but certainly not least) you’ll need to be able to follow the instructions in the install file.
Please read the readme and install files before you download the project. Make sure you really want to do this and can dedicate some time to it; I can’t walk you through it — you’re going to need some skills and some competence. I will answer emails about it, but again… tips are one thing, I can’t “be there” to help you, I’ve huge demands on my time as it is. Thanks for looking!
Files:
![fyngyrz posted a photo: The map location here shows where I was when I took the photo, rather than the photo itself. I was looking west (obviously) from the north end of the church parking lot which itself is north of Bonnie Street, and south of Airport Road. I jockeyed around until I had the sun completely behind the radar housing, and then shot a few shots at different exposures, hoping that the 50D's dynamic range would catch the gradation in the sky; it did ok, but I still wish we had another couple of high quality bits of dynamic range. Maybe the next camera generation will go there. Canon EOS 50D [modified IR response in Hα range], hooded Sigma EF-S 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM prime [ø62mm] w/B&W 62mm IR/UV cut filter #65-014691; RAW to JPEG conversion and editing in Aperture 3.](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4912161604_6cd46bace2_m.jpg "fyngyrz posted a photo: The map location here shows where I was when I took the photo, rather than the photo itself. I was looking west (obviously) from the north end of the church parking lot which itself is north of Bonnie Street, and south of Airport Road. I jockeyed around until I had the sun completely behind the radar housing, and then shot a few shots at different exposures, hoping that the 50D's dynamic range would catch the gradation in the sky; it did ok, but I still wish we had another couple of high quality bits of dynamic range. Maybe the next camera generation will go there. Canon EOS 50D [modified IR response in Hα range], hooded Sigma EF-S 30mm ƒ/1.4 EX DC HSM prime [ø62mm] w/B&W 62mm IR/UV cut filter #65-014691; RAW to JPEG conversion and editing in Aperture 3.")
#1 by Kunal Chattaraj on August 2, 2010 - 11:37 pm
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Hi, I’d like to commend you for writing this very useful little program (Discovered it while reading your recent comments on ./ ) Thanks a lot. Also, really liked your photostream on Flickr. Fantastic!
#2 by admin on August 3, 2010 - 12:29 am
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Thank you very much; you’re very kind.