On March 29, 2008, I received the ARRL DXCC Certificate for confirmed contacts with at least 100 DXCC entities in Mixed Mode. All QSLs were submitted via the ARRL’s Logbook of the World (LOTW) electronic QSL system. In all, I submitted 106 mixed mode contacts for this award. A scan of the certificate is shown below:
Here’s a link to some photos taken at the Fantasy of Flight museum on November 23, 2007. This collection of aircraft is the largest privately owned collection in the world and is based near Lakeland, FL. Clicking on the link below each image brings up a larger representation of the framed photo.
During my November 7-10 trip to Chiefland, I received and started working with the 11″ Starmaster telescope that I purchased from another CAV member, Dave Gracey. Below is a photograph of the scope (click on the image to view a larger presentation):
This telescope has a full-thickness Carl Zambuto 11″ f/5.4 primary mirror. It also comes with the Sky Commander digital setting circle encoders and computer, Astro Systems secondary mirror heater, 2-speed 2″ JMI Crayford collimatable focuser, 2″-to-1.25″ eyepiece adapter, 12-volt 3.3 amp-hour gel cell battery, and Telrad finder. In addition to the scope, I also purchased three Televue eyepieces: 27mm Panoptic, 16mm Type 5 Nagler, 9mm Type 6 Nagler. More purchases of eyepieces and collimation tools to follow…
After a rather dismal spell of Florida weather in September, the skies cleared for a great three night stay in Chiefland around the October New Moon. I arrived on Thursday, October 11 and stayed until Sunday, October 14. During these three nights I was able to collect data for the objects shown below. This was my first outing with my new SBIG ST-402ME camera and E-finder lens that I ‘m using as an external guide camera. Upon examination of the subframes, I found that I have a slight drift problem that I believe to be a differential flexure problem. I believe the bulk of this problem is coming from the imaging scope being too loose in the Parallax rings and slipping as the scope tracks toward the zenith. I will correct this particular problem by the next New Moon weekend and then re-evaluate the subframes for any additional flexure issues.
M1 - The Crab Nebula:
This shot is composed of eight 10-minute luminance frames plus five 10-minute (each filter) RGB frames. Below is the link to the image information page:
http://www.astroham.com/m1_02.html
M33 - The Triangulum Galaxy:
This shot is composed of thirteen 10-minute luminance frames plus five 10-minute (each filter) RGB frames. Below is the link to the image information page:
http://www.astroham.com/m33_01.html
IC-405 - The Flaming Star Nebula (Hydrogen-Alpha):
This shot is composed of twelve 15-minute H-Alpha frames. Below is the link to the image information page:
http://www.astroham.com/ic405_01.html
NGC 7293- The Helix Nebula:
This shot is composed of nine 10-minute luminance frames plus five 10-minute (each filter) RGB frames. Below is the link to the image information page:
Here are a few images I collected during the early morning total lunar eclipse of August 28. Here in central Florida only the first half of the eclipse was visible with the Moon setting during the total phase. All images were taken with my Olympus E-500 DSLR using the Olympus 40 mm to 150 mm zoom lens.
The first image is a montage (assembled using Photoshop) of 12 images taken at 5-minute intervals. Each image was taken at ISO 200 and f/11 at a focal length of 150 mm. The first nine images were taken at a shutter speed of 1/200 second, the tenth and eleventh images were taken at 1/100 second, and the last image was taken at 1/60 second.
Click here to view full-size image.
The second image is of the totally eclipsed Moon. This image is taken at ISO 200, f/5.6, 2 second exposure, at 150 mm. This image is a section of the full image cropped with Photoshop.
Click here view the full-size image.
The third image is a wide-field shot of the totally eclipsed Moon taken from the north side of the Melbourne Causeway. This image is taken at ISO 200, f/5.6, 4 second exposure, at 57 mm.
The following images of the crescent Moon were taken using my Olympus E-500 DSLR and Olympus Zuiko 40mm to 150mm zoom lens stabilized using a tripod.
Image 1:
Click Here for a Larger Presentation of this Image.
Image 2:
Click Here for a Larger Presentation of this Image.
Image 3:
After purchasing a used copy of Jerry Lodriguss’ “A Guide to Astrophotography with Digital SLR Cameras” off of Astromart, I began looking into the possibilities of using my Olympus E-500 camera for some wide field imaging. The following image is my first attempt. This image captures the Pleiades area of the constellation Taurus with the planet Mars to the lower right of the “Seven Sisters”. This image is one 60 second shot at ISO 400 and f/5.6. The lens used was my Olympus Zuiko 25mm to 45mm zoom set at 35mm. The camera was piggyback mounted on my Takahashi TSA-102 refractor riding on the Takahashi EM200 Temma II German equatorial mount. All processing was done in Photoshop including the subtraction of one 60 second dark frame along with levels, curves, saturation, and brightness/contrast adjustments. This image was not very well focused and doesn’t show much detail (still working on the focusing procedure) so the image presented is 25% of the original.
Almost immediately after posting the blog entry describing the upgrade of my radio computer (http://www.astroham.com/wordpress/?p=50), I started getting random reboots of the computer accompanied by System Errors. From analysis of the reported errors, I soon suspected that I was seeing failures in the Corsair 512MB DRAM module. As a check, I removed the new 512MB module and installed a compatible 256MB module that I had lying around from when I increased the memory in my Dell desktop from 256MB to 1GB. This switch completely resolved the System Errors/rebooting issue.
After making sure the problem didn’t return for three or four days, I called newegg.com and requested a replacement module. Two days later, the new module arrived but before installing the new module, I replaced the suspected failing module and ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic (http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asptest) off a bootable 3.5″ disk. Sure enough, the module eventually began to fail - just a few failures at first but it later started failing almost every test. Eventually, I racked up over 2000 failures during 21 passes of the memory test and all failures were showing up in the high byte of the 32-bit memory words.
Having determined that the original 512MB memory stick was bad for sure, I installed the replacement 512MB memory stick and reran the Windows Memory Diagnostic test. After running 36 passes of the test with no failures, I then allowed the computer to boot normally and now, days later, have not seen a repeat of the System Error failure.
The following image of the remnants from the Space Shuttle (STS-118) exhaust plume was taken from my house using an Olympus E-500 DSLR. This photo is a composite of two images stitched together in Photoshop. The two photos were taken at 8:20pm or about 1 hour and 45 minutes after launch (6:36pm). The launchpad is due north of my location and the center of this image is slightly north of due west. The particulars of this image are:
Click here to view a larger image (warning - file size is 401kb)
For several years now I have been using an older desktop computer (purchased in April 2000) at my radio. Within the last year, this computer has developed several problems:
After these problems were fixed, I was still left with a terribly slow system that utilized a Pentium III processor working at 600MHz with 128MB of RAM that was not compatible with the new Vista operating system. Also, the system had no onboard LAN capability so I used a USB-to-Ethernet adapter that I happened to have on hand for my internet connection. Plus the two USB ports were low speed USB 1.0 compatible and the existing motherboard provides no Serial ATA drive capability.
Faced with these inadequacies and a desire to ultimately build my own computer, I began researching possible motherboard/CPU replacements for this system. Driving this research was the desire to upgrade the motherboard and CPU for the least amount of money but still give me the performance that I would like and need for controlling my radio station and for performing basic work on the internet. I finally came across an article written by Norm Higgs:
http://forbiddenpc.blogspot.com/2007/07/build-your-own-pc-for-400.html
This article formed the basis for my upgrade path. As described in this article, I finally decided to purchase the following items:
All items were purchased from newegg.com and came to a total of $103.81 with shipping. When the items arrived, I removed the case power supply then started disconnecting all connections to the old motherboard. After removing the old motherboard and IO shield, I inserted the new IO shield then figured out where to move the motherboard standoffs to accommodate the new motherboard with its mini-ATX form factor. (The old motherboard had the ATX form factor.) The case had the correct holes for the mini-ATX board so I just had to move the standoffs to the new position.
After installing the motherboard into the case and checking the fit with the IO shield, I installed the new Sempron processor into the 754 socket and then worked on installing the heat-sink/CPU fan over the processor. I ended up having alot of trouble getting the heat sink to latch over the processor and was forced to remove the motherboard from the case to complete this installation. After finally, getting the heat-sink/CPU fan assembly firmly attached to the CPU, I installed the single 512MB dual in-line memory module (DIMM) then installed the motherboard back into the case. Finally, I made all the connections from the existing hard drive, CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, front panel switches and lights and replaced the ATX power supply. After connecting main motherboard power, CPU power, and power to all periphery components, I powered the unit up and found that I had connected the main front panel power switch backwards. I corrected this problem then started reloading the operating system and software.
Several days later now, I am very happy with the results of my motherboard/CPU replacement. I now have an adequately fast system that has good upgrade capabilities (SATA drive, graphics board) and is Vista compatible. In addition to faster CPU, faster front-side bus, and faster (plus more) mai
