It's called "prime focus"

I'm still battling with clouds!!! I have yet to take a single photo, without a cloud obscuring my vision!

Getting a handle on the webcam settings!

Best thing this far, is "prime focus". Which basically means - you have no secondary lens, only a primary. It seems to work rather well! Registax certainly likes it a lot more.

There is of course some minor touching up being done (unsharp mask, change to b&w - and dropping images down to 320x240 from 640x480)

Getting better already....

I've been reading up on astrophotography a bit.

Modified my logitech webcam to have a bit of a nicer fit. Used framestacking with Registax
It also helped that it wasn't AS cloudy. But I'm still taking photos through clouds.

First time!

Not much to look at. But this is my first photo, taken with a webcam. With this, I now officially have become a webcam astrophotographer.

For the technically inclined, it was taken with a crappy 4" newtonian telescope, with the moon low on the horizon, and partially obscured by clouds. (It's been raining for weeks!) I still have to find the exact specs of the webcam...

I'm still waiting for my kick ass celestron to be delivered, so I got frustrated, and starting playing with toys that I can hook up to it.

Digital vs. Analog

Finally got round to developing the pictures I took with my Olympus.

Given the amount of photos I took with digital - vs analog, and given the amount of them that came out good - analog feels like it still has the edge for me.

That said - out with the old, in with the digital!!!

Day at the Zoo

I spent a good part of the day at the Pretoria (now Tshwane) Zoo - the goal was to take photos.



Along with my ineptitude at taking photos, and the bad light... I didn't take any photos I can say I'm impressed with.



Part of it was to just make the day go faster. (problems)



Still - despite it all - the Pretoria Zoo sure is an impressive place. The biggest Zoo I've ever been in.


Took along an old old old SLR - still have to develop the photos.

Tswaing / Soutpan / Impact Crater

Went to Tswaing on Saturday. It's one of the best preserved meteor craters in the world. About 200 000 years old.

Presumably, it has been used as a source for salt for whatever indigenous people were there at the time. There is certainly evidence of recent iron age usage. More recently, in the 1930's it was the focus of an industrialized salt extraction process. Luckily - whatever damage caused by salt mining is not visible within the crater - the African bush is quick to remove the marks of man.



50km north of Pretoria. You drive past Soshanguve, head up into a small nature reserve, take a small hike - and BAM. There it is. You really don't see what it is, until you walk up onto the rim.

Where to fly a kite

Flew my kite - FINALLY!



At the ultimate kite flying location; S 25.97285 ; E 28.17670 (Just mind the rc gliders!!!)



We did try the park again - but it just didn't gel.

Communication - much arch enemy

I don't just strugle to communicate with other humans on a day to day basis using my mouth speaking device - I strugle with all manner of communication.

1) Vocal mouth speaking thing - I make the sounds, people don't understand
2) Cellphone a) "can you repeat that please, you're breaking up" b) my voice mail doesn't work - I can't get it to work - no matter what I do - the network refuses my commands
3) Broadband - a mysterous error that happens to only ONE iburst subscriber. Me. Only me. I went to UUNET HQ - and it started working again. This sucks!

Association, Aggregation and Composition

It's too much for me little brain!!!

The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code

So yes - basically - I think this is the way. You want your project to work. This is it.

I'm not too sure about this one though: (Point 11) Do new candidates write code during their interview?

The thing is - if he has a BSc Comp Sci.... you can probably trust him.... If he doesn't - yes - interview the guy.

Also - worked with a guy who was really good - was once asked to write code and walked out of the interview because his opinion is after all his degrees and experience it's an insult to be asked to write code.

I think - test the monkeys - the guys you aren't sure about - the guys who don't have degrees - see if they are up to scratch,