Category: Uncategorized

  • Micro-Manager on the Raspberry Pi

    Micro-Manager on the Raspberry Pi

    Micro-manager guru Kyle M. Douglass recently posed his implementation of micro-manager on a raspberry Pi 3. Very cool potential here, considering when the computing power of the pi is exceeded for a given application, one could just add more for $45! I’d imagine that memory handling issues related to image capture would be the biggest…

  • An awesome gerber viewer for OSX

    An awesome gerber viewer for OSX

    While there are a few viewing tools available for OSX, I’ve been looking for something that was higher quality, and more configurable. Today I stumbled upon Cuprum. This viewer supports layering, export of user-configured views, some good print options and other stuff. It’s $13 on the Mac App store, and well worth it IMHO.  …

  • Largest Image of the sky ever taken

    Largest Image of the sky ever taken

    The Pan-STARRS observatory released this single image of the entire night sky, in late Dec. Amazing! An 11MB download is available here. Reference – http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/info/press-releases/panstarrs_release/ -Austin

  • Build a Stratux in 10 minutes! (ADS-B)

    Build a Stratux in 10 minutes! (ADS-B)

    As the 2020 FAA mandate for ADS-B comes upon us, more aircraft are using the ADS-B system. Additionally, weather transmission via towers is a major free source of in-flight weather info. Having recently picked up a new iPad, and subscribing to FireFlight, I decided it was time to add the ability to see ADS-B traffic,…

  • Dynamic Mirror Reflection Angles using Fusion360

    Dynamic Mirror Reflection Angles using Fusion360

    SO I’ve been working with AutoDesk’s Fusion360 for a while now, and have found it to be an exceptional tool for diving into CAD. If you’ve considered CAD before, but have been scared off by the learning curve, I recommend checking it out. One of the important functions of a truly parametric CAD program is…

  • Automated Capture and Save script for Micro-Manager

    Automated Capture and Save script for Micro-Manager

    I wrote this for a client, but figured others could make use of it. This code simply captures a number of images as defined by the user, and saves them to the specified folder without displaying them. This is useful if you don’t want all of the images open in memory during a timelapse. Simple…

  • DIY emission filter for observer safety

    DIY emission filter for observer safety

    I can’t believe I missed this excellent post from Sam Lord @ Everyday Scientist on how to insert an emission filter on your ocular lightpath. Having been hit by some untold number scopes wherein I either was observing, and switched to a no-emission-filter spot on the dichroic turret, or where I was observing and for…

  • Merry Christmas!

    Merry Christmas!

    Figured I’d post another SEM shot of a snowflake. These never cease to amaze!

  • Experimental FM transmitter using Raspberry Pi 2

    Experimental FM transmitter using Raspberry Pi 2

    If you have an extra Raspberry pi around and want to try something fun, you can use the GPIO on the pi to transmit at FM frequencies. For the rPi v1 you can use this link for instructions. For Raspberry Pi2 I found a great application which can be run from the command line, called…

  • Site Updated!

    Site Updated!

    What do you think of the new site layout? I was looking for a simple, clean interface that works well on conventional and mobile browsers. Hopefully, I’ve found it. If anyone has recommendations, please feel free to comment!