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Discussion (52 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Maybe I'm being too much of a purist because late model smart telescopes now allow you to grab the raw FITS files so the relative value of a fully open ecosystem is lower, but I'm trying to build towards the motivated teenager segment: someone who maybe has a Seestar or has seen one, and wants to have that experience, but wants to own it themselves and actually understand what's happening. I have the mechanics mostly working in Alt-Az mode, EQ mode is currently accomplished using a hinged plywood board fashioned into the world's shittiest polar alignment wedge, and now I'm working on figuring out how/where to source good enough optics. I have already learned a whack-ton designing the thing, and I hope that in the future the build will be interesting and informative enough for others to get a bunch of experience in Astrophotography for very little money.
You can buy the sensors used in a lot of these telescopes for <50USD on Aliexpress, the drive mechanics and electronics are ~80, and then all you should need (hopefully) is a cheapo Raspberry Pi 3 or equivalent, putting the total BOM at under 200 bucks. I'm hoping that by early next year I'll have something presentable and we can start building an open source ecosystem to compete with these very impressive but very heavily integrated instruments.
Idk, to me this feels like I'd be so removed from the entire process that it doesn't feel like it is my image anymore.
Somewhat poor analogy, but these smart telescopes feel similar to bringing in CNC center for someone enjoying woodworking. Sure, it might be very efficient in manufacturing the end result and it is kinda neat that there are cheap options from china available. But it also removes the whole enjoyment of the craft, working with hand tools and what not.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYJwgEwxG-U
If you want to get into astronomy, he has a few good beginner advice videos:
* 101 books/binoculars/telescopes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IlmekWsEAQ
* some more books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhbAEx2le7o
The astrophotography/live viewing split in astronomy is interesting. For me, the whole reason I do backyard astronomy is to find the objects myself and observe directly, to the point where even using an app like Stellarium feels a bit like cheating.
Personally, I have no computers, phones or any electronic crap when I'm observing the sky. Just me and a manual telescope.
I look at the sky to get away from all that shite.
That was the right thing to do!
But removing the solar filter right at the moment of totality is such an edge case (both for the software and my wetware which was kind of overwhelmed) that I wonder how others dealt with it?
I'm also wondering about the feasibility of taking these gizmos on airplanes, what with the Lithium battery packs, etc.
What we really need (for some definition of need) is a robot-filter-remover, timed to deal with the two critical times (first and last instant of totality; 2nd and 3rd contacts from memory). Anybody out there interested in building something like that? It would be purely a passion project, because it could only be used a few times a decade...
So I have to ask - am I getting a more "genuine" viewing experiencing? Are stacking and perhaps AI enhancements reflecting the real night sky? Or is SeeStar/iPhone/Pixel output drifting more towards generative art?
With photos you can have a longer exposure and see things too faint for the naked eye, not just too small. I'd guess that's what's happening here. You could very probably blow this smart cam out of the water with pictures taken through your telescope. Especially if you can have it track whatever you're shooting to allow very long exposures
There are some night-vision eyepieces which boost contrast and lightness - really cool but also pretty expansive.
> am I getting a more "genuine" viewing experiencing? That's a nearly philosophical question and the answer is yes and no. You will be able to see object you normally would not and the image you get is correct in the way that colors for example represent certain gases, so they are not fake, but also not realistic in the way of how you would see it with your naked eye.
With an 8 inch dob, things like globular clusters are going to look granular and pretty amazing in reasonably dark skies. Similar for bright nebula.
But, yes, it's a philosophical question.
> Gradient correction. Noise reduction. Separating stars and nebula. Stretching the faint structures carefully. Working on contrast and colour. Putting everything back together.
A small piece of feedback: it is a really interesting article, but also quite grating to read. I'm guessing you used AI to review/edit, and it seems to have added a lot of filler and coated the piece with its own writing style.
I found a pre-AI post much more pleasant to read: https://adfr.io/thoughts/20240207_time_travel
Well, I bought a used 8 inch (203mm) telescope for 500€ a few years ago. Used telescopes can be very cheap.
Saying all that to expand on how the wide field or not is an important decision. If you primarily think of a telescope giving detailed magnified views of the moon or similar, then you will not be happy with a wide field regardless of how powerful of an eyepiece you use.
Not to say anything negative about the author though, im sure this took a long time to put together whether it was written with ai or not. But I definitely noticed those ai-isms
As such, you cannot be sure if the writing contains correct and accurate information at all, even with modern models.
how is that related to LLMs?
They are out of stock unfortunately, though perhaps the pro is worth the higher price.