Csillag&shy;túra

I took an ESP32 board, with a camera and LCD, and turned it into an autoguiding component for my spectroheliograph setup. Below’s the source code — before you judge it, think about it as an as-is release, half of it written while recording the Sun itself, mostly for fun. Some day in the future I may clean it up. PS: form9 from the printscreen got a decent title.

Note that, for this particular setup featured here:

the ESP32 / OV2640 / ST7789 development board in the picture doesn’t have remaining free pins (maybe if the SPI/I2C buses are tapped into). My solution reports the center of gravity through the serial port.
the EQ3 hand controller originally doesn’t have an ST4 connector

Both limitations from above have been overcome in my particular setup: I rebuilt the EQ3’s controller from the ground up, only the stepper motors are from factory, and it includes a special spectroheliograph scan mode. Both the autoguider and the otherwise standalone embedded device EQ3 controller connect to a desktop app, to the The Soapbox MountPusher Guider assembly. Thus the control is centralized there and Sharpcap, camera cooling, autoguiding etc are all orchestrated in a concert. See the family portrait below.

Some quick photos

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-7

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-4

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-6

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-5

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-2

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-3

2025-02-2x–vnp-esp32cam-solar-autoguider-1

2025.03.13. 100831

english kütyü saját asztrofotóim

The Sun in Helium I D3, spectroheliograph adventures

2024.07.02. admin

The Sun in Helium D3, He I D3

This really feels like standing on the shoulders of giants. I got my Sol’Ex spectroheliograph, and started using it with INTI and JSol’Ex (links below). Long story short, while the Sol’Ex in the plastic feels like a toy, it bends, sags and kinks and twists and vibrates and all, I find it an excellent introduction, and beyond, to solargraphy and spectroscopy. The software? It blows my mind.

csillagászati hírek english kütyü

The Spectral Composer

2024.01.14. admin

I’ve been photographing the Sun for more than two years now almost each and every day, in a bit of a hackish way: using all kinds of filters beyond the 540nm continuum – hydrogen alpha – near UV calcium triad. However, as I advanced, I discovered that this knowledge is simply not common in the community, and not just that, it’s also a bit hard to come by while googling around. Also, to better explain double stacking, off banding and similar stuff, articles like this one Altair Astro’s 3nm CaK Ultra filter: testing, comparison, review are maybe rare.

So I put together an interactive tool to play around with spectra, in a way amateur astronomers find it interesting. The Spectral Composer.

A Nap aktív régiói, szűrő-tesztek

2023.03.24. admin

kütyü saját asztrofotóim

Testing Baader’s solar filters, in the ersatz-obsi

Az elmúlt időszakban, ilyen-olyan okokból az asztrofotós tevékenységem a napkorongra összpontosult. Rengeteg szűrőt fordítottam a Nap felé, ezek egy része kifejezetten Nap-észleléshez készült, másokat inkább kontár, lássuk milyen lesz alapon. A kalcium K vonala természetesen az egyik kedvencem. Most, hogy a Baader kihozta a jól ismert és méltán szeretett 1.25″-ös kalcium K cella második generációs, felújított változatát, gondoltam, gyorsan ki is próbálom, összehasonlítom a régit az újjal, a sokkal keskenyebb sávú (és szélesebb árú) Lunt modullal, és persze más szűrőkkel.

Az asztrofotós munkásságom hobbi, tudományos cél nélkül, a hangulatért, a csillagászat szépségéért és a fotókért készítem ezeket a képeket, ennek megfelelően mateket vagy fizikát ebbe a cikkbe sem fogok írni.

Dióhéjban 1: alig van különbség, de azért mégis.

Dióhéjban 2: teljes napkoronghoz akinek megvan a régi kalcium szűrő, az megtarthatja, vitatható, hogy jobb-e az új filter képe, akkor is, ha a régi filterem több éves. Ennyire jók ezek a filterek, régin is, újonnan is. A borsos árat is figyelembe véve, ezek a kicsi kalcium szűrők nem vehetik fel a versenyt a Lunt sokkal keskenyebb sávú moduljával.

Dióhéjban 2: a Baader Venus U szűrőnek is adjunk egy esélyt, sőt a mélykék szűrőnek is. Van ott még Fraunhofer-vonal, ami szépen mutatkozik kékben is, solar continuum-ban is, sőt még a mélyégre szánt hidrogén alfa filter is mutatja pontosan ezeket az aktív zónákat.

Dióhéjban 3: a Vénusz légköréhez érdekes lehet ez az új kalcium szűrő, hiszen az expozíciós időt megfelezi: hiába névleg keskenyebb a szűrő, egyszerűen több fényt enged be, ami a Vénuszhoz mindenképp kívánatos. Itt alul még a régi kalcium K szűrős kép a Vénuszról, a nagy 2020-as szezonból.

Vénusz 2020-04-05, Baader CaK (gen1) mint cián és zöld mint narancs, bikolor, hamis színes fotó N150/750 tububussal.

The shock wave of the Tonga eruption in the Carpathian Basin

2022.01.20. admin

So let’s visualize the shock wave as it traverses the Carpathian Basin changing the atmospheric pressure. Videos and interactive map below, and what my arduino recorded through its BMP180 senzor, more about it in the videos.

Moto-focuser for my MC 102/1300

2021.11.07. admin

programming programozás

Using my home standard, with the focusing controller mounted into a white box (not to be confused with the soapbox project, which is the auto-guider, also a home standard interfacing with the ST4 on the mount), this is the last tube of mine to be motorized. While the solution leaves no room for one’s head, unless a snail… the solution should work well for planetary photo.

The Chess Clock

2020.12.31. admin

programming programozás

Showing a 5+0 setup, 5 minutes main time with zero increment

At the end of this stupid year, ravaged by GovId-19 too, not just by covid-19, I put together a chess clock. Even though the number of people I can play with physically is really limited — obviously not everyone thinks, like me, that a calculated risk is worth a decent amount of freedom, poor old BF with who does or does not deserve what exactly — I just wanted to put together the clock, cause why not. Although it is a microsoft site, I published the project on github.

One thing a friend of mine noted: the lunch box… I find it one of the greatest challenges about home made gadgets to find the right box for them, without the 3d printer black magic. I also wanted this one to be transparent.

Another thing, more of a philosophical nature: the more I play around with arduinos, the more I realize how much effort went into the whole thing to be easy like a toy, instead of the PITA it could have been, to enable one to really create on top of an abstraction layer, in contrast with such mindfucks as that of manually calculating the value of a register to attain a baudrate on some obscure microcontroller I ran into at work, because libraries, because bootstrapping, and because it’s the business logic we are focused on, not reinventing the wheels of bit counting. Really, it’s almost 2021.

Enkóder-csavarantyú-csere észlelés közben

2020.08.02. admin

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