With the demise of my Canon A1, I was looking for something to replace it, as I have nothing else that shoots 35mm. I came across a Canon P review on Youtube and like the idea of trying a rangefinder. The review mentioned Peter Dechert’s book on the full Canon rangefinder line up from the 1935 Hansa to the 1968 Canon 7s, which seemed a good place to start looking for what model to…
New Toy Alert.
Is this the prettiest modern camera you have ever seen? Well I think so, and if you see that even a year or so after its release, there was and still is, a long waiting list to get your hands on one, then thousands of others think so as well. Even secondhand examples are selling for more than the retail price on Ebay. Bonkers. So, looking at all my other cameras, this seems an…
Olympus Trip Revamp
I’ve had this little puppy since 2010 when I picked it up from a camera shop in Bodmin for the princely sum of £19.00. In 2022 you will need to spend up to anything around £100.00 to get a good one, so not a bad return on my initial investment. Looking at the code printed on the back of the pressure plate, mine was manufactured in December of 1979. The lens seemed to be…
September Solar Observations
Here are my Solar sunspot counts for September. Not as many days as I did in August, but my first month using the same instrument setup and where I feel I have settled on a more consistent method in my observing workflow. A full 30 day solar cycle at 60 Solar Hours a sec rate The following are the drawings made at the eyepiece and are displayed with the Zenith up with the second…
3D Printed Solar Filter
My 3D printed solar filter is complete. Designed in Fusion 360 and printed in PLA on a Flashforge Adventurer 4 I decided to make it in two parts, so the Baader film is clamped between the inner L ring and the outer frame that slides over the dew shield on the scope. Rather than just relying on the clamping effect of the two halves to hold the baader film, I also applied a thin…
A Rubbish Yield
This photo shows the result of what happens when you have a heat wave and no rain of any consequence for over two months. Unlike farmers in the eastern counties whose fields seem to have turned to a golden /grey coloured dried dust bowl, our fields have fared a lot better. The price was still paid and we basically had little or no grass growth over the drought period. This is what our second…
Solar Observing Equipment Update
I’ve had a bit of an upgrade on the Solar scope front. Despite the 150mm aperture the 80mm glass solar filter was stopping the scope to the point, where any magnification above 50X turned the view to a blurry mush. With my current selection eyepieces, I was only able to use some pretty horrible – and very old- Meade 4000 series Plossls in the 26mm to 40mm range. The most obvious way to see…
Images from August 2022
Beats and Roots 4A D Treloar The Redruth The Library Birdie The Potting Shed Scorched La Bicyclette Arthurs Gate Refuge Corporate Snail Mumfords Revisited Cryptic Syncronised Prickly
A bit more Solar
The only good thing to come out of this continuous bout of hot weather and a declared drought is that apparently it has been clear every night for over a week now. While that is fine for my fellow deep sky imager friends, it hasn’t been of any use to me as my own observatory has been decommissioned pending a possible rebuild next year. The only astronomy I’m doing at the moment is variable…
We have Swallows
I was wondering why our car was getting covered in bird poop and here is the reason. They must have started building the nest late in June and this is where they got to when this piccy was take on 7th of July. We checked it from time to time, but there didn’t seem to be any activity up until now in mid August. If you creep in quietly you can see a beak…