Infrared telescope near me9/13/2023 ![]() So, here I am, on the forefront of having acquired some amateur astronomer knowledge, that by February 2017, I should have enough experience to see the night sky, and appreciate the results in near infrared. I learn more and more with every view, and am incredibly honored that those with decades of experience share their wisdom, and intellect with me, without so much as a second thought. And here I am, today, with you, AAAP, learning during our public night viewings, StarQuest, and UACNJ dark sky at Jenny Jump. I figured on 12 to 18 months of learning how to make back yard observations, as a precursor to any prototype building. It seemed particularly important to me, at the time, to think that since I worked with an IR sensor, that I could do IR astronomy. Not for the weak of heart, I suppose.īack to the failure…When I came to terms that I could not image the underside of cloud cover, with my current build, I though of repurposing my prototype. The breadboard PDF looks dandy, but the wiring is a mess. And I have published the data on the web. Also, I stood on the shoulders of giants that had previously programmed the libraries of my chosen devices – which cut down on development time, immensely. Here is a brief: I utilized a Melexis infrared sensor, two barometric and temperature sensors (to average out any errors), and some insight from a children’s web page sponsored by NASA to better understand dew point. You can search YouTube for mrtfrimet, or Arduino Cloud Height Sensor, and find the three videos that discuss this in detail. I built a prototype that measures cloud height. However, during the project, I had decided to measure cloud height. Too wide a viewing angle for any one sensor, it appears, is a failure for this application. The array soldering process was troublesome and painstakingly difficult, and before I could finish the array – A friend of mind quietly pointed out that the sensors I was employing could not possibly work in the fashion that I had designed. I was going to image the underside of cloud formations using a small grid of light sensitive resistors. The failure wasn’t in trying to measure barometric’s. But you got to agree, at least it got me thinking. You could shoot holes through the aforementioned hypothesis. A year later, I would be viewing sun spots (as I learned – at the lowest level of possible observation during the current cycle) and thinking of cloud formations as a result of those same solar observations. And of course, silly me started to think of photonics pressure, from outside of our atmosphere shaping the clouds. And I started to think of where those pressure waves were coming from. I then, thought, rather naively, that there were pressure waves that were forming clouds, directly overhead. And thought that the pressure reading I was observing was the direct consequence of pressure – right over my house. The story goes, that one day, as I was pondering the output of a BMP180 (barometric/pressure /temperature /altitude etc. ![]() It was the result of a failure, actually. Ok, not so, “real world”, however LED’s, LCD’s as output devices, and temperature and barometric pressures sensors, as input devices, count as “real”, don’t they ?īy the end of November 2015, I had cobbled together a poor mans LIDAR prototype. Step by step, I learned how to program an Arduino and to control real world devices. I was wowed and amazed that during my lifetime, I could interact with a technology that was not only understandable, but also very affordable. It was over three years ago when I stumbled upon micro-controllers, specifically the Arduino and its derivatives. So, with that in mind, I thank you, once again. What is really very cool, is that AAAP has provided a place, where some, or all of this text becomes web searchable, and may become the jumping off point for some young minds. This may appear to be word salad to some, or a very appetizing main course for a few. I must apologize, up front I compose most of my writing, and dialogue in stream of consciousness. And that got my attention, and I hope I got yours.Īs my article on how to build a near infrared telescope is really very brief, I’d like to take more time, and invest you in my history of how I arrived at this point. And right out of the gate they designated infrared astronomy, as no-go territory for any amateur. What really happened was that I stumbled upon their article, on infrared astronomy. Ok, so maybe it isn’t so fair of me to say, I said “no” to Cal-Tech.
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