A Darker View

Full Moon

Full Moon will occur today at 14:05HST.

I have been messing about with electronic circuitry for almost four decades. I recently came across an early example of my work. The device is a digital event counter built around classic 74xx series logic. A chain of 74190 decade counters feed a set of 7447 decoder drivers and seven segment LED displays. A plastic project case with switches and connectors reminds me I have been building little devices for a very long time.

A Digital Event Counter — A digital event counter built when I was fifteen years old.

In some ways the unit is very similar to one of my more recent builds. Perfboard and point-to-point wiring are still standard construction techniques. The technology may have changed across the years, becoming far more complex, but some parts have remained the same.

Continue reading “An Old Project”

Universe Gallery

Markarian's Chain — The galaxies of the Virgo Cluster, including M84, M86 and M87, Canon 6D and TV-76mm, 10x240s+10x60s+10x15s

Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae — The Lagoon, M8 and the Trifid, M20 nebulae in Sagittarius

M46 & NGC2438 — The open cluster M46 and the planetary nebula NGC2438 in Puppis, 32 x 1min exposures with the AT6RC and Canon 20Da

The galaxies M81 & M82 with SN2014J seen in the disk M82 at top

M22 or NGC6656 in Sagittarius, a classic globular cluster, AT6RC and Canon 60D 20x4min @ ISO2000

Omega Centauri, NGC5139, sum of 31 x 1min exposures, AT6RC and Canon 60D

Comet C/2013 R1 Lovejoy on Nov 15, 2013. Canon 6D with the AT6RC and a 0.8x focal reducer. 12 x 60s at ISO 6400.

144P/Kushida — Comet 144P Kushida passing through heavy starfield in Taurus on the evening of 15 Feb 2009, stack of 10 x 4min exposures with a Canon 20Da and TV-76mm

The Orion Nebula — NGC1976 or M42, the Great Orion Nebula, sum of 113 frames at 35x5min, 38x1min, 20x20sec, and 20x5sec. Taken with the Canon 20Da and a AT6RC telescope.

Comet C/2007 N3 Lulin on the evening of 26 Feb 2009, a stack of 10 x 4 min exposures, Canon 20Da and TeleVue 76mm APO

Double Cluster — The open clusters NGC869 and NGC884 in Perseus, 20x240s exposures Canon 20Da and TV-76mm

M6 The Butterfly Cluster — M6, the Butterfly Cluster, 9 x 1min Canon 60D and AT6RC

M42, The Orion Nebula, Canon 6D and TV-76mm, 16x240s+10x60s+10x15s @ISO6400

The Pleiades, M45, a sum of 26 x 100s luminance frames and 5 x 100s RGB images assembled as an LRGB image, ST2K and 80mm APO

Galactic Center — The galactic center region on the Sagittarius-Scorpius border

The Rosette Nebula, NGC2237, NGC2238, NGC2244, NGC2246, Canon 6D and TV-76mm, 10x240s+10x60s+10x15s @ISO6400

M9 and B64 — The globular cluster M9 next to the dark nebulae B64

Open Source Hardware Logo for Eagle

I am preparing to release a design under the Open Source Hardware Association definition. By releasing a design this way you allow the electronic maker community to freely share and use the design. When following the community rules for open hardware, you can mark your equipment with the open source hardware logo. The logo itself is released under a Creative Commons licence (CC-SA) and is likewise free to copy and use, if you follow the rules.

While the OSHWA website links the logo in KiCAD and several other formats, it does not provide the logo in Eagle format. Off to the web to find an Eagle library with the logo… Hmmm… Found one, but it has issues.

The Open Source Hardware Association logo

There are a couple versions out there on the web. The one most commonly found to was created by NBitWonder. This has a couple issues… While it is very faithful to the official logo it is built from thousands of apertures. Running the CAM processor on it chokes, and chokes hard. While the PCB may take a couple seconds to process the CAM without it, place this logo on the PCB and be prepared to take several minutes to process the CAM. With the NBitWonder version the file sizes grow significantly as you would expect. My GenPIC PCB overlay Gerber file grows from 16kb to over 250kb to accommodate the logo.

Continue reading “Open Source Hardware Logo for Eagle”

A Darker View

Remnant

Eclipse!

Full Moon

An Old Project

Universe Gallery

Open Source Hardware Logo for Eagle

Gecko Frustration

Shrooms

Servers

Submillimeter Fog