XMAS Toys --- For me!

[Old CW4]

What the hey. I'm pushing 80 not too far down the road so I splurged for my own Xmas and birthday this fall. My checkbook is cringing and trying to hide but I am now the happy owner of:

1. A Canon EOS 7-D with two lenses, spare battery, wireless and corded shutter releases, gadget bag, etc. Man! What a camera, 18 plus megapixels and a joy to use! I have to take my hat off to Canon engineering because this gem is totally simple to use in full auto modes, yet includes every complex feature imaginable in an easy to understand fashion combined with a menu system that is, for lack of a better word, remarkable in its utility and ease of use. Also came with several software packages for downloading, touchup, and so on. I highly recommend the package. The best camera by far I have yet owned.

2. A full up, top of the line Toshiba laptop with 18.4 inch display, a terrabyte of hard drives, wireless mouse, blue ray, wireless this and that, Windows Seven with bells and whistles, and so on. I'll be weeks trying to master this beast but what the heck?

I plan to combine both the Canon camera and the Toshiba laptop into my astronomy equipment. I have software which will enable the laptop to control both telescope tracking and camera imaging so it will be a challenge to get all that working together.

That whole suite can then be mated with my cell phone so I can stay in the warm house and operate the entire system while viewing what the scopes see on my large screen tv. Hey, it's damned cold outside this time of year. Nice clear nights and great star gazing but not when the temps are not too far above zero...

 

[gajinoz]

I have this great idea, why not bring all that stuff, especially the telescope, over here to Sunny Oz. I can give you really black skies, no annoying city lighting and so on. You get to see a bunch of stars you won't see from your place and you'll have a great time. Your scope motor will turn the wrong way but, what the hell, maybe we can rewire the bloody thing.


I'm full of good ideas.



.

 

[338375]

Congrats on the goodies... It sounds like you will get plenty of use out of them

 

[wildmanh]

I have this great idea, why not bring all that stuff, especially the telescope, over here to Sunny Oz. I can give you really black skies, no annoying city lighting and so on. You get to see a bunch of stars you won't see from your place and you'll have a great time. Your scope motor will turn the wrong way but, what the hell, maybe we can rewire the bloody thing.


I'm full of good ideas.



.

LOL!! Loved your post!

 

[ROCK6]

Congrats! Who says you can't teach "Old Chiefs" new tricks or at least play with new toys

ROCK6

 

[fugawee]

What the hey. I'm pushing 80 not too far down the road ...

DAD! Is that you!!!???


Got some great goodies there Chief
Enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Hope you can get some pics to share with us here.






(USS Independence 79-82)

 

[Old CW4]

wildmanh.....! Nice to meet you there in UT. I was the resident intel special agent at Dugway from 74 through late 80, almost seven years, so I know those fantastic Utah night skies very well. At that time, we had a team of scientists from the UK on the 'safe' side of the base doing a cosmic ray study. Those guys told me they regularly 'damn near froze to death laying on the ground outside their test trailers sky watching because the nights skies viewed there were so far beyhond anything they'd ever seen in the UK or Europe.' I can believe it. You don't know what the Milky Way is until you've seen it from rural Utah skies, truly fantastic. I wasn't a total star nut in those days so I froze my backside off in the early spring watching the mating flights of the Golden Eagles, something impossible to describe unless you've seen it. I don't know about today but Utah in the 70s was a nature lover's paradise.