Astronomy

A variety of "open" tools for optical and radio astronomy.

People in astronomy have been sharing electronics information for a long time.

Some people use a motor driver to point the telescope in the right location.

cooling

 * main: cooling

Both radio and optical astronomy seems to work better when the receiver is cold.


 * A Temperature Controlled Head Amplifier for 408MHz Radio Astronomy
 * Peltier Cooler for DSLR. A temperature reduction of 12 'C apparently reduces the CCD dark current by a factor of 4.
 * 
 * This Web Cam Autoguiding thread also mentions Peltier cooling
 * "Noise Experiment #5: Peltier Cooler" describes more or les directly bolting a Peltier to the bottom of a DSLR camera.
 * "DSLR Peltier Coolbox"
 * "Is it more efficient to stack two Peltier modules or to set them side by side?"
 * "Thermistor control of peltier voltage with Arduino (for DSLR chill box project)"

astronomy wiki
Someone over at the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today forum are considering using a wiki for FAQs and "a small library of the "Greatest Hits"".

Should I jump in and recommend one of the below astronomy wiki? I've been using wiki so long that I am a little disconcerted when a discussion forum has rules heavily discouraging editing even one's own posts, disparaging such edits as "revisionism". (But perhaps those people don't know about the "history" feature of most wiki). --DavidCary 22:55, 20 September 2007 (PDT)

astronomy wiki

 * University of Washington Astronomy Department wiki
 * the Unofficial BOINC Wiki: you can participate in scientific research
 * Green Bank national radio astronomy observatory wiki
 * RadioNet wiki: advanced radio astronomy
 * ASTR 535: Radio Astronomy Instrumentation wiki
 * Wikibooks:Astronomy
 * GNU Radio wiki: discusses software-defined radio (SDR). One application is radio astronomy
 * "Indoor Astronomy Wiki" http://indoorastronomy.com/
 * the Stellar Visions wiki
 * Slackerpedia Galactica, the free astronomy encyclopedia -- now with a sense of humor!