My Loose-Ends Page

This is my "Loose-Ends Page", a collection of all sorts of links that I may or may not use in the future.

From time to time, some material is moved to my main website
   http://www.desonville.net/

Personal Websites

• Taki Toshimi: www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zs3t-tk/
  Has interesting texts on ATM, astro computing; has "homedesign" planisphere, 12-chart star atlas.
• John Savard: www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/
  Telescope (incl eyepieces), Links, Archimedean Solids, and several other interesting pages.

Selection of eyepieces

Selection

• Choosing your telescope's magnification (reprint of Sky & Telescope article, May 1991, by Al Nagler): www.televue.com/engine/page.asp?NoPrint=True&ID=140
• Astronomy Nexus: astronexus.com/node/7

Eyepiece calculators

• TeleVue:
  • Eyepiece Calculator: www.televue.com/engine/calculate2.asp
  • Eyepiece specs: www.televue.com/engine/page.asp?ID=144
• Eyepiece calculator (affy50 on tripod): affy50.tripod.com/Eyepcalc.html
• Eyepiece calculator (David Paul Green): www.davidpaulgreen.com/tec.html
• Telescope calculator (Scopesim): www.scopesim.com
• The N.A.A. Telescope Calculator: www.stargazing.net/naa/scopemath.htm

Selection and utilisation of filters

• Cloudynights: www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=387
• Astronomy Nexus: astronexus.com/node/4
• Hutech: www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/idas/lps2.htm
• Henk Spoelstra (on YahooGroups Sterrenkunde): groups.yahoo.com/group/sterrenkunde/message/3986
• Astronomical filter curves, Christian Buil: www.astrosurf.org/buil/filters/curves.htm

Polar alignment

• Drift method (Chuck Vaughn / Philip Perkins): www.astrocruise.com/polarnew.htm
  A tad too LX200 specific...
• Precision polar alignment (Tom Varden): www.astro-tom.com/tips_and_advice/precision_polar_alignment.htm

Telescope Testing & Maintenance

Star-testing

• Aberrator (Cor Berrevoets): aberrator.astronomy.net

Collimation

• Collimation (Thierry Legault): www.astrosurf.com/legault/collim.html
• Some pages about various aspects of collimating Newtonian telescopes (Nils Olof Carlin):
  • Carlin's website: web.telia.com/~u41105032/
  • At Sky & Telescope: skyandtelescope.com/printable/howto/scopes/article_790.asp
  • Collimeren van een Newton telescoop (translation to Dutch by Jan van Gastel): home.wanadoo.nl/jhm.vangastel/Astronomy/collimatie/collimatie.htm
  • Collimation du Newton (traduction en français): www.astrosurf.com/cielextreme/page180F.html
• Understanding the Basics of Collimation (Tom Clark, Tectron Telescopes): www.amateurastronomy.com/collimate.html
• Realigning Newtonian collimation (Vic Menard): homepage.mac.com/vicmenard/telescopes/NPaddend.html
• Collimation (Astronomy Nexus): astronexus.com/node/6
• Step by step guide to testing and collimating your telescope (Robin Scagell): homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.scagell/collimate.html
• Collimating Newtonian Optics (Mel Bartels):
  • www.oarval.org/collimatE.htm
  • Same, translated into Spanish: www.oarval.org/collimatC.htm
• Adventures in Collimation (Bryan Greer): www.fpi-protostar.com/collim.htm
• A Treatise on Newtonian Collimation (Scott McCluney): www.catseyecollimation.com/mccluney.html
• Collimating your Dobsonian or Newtonian (Rochester's Astronomy Club): www.rochesterastronomy.org/main.asp?section=8&page=34
• Collimating a Newtonian Reflector (Andy Raiford)(video): www.andysshotglass.com/Collimating.html
• --- Laser collimation ---
• Collimation with a Barlowed Laser (Nils Olof Carlin): gmpexpress.net/~tomhole/blaser.pdf
• Howie Glatter Laser Collimators (Company Seven): www.company7.com/glatter/products/collimators.html
• Howie Glatter's Laser Collimator Page (Howie Glatter): www.collimator.com/coltext.htm
• --- Collimating Cassegrainians, SCTs etc. ---
• Collimating your SCT (Rod Mollise): [dead link?] skywatch.brainiac.com/collimation.pdf
• Collimating Orion StarMax and Apex Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescopes: www.smaal.info/astro/download/Inst_makcasscollim.pdf

Optics Cleaning

• Optics cleaning (Arkansas Sky Observatory): www.arksky.org/asoclean.htm
• Cleaning digital cameras (Fargo Enterprises): www.cleaningdigitalcameras.com

Astronomy Image Processing

• Luminance Layering (Robert Gendler):
  • Multiple Luminance Layering (LLRGB) using Photoshop: A technique for color enhancement: www.robgendlerastropics.com/LLRGB.html
  • Color CCD Imaging with Luminance Layering: www.robgendlerastropics.com/LRGB.html
• Digital Processing Techniques (Jerry Lodriguss): www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/TOC_DIG.HTM
• Photoshop for Astrophotographers (book by Jerry Lodriguss, see author's website): www.astropix.com

Optic design

• Various interesting publications of Brayebrook Observatory: www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/HOMEPAGE/BRAYOBS%20PUBLICATIONS.html
• The Evolution of the Astronomical Eyepiece (C.J.R. Lord F.R.A.S.): www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/BOOKS/EVOLUTIONofEYEPIECES.pdf
• Telescopes and Eyepieces (John Savard): www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/science/optint.htm
• Peter Smith's website: www.users.bigpond.com/PJIFL/
  ATM lenses & eyepieces
• All About Eyepiece Designs (Marcus E. Hennecke): chinook.stanford.edu/~marcush/marcus/astro/ep.html
• Essays on Optics (Roland Christen, CEO Astro-Physics): geogdata.csun.edu/~voltaire/roland/
  [old link, dead?] http://voltaire.csun.edu/roland/
• Essays on Optics (Thomas Back, TMB): www.tmboptical.com/catsTree.asp?cat_id=25
  Also at geogdata.csun.edu/~voltaire/tmb/tmb.html

Diffraction in telescopes

• Summary of Fourier Optics (Theo Lasser):  http://lob.epfl.ch/webdav/site/lob/shared/Teaching/Optical%20Microscopy%20and%20Metrology/Fourier%20optics
• Diffraction effects of telescope secondary mirror spiders on various image-quality criteria (James E. Harvey and Christ Ftaclas):  http://imaging.creol.ucf.edu/publications/Spider_Diffraction.pdf

Active & Adaptive Optics

• An introduction to active & adaptive optics (ESO): www.eso.org/projects/aot/introduction.html

Positional astronomy

• See courses (notes Fiona Vincent)
• Wikibooks, Positional Astronomy: en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Positional_astronomy
  Very incomplete (10 Jul 2005) !!!
• Basics of Positional Astronomy and Ephemerides (Jürgen Giesen): www.jgiesen.de/SME/details/basics/
• Positional Astronomy tutorial (Stephen Tonkin): www.astunit.com/tutorials/positional.htm

Web Resources for Maps, Satellite and Aerial Images

For download

• NASA World Wind:  worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/
  Reportedly very good (not yet tested myself).

Online interactive

• Google Maps:  maps.google.com/
• Google Maps UK:  maps.google.co.uk/
  Exactly same worlwide coverage as Google Maps .com site.
• Mappy:  www.mappy.com
  Interactive road maps and route planner.
• ViaMichelin:  www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/tpl/hme/MaHomePage.htm
  Interactive road maps and route planner.
• MapQuest:  www.mapquest.com/
• Kleurenortho Vlaanderen:  geo-vlaanderen.gisvlaanderen.be/geo-vlaanderen/kleurenortho/
  Interactive map of Flanders (northern part of Belgium), at the deeper zoom-in levels overlaid with composite aerial images.

Geometry

• Johnson solids: mathworld.wolfram.com/JohnsonSolid.html
• Archimedean solids (John Savard): www.hypermaths.org/quadibloc/math/acsint.htm
  
• Symmetry, Crystals and Polyhedra (Steven Dutch): www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/symmetry/symmetry.htm
  Symmetry concepts, Crystals, Tilings, Polyhedra (incl. Platonic, Archimedean and Kepler-Poinsot Solids, Johnson Polyhedra, Stellations, Tesselations...)
• Polyhedron constructions (Fr. Magnus Wenninger OSB): www.employees.csbsju.edu/mwenninger/
• Polyhedra Collection (Vladimir Bulatov): www.physics.orst.edu/~bulatov/polyhedra/
• Polyhedron Model-making (George Olshevsky): hometown.aol.com/polycell/
• The Geometry Junkyard (David Eppstein): www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/
• Geometry Sculpture (George W. Hart): www.georgehart.com/
• Classroom polyhedra (Vincent J. Matsko): shamino.quincy.edu/~matskvi/
• kaleido.Scope (Zvi Har'El): www.math.technion.ac.il/~rl/kaleido/
  Java animation of rotating polyhedra.
• The Uniform Polyhedra (Roman Mäder): www.mathconsult.ch/showroom/unipoly/

Noctilucent Clouds (NLCs)

• Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noctilucent_cloud
• Tom McEwan's Observers' Homepage:  http://www.nlcnet.co.uk/
• Gary Thomas' page at U. of Colorado:  http://lasp.colorado.edu/noctilucent_clouds/
• Brian Whittaker's page:  http://www.polarx.net/noctilucentclouds.htm
• Jürgen Rendtel's page:  http://aipsoe.aip.de/~rend/nlc-allg.html
• Timo Nousiainen's page:
  • Gallery:  http://www.meteo.helsinki.fi/~tpnousia/nlcgal/nlcgal.html
  • Theory:  http://www.meteo.helsinki.fi/~tpnousia/nlcgal/nlcinfo.html