I'm Green, a 19 year old aspiring engineer. This is my first experience in setting up a website, which I'm using to host images of my projects and perhaps some other stuff.
I've done a decent bit of 3D printing. I started out with an Ender 3 V2 a few years ago. I learned most of my 3DP tricks on that retched machine. It barely held the bed level, screws were constantly coming loose, and a bowden extruder caused very many troubles. Since then, I've been given a little mSLA printer, a wonderful Fokoos Odin F3, and a disastrous CubePro Trio.
That CubePro Trio is a real piece of work. It has, as the name suggests, three extruders on one print head, all with direct drive extrusion. For how old of a printer it is, it's surprising that it's Core XY. It's a bit slow to print with, but the heated enclosure and solid build makes quality parts. So why did I describe it as distastrous? It requires a proprietary slicer, with a proprietary version of Gcode. It requires proprietary filament, and will not print with anything else. The software and boards on the printer are proprietary. And the company has gone out of business, so I can't use their stuff (even if I wanted to). At some point, I'll have to find a control board that can support 3 extruders and print heads to fit to this beast. Until then, it's sort of like a sleeping giant.
I've always held deep interest in the sky. My parents keep a picture of me from elementary school where I'm holding up a paper with "Aerospace Engineer" written on it, presumably as an assignment pertaining to future careers. So, when I found a project where one could 3D print their own telescope, it called to me. It's called the Hadley Telescope, a 5 inch reflector telescope made of 3D printed parts, $20 mirrors from AliExpress, and about $80 of other hardware. Overall, I spent about $120 on the build and $70 for other equipment. I did some observation by eye at first using a 10mm eyepiece that I had from a previous telescope (which had seen very little use). I loved it, but I was nagged by the need to share this feeling. So, I purchased an SVBONY SV105. It's essentially a stripped down camera without a lens, and a case to fit onto a telescope.
This was my first successful capture. It's essentially a 10 second video, captured at about 10fps. Then, a program called AutoStakkert! (sic) uses some fancy image processing to filter out the lower quality frames, and stack the remaining ones on top of each other. This gets rid of a lot of noise and smear. However, I had set the exposure poorly and the telescope was wobbling about. Hence, the fuzziness of the image.
This is still my favourite capture. This is Jupiter and its 4 Galilean moons. I will admit, the image of Jupiter is actually overlaid a higher exposure image of its moons. I captured both seperately at different exposures, since the moons would be too dim to see if Jupiter was exposed properly to catch those beautiful bands. This was stacked with AutoStakkert! and combined with Krita.
This is also a favourite. I haven't yet captured the moon while "optimal", but I did get this. I like that one can see the shadows of mountains and craters. The moon is particularly easy, since it reflects so much light. This means the camera can capture more frames in a given time, leading to an image that is clearer.
That's all I have for now. I haven't observed much, since I'm working on a project to convert the telescope to a guided mount. Once I get that done, you better bet I'll be observing nebulae, stars, and clusters. That'll be a blast. Once I get bored of that, I also plan to buy a barlow. These magnify the image more, which should let me get into the juicy details of galaxies and planets.
This project was based on a wonderful guide on a website that is visually very similar to this one. Find it here: https://boats.backwater.org/sailflat/jonsail.htm . We started with a plastic 12ft (I think?) jonboat that we had abandoned at one of our ponds. It lacks a title, which actually makes it a perfect candidate for a sailboat. In Kentucky, sailboats don't need a title or HIN. I found a couple of maple saplings to hack down, bought a tarp, gathered some scrap plywood, and built this with a couple of friends. It's not great, but it was fun. Next up is to switch the mast with one made of pine, mount it more forward, and fix that blasted rudder. I don't have much commentary besides that, so enjoy some pictures.
