Frequently Asked Questions
Trace: » links
Common links of general astronomy and astrophotography use.
General how-to
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/astromenu.html Basic Rebel how-to, book, and a picture gallery.
Image Web Server Sites
Put the name of your favorite web server sites here.
http://www.1and1.com Large scale general server farm.
Databases
http://archive.stsci.edu/ Space Telescope Science Archive. Good place to look up what something SHOULD look like.
http://www.sharplesscatalog.com/sharpless.aspx Another good catalog of space images.
http://www.ngcic.org/dss/dss_ngc.asp The Deep Sky Survey (DSS).
http://nedwww.ipac.caltech.edu NASA/IPAC Extragalactic database. 15M Objects searchable by many parameters: spectrum, distance, name, position.
http://www.lowell.edu/~massey/lgsurvey/ Local Group Survey - Halpha OIII surveys of M31 M33 et al.
Observatories
http://mthamilton.ucolick.org/ University of California LICK Observatory.
Weather
http://cleardarksky.com/csk/prov/California_map.html See detailed advance notice astronomy-specific weather reports for your area.
Software
Image viewers
http://www.irfanview.com A really good fast image viewer for Windows, can convert and do some basic file operations like rotate, gain adjustment, format conversions. Free. One man show.
Stacking
http://deepskystacker.free.fr Does a decent job. Free. One man show, adding new features every week.
http://www.autopano.net A panorama stitching software, E99. Sometimes can stack, but needs a helping hand. More capable with well-lit pictures.
http://www.astrosurf.org/buil/us/iris/iris.htm Iris does panoramas, but also more capable of dealing with stars.
General image processing
http://www.picturecode.com Noise Ninja is a good general purpose noise removal software.
http://www.neatimage.com/index.html Another Photoshop plugin / standalone app for noise reduction.
Scope guiding and control
http://www.cyanogen.com/index.htm MaxIm, MaxDSLR. State of the art, but expensive software.
http://www.teleauto.org/indexEn.php A French/English website about the TeleAuto scope / CCD control program. GPL.
Equipment vendors
Near the Bay area
* www.scopecity.com 350 Bay Street, San Franciso, CA, (415) 421-8800. Sam sells mostly Celestron, Parks, Meade, Teleview, and a few other name brands. Binoculars. Lots of odds and ends too.
* www.telescope.com Orion Telescopes in Santa Cruz, Watsonville, and Cupertino, CA. 10555 S. De Anza Blvd, Cupertino, CA, (408) 255-8770. This store has Orion, Celestron, odds and ends like adapters, filters.
North America
http://www.astrovid.com/index.php Adirondack Astronomy in New York State. Extensive collection of equipment, and cameras.
http://www.petersonengineering.com/sky/index.htm Some modifications of Meade and other scopes to help them perform better
Optics
http://www.celestron.com Celestron Telescopes
http://www.meade.com Meade Telescopes
http://www.televue.com Televue
Domes
Misc electronic devices
http://unihedron.com/projects/darksky SQM Meter for measuring actual light level.
Wikis and other general sites
http://www.skyinsight.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page General astrology and astrophotography Wiki.
http://www.simcoeskies.com Northern Ontario, Canada club-centric web site.
Clubs
http://www.sfaa-astronomy.org San Francisco Amateur Astronomers
Books
http://www.willbell.com/default.htm General astronomy