American Sniper – banality of the evil or of the good?
American Sniper portrays the feeling of a decent American fighting a hidden enemy he perceives as savage. Kyle sees the world black and white, maybe otherwise he would have not survived. It is ironic that this movie gets hated or loved by people, on both side of the spectrum exactly because the can’t see gray...
The magic of outstanding pictures – quality methodology and communication theory
As a photographer, your eye is your lens. This essay gives a basic understanding, why excellent pictures (paintings or photographs) succeed. After you start exploring the world with this mindset, you’ll find that you automatically begin to see things differently. I got the idea from an excellent book of the Swiss photographer Martin Zurmuehle, “The...
M42 Quick Snapshot
Orion Nebula (Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) with 1,350 light years is the closest region of a massive star formation. M42 is undoubtedly one of the most popular deep sky targets. Whether you image through a telescope or a camera lens, it can even be captured even under city conditions by anyone who knows...
All Saints Day 2014 – Mortality in Infrared
Often overshadowed by the preceding Halloween, All Saints Day on November 1, celebrates all of the faithful who are in Heaven. The parish gathers on the cemetery, having dressed up the graves of their late relatives before. A short procession sprinkles holy water to bless for every grave while on stand on the grave and...
recent-events-2014
This year we traveled for three weeks in Languedoc-Roussillon, where we followed the footsteps of the Templars and the heretic Cathars. In Languedoc-Roussillon Cathar castles and Templar remains, Abbeys and Châteaus are inspired by powerful myths , major mysteries, complex religious history, symbols of psychological relevance and – also significant pseudo-history. There a lots of...
30th International Star Party Austria
It was worth the drive to one of the highest annual star parties in Europe on the weekend of September 25–28 at the grassy mountain meadow of Berg above the small town of Greifenburg in southern Austria. Looking at the weather report I arrived Friday afternoon. Known as the Internationales Teleskoptreffen, or ITT (International Telescope...
IR photography with a Canon 60 DA – Munich in infrared
A few days ago, I began experimenting with infrared, or IR, photography (mostly city landscapes). Besides normal photography, I am astro-photographer with a Canon 60Da camera. All I needed was an Hoya ND72 infrared filter. To sum it up, for me the 60Da covers infrared light quite nicely, despite contradictory remarks. I am still a...
ToUcam SPC900NC
The Philips SPC900NC seems a good CCD for CS modification. Here the story I found it in the Net with pictures and comments. No assurance that this works. In order to send the correct signals to the camera, the capture software must be told to use the correct COM port (from the computer control panel...
HEQ5 Skywatcher vintage CCD Setup – Windows 7 AstroArt 4.0 und EQAllign 2.3 Windows 7 64bit
Man muss nicht immer das neueste und teuerste kaufen, um sich in die komplexe CCD Materie einzuarbeiten. Hier ein HEQ5 Skywatcher vintage CCD Setup – Windows 7 AstroArt 4.0 und EQAllign 2.3 Windows 7 64bit der mit günstig erstanden CCD Kameras arbeitet, die 5 bzw. 10 Jahre alt sind. Es ist eine WebCam, die Philips SPC...
HEQ6 oder HEQ5 Montierung richtig einnorden
Mit dem einnorden hatte ich so meine liebe Mühe. Daher habe ich zusammengetragen, wie man HEQ6 und HEQ5 oder eine vergleichbare Montierung simplel richtig einnordet. Machen wir uns nichts vor, Schreinern tun wir doch eher selten. 1) Stativ mit dem Kompass nach Norden ausrichten (der schwarze Stift muss nach Norden zeigen) danach das Stativ mit der...
Starlight Xpress MX716 CCD Installation
The 64bit MX716 Driver Package package contains 64bit drivers for the Starlight Xpress MX716 CCD camera from official Starlight Xpress website. The camera is now 15 years old, but works fine -and – Starlight Express still supports it (Official Web Site). SX Ltd has been in business since 1991 and was set up to market...
The banality of evil from a Jungian view.
We’ve all heard the phrase “the banality of evil”, coined by the political theorist Hannah Arendt. Her 1951 masterwork, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” about the parallels between Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalinist Russia, made her an intellectual celebrity. In her book, she argued that totalitarian regimes seek to dominate every aspect of everyone’s life as...