Starizona's Hyperstar - Astrophotography at F/2 - Presented by Celestron - Cosmos Safari

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
my dad, dean Koenig, started Starzona, so it was
always just something in thehouse.
There was always a telescope onthe floor ready to go out that
night, or he did a lot of likefree solar viewing when I was
younger too, so it was justsomething that I was just kind
of around getting dragged tostar parties and stuff like that

(00:21):
.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to the Cosmo Safari podcast presented by
Celestron.
In this episode, my co-host,the Last Minute Astronomer, and
I invite Starizona to talk abouttheir products, specifically
the development of the Hyperstaraccessory allowing astroimaging
up to F2.
I'm Dave.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
And I'm Rob, the Last Minute Astronomer, and this is
the Cosmo Safari podcast, andtoday with us we have Steve
Koenig and Scott Tucker fromStarzona, and Steve and Scott
tell us a little bit aboutyourselves, introduce yourselves
to the audience.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hey, yeah, thanks for having us.
We really appreciate it.
We work in sunny Tucson,arizona, at Starzona.
It's a retail shop andmanufacturing of astronomy goods
and accessories.
We like to focus a lot onastrophotography but we do
visuals still and we're justgeneral.

(01:14):
I don't know astronomyhobbyists, geeks, somewhat
professional, and it's more ofan obsession.
So we might as well get paiddoing what we are obsessing over
.
So Scott does optics at StarArizona.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, I do mostly optical design with the products
that we make and it's just, itis just a hobby gone crazy.
So it's, you know, if you thinkabout what would we want to use
and you know other people mightlike and stuff like that.
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah so professional adult want to use and you know
other people might like andstuff like that.
Yeah sure, yeah so professional, uh adult, uh that's not going
to sound right, as I say, adulttoy players.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
But we hear this a lot from.
You know, having theseconversations with people is
just how they've kind of triedto morph their personal interest
into something that they can doevery day and it's awesome.
So congratulations on kind ofbeing able to do that that's.
That's kind of the dream, right.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
Where did your love ofastronomy and astrophotography
start?
Like, where did that come from?

Speaker 4 (02:21):
You want to go first?
Yeah, I mean, I was alwaysinterested.
I grew up in Michigan, which isterrible for astronomy, but I
moved to Arizona to go to the.
University of Arizona forastronomy.
Tucson's such a good place tostargaze that I got into it and
just have been working at StarArizona forever now and have,
just you know, been obsessed andalways been interested in it.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, and my dad, Dean Koenig, started Starzona,
so it was always just somethingin the house.
There was always a telescope onthe floor ready to go out that
night, or he did a lot of freesolar viewing when I was younger
too, so it was just somethingthat I was just kind of around

(03:05):
getting dragged to star partiesand stuff like that.
I would say it became more ofmy passion when I started going
to college, took my firstastronomy course and then I
think it really clicked for mewhen my first astrophoto ever
was a Canon T3i with a T adapteron the back of a GPS 11 alt, as
you know, sent it to Orion andI took a 25 second exposure,

(03:31):
probably like 1600 ISO.
It was noisy and ugly and byany means, by today's standards
it was just like not a photo,but it was.
You start seeing green and thetrapezium and you're like, Whoa
did I just discover?
You know, you just get soexcited.
So that was, I think, thatfirst thing.
So I got into photography firstand I just knew about astronomy

(03:53):
.
But when I connected those twois when it was really, you know,
obsessive.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Yeah, yeah, I can agree, Like one of the first.
In fact, this picture back hereis my first picture of the
Orion nebula and, like you said,by all means not that great of
a picture anymore.
But you know, based on what Ihad at the time, that was really
good and I still love it, eventhough it's, you know, kind of
trash.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
But it represents, it's cool.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
The Canon T3i is where I started as well and you
know, rob, rob, I believe youuse a canon t3i at times also.
It's a great, great camera andand for those of you just
getting started, if you haven'tuh kind of jumped into this
quite yet and are interested, Iknow that you know they're now,
you know, older, but they, theystill do uh a decent job and you

(04:41):
know it's a great place tostart, especially if you can get
it on.
You know the used market I lovethat flip lcd.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
Yes, that was my favorite part I actually started
my first astrophoto wasprobably with a film camera and
I think I just pointed the 50millimeter lens camera on a
tripod up at orion and took apicture and there's like the
little pink glow of the, theorion nebula, and it was just
amazing.
And so you know I started thatsort of the Orion Nebula and it
was just amazing.
And so you know I started atsort of the tail end of film
photography and so it wasdefinitely the hard way of doing

(05:10):
it back then.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, Scott Kudos to you.
Yeah, when I met Scott, he wasguiding with, like you know,
looking in and manually guidingon the star with film and then
you like send it off to yourlocal film place and hope it was
in focus when you get it backnext week.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
And it wasn't always.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Right, I love the instant gratification of digital
.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
It's changed everything, yeah, and for just
learning.
You're going to learn so muchyou know.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Change your ISO instant feedback so you know
it's so much easier for peopleto learn it now and get into it
and enjoy it and not just, youknow, hate every second of it.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
It's easier for people to learn it now and get
into it and enjoy it, and notjust.
You know hate every second ofit.
Will Dave survive?
Last minute trivia against TeamStar Arizona.
Find out after this short break.

Speaker 6 (05:57):
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(06:18):
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Speaker 3 (06:26):
Now, before we go a little bit further, I have a
little bit of trivia for all ofus on the call.
Dave doesn't know what we'redoing yet, nope, but we're going
to let the guests we're goingto have you guys answer first,
and then I'll have Dave answer.
I've got three questions andwe'll see.
Uh, when I was looking thisstuff up, it was not the easiest

(06:47):
stuff, so we'll see whathappens here, wonderful uh, so
let me ask you this firstquestion when?
when was the first sctschmidt-cassegrain telescope, of
course, because we're going tobe talking a lot about that
today.
When was the first SCTmanufactured?

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Do you mean like mass-produced, manufactured, or
just?

Speaker 3 (07:14):
The very first one, I would say.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
You want a specific.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Not for commercial use.
I'll give you that hint itwasn't for commercial use, okay.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
I'd be guessing something in the I'm going to
Before the 50s.
I was thinking just a littlebit before the 50s, but I'm
going to say you want a specificyear.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
You have to guess a year.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
Okay, I'm going to say I'm going to go 53.
Okay, what do?
Going to go 53.
Okay.

Speaker 5 (07:47):
What do?

Speaker 1 (07:47):
you think, steve, I'm going to do 52.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh, price is right rules Doing the under, and I'm
going to do 54.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
All right.
Well, it was actually about adecade earlier than that.
The optical shop at the MountWilson Observatory manufactured
the first one during World WarII as part of their research
into optical designs for themilitary.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, so I don't have a specific year, but I would
say 41, 42, 43, 44 yeah, I thinkthe Schmidt himself that
invented the Schmidt camera Ithink was in like the 1930s and
he was worried about the design.
He didn't patent it, I don'tthink, because he was worried
about the design being used formilitary purposes and sort of

(08:41):
foresaw World War II coming okayalright, so not too far off,
only a decade off.
Let's go number two purposesand sort of foresaw World War II
coming.
Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
So not too far off, only a decade off.
Let's go.
Number two what or when?
I'm going to give you twooptions here.
What or when was the firstlarge telescope to use the
Schmidt-Cassegrain design Like aresearch telescope?

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Do we have the moon map one on.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
It's not a Schmidt thing.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Oh, is that like an?

Speaker 4 (09:15):
There are a lot of Schmidt cameras, but the
Schmidt-Cassegrain, I mean Ican't think of it.
I mean, how large are wetalking?

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Just professional territory is what you're saying,
I think.
Yeah, I'll't think of it.
I mean, how large are wetalking?
Just professional territory iswhat you're saying, I think.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yeah, I'll give you a hint it's at a university.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
Oh, that changes.
Yeah, that I you said what orwhere.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
What or where or when .
Sure or when or when.
Sure or when or when.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah, I don't know, maybe the University of Arizona.
They do a lot of optic stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
As far as when I mean , I would be thinking probably
in the 50s, again, I think thatwould be kind of taking off into
maybe like moon map.
You know pressure.
There was a lot of interestingstuff at that time.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I'm gonna pass on this because it's gonna be.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
It does have an aperture of 37 inches.
37 inch.
Current setup is actually onlyabout 33 inches, it says.
But the first large telescopewas the James Gregory telescope
of 1962, which is at theUniversity of St Andrews cool so

(10:39):
yeah, it was where is?
That that is in.
I believe it's ScotlandUniversity of St Andrews.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Where is that?

Speaker 5 (10:45):
That is in I believe it's Scotland.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Oh, okay, university of St Andrews, st Andrews,
scotland.
Yes, what a great place to doastronomy.
Yeah, yeah, that surprises me.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Why not?
They're still holding out hopethey'll get to use it one day.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
I'm feeling that multiple choice should have been
in order here for some of these.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
You're right.
And it actually is alsorecognized as the largest
Schmidt-Cassegrain right now.
So now I've got a multiplechoice for you.
Okay, number three.
Last one, then we'll get intoother stuff.
What is the biggest mistake tomake while using an SCT?
Is it A not taking the lens capoff, b dropping it, c taking it

(11:38):
out in the first place becauseit's cloud bait, or D whatever
Scott and Steve are thinkingabout right now?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
D, not using a hyper star.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, that's right, using a great answer Product
placement.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Well done, I mean not taking the cap off, is is yeah,
I mean.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
I mean as far as like common mistakes, I don't know,
I mean fortunately not too manypeople drop them, but it does
happen.
The cap off is yeah, I mean, Imean as far as like common
mistakes, I don't know, I mean,fortunately not too many people
drop them, but it does happen um, um, letting them cool down
there.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
They got a lot of air inside of them.
They got to acclimate to your,your ambient temperature.
Some in arizona that oftenmeans heat up, not cool down for
sure um, if you want betterseeing um, that would be some
things, you know.
Double checking collimation isobviously important, but uh, I
mean, as far as the clouds go,it's like you miss every shot
you don't take.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
So we're um, we're definitely um sucker hole
chasers over here, you know yeah, for me in pennsylvania here
the dew shield or and or a dewheater is probably in order most
of the year with our humiditylevels, so that would have been.
My D is the need for some sortof dew prevention.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Well, let me tell you , you all got it correct.
Very good points for everybody.
Yeah, move, well done, welldone, well done.
So let's move on a little bit.
One of the reasons that we haveyou on is to talk about
Hyperstar.
Could you tell us, I guess,first like what Hyperstar is for
audience members who don't knowwhat it is, and then kind of

(13:20):
tell us, you know, how did itcome about?

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, do you want to do what it is, and I'll do how?

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah so.
So the idea is on aSchmidt-Cassegrain telescope you
can remove the secondary mirrorfrom the front of the telescope
and place the hyperstar lens atthe front and you're using the
F2 very fast primary mirror andthe hyperstar corrects it,
Camera goes on there and youhave a very fast imaging system.
It's 25 times faster than thetelescope is natively with the

(13:47):
camera at the back.
Shorter exposures, wider fieldof view, easier deep sky imaging
is sort of the idea behind it.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
And a lot of people confuse it with a reducer, and
it's not really reducinganything, because your primary
is already very fast.
So it's really more.
It's a flattening, correctingdevice more than a reducer,
because we're not turning f10into, you know, f19, where we're
actually removing a piece ofthe system and flattening what's
already there.
So, um, as far as its inceptionthough, uh, celestron had a

(14:18):
huge part in that, and makingthe fast star compatible, uh,
schmidt, casagreens, um gosh,back in the like 90s, late 90s,
2000 ish, there was, you know uh, schmidt, casagreens that had a
removable secondary mirror sothat you could put an originally
celestron did the fast starlens that went on the telescope
and converted it to f1.9 andgave you a very fast imaging

(14:41):
system.

Speaker 4 (14:42):
but but being that it was nearly 25 years ago, the
camera technology is not what itis now, and so they're using
these very early CCD camerasthat were just amazing back then
because it wasn't film, it wassomething that was just.
You had that instantgratification of digital but
very small sensors and slowreadout times and things like
that.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
And so, as the technology of the cameras
improve, the idea was to havethe hyperstar you know, approve,
improve optically and, uh, keepup with the larger sensors and
stuff that were coming out andand at the time I think, um,
right, when the ultimate 2000came out, which is like one of
the coolest scopes thatcelestron made, which was your

(15:22):
first go-to scope that you couldactually grab and point to
something else and manually moveit, find something and say,
okay, yeah, go back to the othertarget.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
It still had encoders , so it would stay in the
deepest position.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
It was the first one that you could do both use
manually and use your go-totracking system and that was
really exciting for us and sothe very first version of those.
They weren't FastDartcompatible, but they later
released the removable secondaryon that model and so we would
be doing this.
I mean when that first came outon the Ultimate 2000, using

(15:58):
like the S-Big 237, like tinysensor, it came with a let's see
where my hands are.
It came with like a briefcasesize computer and these huge
serial cables.
You can't even use it today ifyou want to, because it wouldn't
connect parallel cables.

Speaker 4 (16:13):
And it was like this.
You know, less than half amegapixel and took like 12
seconds to read out, and it wasjust the greatest thing in the
world at the time.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
I think it was like 28 seconds, yeah, but I remember
that happened.
My dad, he like lost three daysof street sleep straight.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
He just like just he was so obsessed with the idea
every night he was just playingwith it.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
And uh, we're, we're good friends with a local
optical engineer, uh, by thename of dick bookroader, and
he's, if you, if you know, youknow optical engineers, rock
stars.
He's like one of them and atthe time, uh, dean's just like,
hey, dick, like do you thinkthis is?
You know, we're near the limitof what a Schmidt could do here

(16:54):
in this type of, you know, primefocus.
And he was like I think wecould do maybe like four times
better.
And to that my dad was likewhoa, well, let's, can we play
with that?
And so between Dick Brookroederand my dad was like machining
and housings and optics anddesigning stuff, um, they came
up with the first version of theHyperstar, um, which was uh,

(17:18):
different in a few ways.
One, it could be collimated.
And then, two, we had differentadapters for different cameras.
And that was the thing that Ithink was hard to keep up with,
especially at that time.
More and more cameras werecoming out and, being a small
team, we could kind of stay upwith making each new adapter for
the right back focus for everycamera.
That's kind of existed.
So that was the start and Ithink now I mean what would you

(17:39):
say now, like our version fourHyperstar compared to the first
one.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
It's a night and day difference in the quality
because it was just, you know,early on the idea was you were
designing for a very smallsensor and the design had to
evolve as you get these biggersensors and some of the early
HyperStar 14 inch werecompatible with DSLRs Once
digital cameras became a commonthing, had to cover this much

(18:05):
larger field of view, and so thedifference in the design
between the first version andthe current version 4 is pretty
radical and it's just.
It's much better overall andit's just evolved to keep up
with that.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Steve and Scott discuss their favorite deep sky
objects to image after thisInFocus product spotlight.
The detail here is absolutelystunning.
You can see the individualcraters, the ejecta blanket, the
white material that's comingout from the craters themselves
onto the dark maria.

(18:50):
Hey guys, I'm in the backyardwith the Celestron Nexstar 6SE.
This is one of Celestron'sbest-selling telescopes, and for
good reason, because of itscompact form factor and
reasonable price point.
The 6-inch aperture that youhave here is good for things

(19:10):
like the moon that I have behindme, which is what I'm going to
look at in just a moment andplanets, as well as some of the
deep sky objects you might befamiliar with, like the Orion
Nebula.
Now, this telescope has over40,000 objects in its
computerized database.
You'll be able to find any ofthese objects within just a few
minutes.
Before you do that, there is ared dot finder that it comes

(19:30):
with up top, as well as a 25millimeter eyepiece.
With that you'll be able tofirst get your telescope aligned
with something I would suggestduring the daytime with the red
dot finder, making sure what'sin the telescope is aligned with
what is seen here with the reddot finder.
So to get started, all you haveto do is you have to set up the

(19:53):
index marks at the top of thescope.
Here there's two little arrows.
You need to line those up andthen you simply flip on the
telescope.
And the 6SE does not have aninternal battery, so I'm
powering this off of a separatebattery.
You'll need that, or AC power,and once you've got it fired up

(20:17):
you'll hit enter and it'll askyou how you would like to align
the scope.
Now, because I'm lookingtonight at the moon, I can
actually go down to the optionfor a solar system alignment and
you'll be asked to put in thetime and if it's daylight

(20:37):
savings or not, and the date,and then you'll simply select
the moon or whatever planetyou're looking for and then,
once you've done that, you'llmove the telescope so that it
faces the object.
Now it's important to note thatthere is a red dot finder scope

(21:01):
at the top of the 6SE, andyou're going to want to make
sure that you put that inalignment with the telescope's
optics during the daytime onsomething that's at least 100
feet away or more.
I like to pick out things thatare easily discernible,
something like a telephone pole,and that way, when you are

(21:23):
looking through this at night.
The red dot finder and yourtelescope are already set up.
I also suggest getting thingsin focus prior to it getting
dark outside.
It makes things so much easier.
And there it is, in theeyepiece, nice.

(21:47):
Now, if you're looking forsomething that's not a solar
system object, there aretwo-star alignment options,
one-star alignment options, andthen there's the skyline option
as well.
All of these are great.
They take just a few minutes toget things set up.
You will have to get things setup correctly in terms of your,
your site, your location, withthe GPS coordinates, to make

(22:10):
sure that it's working properly,and you know, just make sure
that you're putting the time anddate in correctly as well.
Once you've got the objectaligned, you'll simply put plus,
enter and then the align buttonand the solar system alignment
is complete, alright.
So I've attached my cell phoneto the scope.
The detail here is absolutelystunning.

(22:33):
You can see the individualcraters, the ejecta blanket, the
white material that's comingout from the craters themselves
onto the dark maria.
The maria are ancient lavaflows that were formed in some
of the larger craters of themoon and they're, you know,
famous.
For example, the sea oftranquility is where we landed

(22:53):
our first lunar landing.
So hooking it up to your phoneallows you to have that ability
to just pinch to zoom on manyphones.
Now you'll notice that there aremultiple different cameras, and
so you're going to want tocontrol which camera you're
looking through.
Sometimes it's difficult to dothat.

(23:15):
The phone wants to switch fromone camera to another.
So keep that in mind.
As you're, you know, using yourphone's camera, that can be
somewhat of a challenge at times.
So if you're interested indoing photography, I highly
suggest that you get one ofthese little Bluetooth
controllers.

(23:35):
This one has a setting for bothiOS and Android.
I simply turn it on.
I find the Bluetooth in myBluetooth settings on my phone,
I pair it with this device andnow I can actually take an image
.
Right now I just took an imagefrom this device, which means
I'm not touching the telescope,I'm not touching the camera, and

(23:59):
that reduces the shaking thatyou would otherwise see.
So even if you're just tappingto touch, it does affect the
image.
You're going to want to take theimage with one of these devices
, especially if you're doinglong exposures on something like
a Nebula, which you can do withmodern phones.
It's starting to becomepossible.

(24:20):
There are some apps out therethat you can take longer
exposures, and even within themodern phones we do have night
sky mode and you can try yourhand out at that if it's a deep
sky object, and keep in mind allof the functionality that the
phones come with, including tapto focus, which, remember, your

(24:42):
focus should really be beingdone with the telescope itself,
and then you can also press andhold and it'll create a little
box and you can adjust thebrightness of the image right
there on the phone.
So that's pretty nice.
You can really overexpose orunderexpose an image if you're

(25:06):
not careful.
All right, everybody, I hopethis video was helpful.
If you have any questions,please leave them in the
comments below.
If you haven't done so already,please like this video and
subscribe to Cosmos Safari and,as always, keep looking up and
I'll see you in the next video.
So for people who are kind ofinterested, they might already

(25:26):
have even a Fastar compatible.
You know, celestron SCT.
What kind of objects would youthink this is like optimized for
?
Like what are the things thatmake the Hyperstar system kind
of shine?

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, well, I mean because it's changing your focal
length, say, from like a sixinch, I think, behind you the
SC6, which is like one of myfavorite little scopes there.
But you know you go from 1500millimeter focal length to 300.
So you know we're going fromaway from planets and zooming in
to smaller targets, to a muchwider field of view.

(26:04):
So summertime, right now wecall it hyper star season
because you know the Milky Wayis coming up.
Anything coming out of Scorpioall the way up every one of
those nebulas is going to beexciting, wide field of view,
bright, and those are justthings you aren't typically
going to be getting inside ofyour scope.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
You get the larger objects the Lagoon Nebula and
the Veil and the Rosette and theOrion Nebula, the Andromeda
Galaxy, any of that big stuffthat's hard to get with a camera
at the back of the telescope,where it's very small, and the
fact that it's making it so muchfaster is you're getting that
data in a shorter period of time.
So for beginners it's easier todo and take pictures and see

(26:44):
stuff and get results right away.
But even for advanced imagersyou can take these pictures that
are quicker and you just youknow it's hard to go back after
you've shot with these highspeed systems.
But it also works well, forpeople do a lot of comet imaging
with it.
You have a comet that is close,has a big tail, you have this
wide field view and you haveshort exposure so that you can
get a lot of data before thecomet moves across the sky.

(27:06):
So it's actually good for a lotof different things in that
regard.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
And going back to the picture of Orion in the
background there, I mean, that'sa perfect example.
You know, you take that sameexact camera and you would put a
hyper star on that.
You know, c11, and all of asudden you can fit all of the
running man and Orion and morein that same field of view.
Same camera, same scope, butnow we're just using optics in a
way that favors field of view,and so that's just.
You know, it's not that one wayto do it is the correct way.

(27:36):
It's just having another kit inthe tool belt of like, hey, how
am I going to approach thistarget?
Do I want to zoom into just thetrapezium or am I trying to get
some more context there?
So I think it depends on whatyou're trying to achieve.
But ultimately, um, wider,faster, and, like Scott said,
you learn quicker because youmake a mistake.
Well, that was a 10 secondphoto.

(27:59):
You learn oh, we're out offocus.
It wasn't a three minute phototo say you're out of focus.
So, um, just that fasterturnaround time is going to get
you further down the road.
Everything doesn't have to beas complicated, because we used
to say our biggest thing waslike no wedge, no polar
alignment.
Um, no guiding, no kidding,that's like.
That was like one of our firstads and yeah I mean we put
hyperstar six, uh on that semount and people doing fantastic

(28:21):
images just on that mount.
That mount should not be takingastrophotos.
It's a fantastic amount forvisual but that's not what it
was meant for.
But if you get a photo, itphoto.

Speaker 4 (28:31):
it's great and that's what we love about the SCTs in
general is that you have thatversatility.
You can use the hyperstar andget a wide field of view, and
you can then switch if you wantto shoot the planets.
It's still a good telescope forthat.
It's one telescope that can doa lot of different things, and
that's why they're probably oneof our favorite telescopes.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yeah, we call, like the swiss army, knife of
telescopes.
She just does a lot nice.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
Do you have a favorite target that you've gone
back to time after time?

Speaker 4 (28:58):
time after time um I mean, you know, when we we do,
we do a lot of testing of a lotof different stuff.
So it's like you know, we'vegot tons of telescopes and we're
always testing different thingsand new versions of hyperscars
and things like that.
So you shoot the same object alot of times with different

(29:20):
setups, different cameras.
You want to try a new filterand stuff like that.
So I probably shot a millionpictures of the Orion Nebula and
it's still cool.
You know, it's still an amazingthing and it sort of depends on
the season.
Obviously it's a winter object.
So now maybe you shoot, youknow, the lagoon or uh, you know
something like that.
But there's, there's someobjects that sort of never get
old.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, I mean I'm like I like eight nine one NGC eight
nine one edge on galaxy I.
Whenever that's up it's kind oflike um uh, just I'm like I
just have to every year, I'mlike I just got to get a good
shot of that north americanebula gamma cygni stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
In cygnus that stuff's always good, so yeah,
are you guys finding that thesenewer uh high megapixels, you
know is a thing too now?
Um, the ability, because youare so wide field, to be able to
zoom in, uh digitally crop innow with high megapixel cameras,
is that a game changer for youguys?

(30:12):
Is there anything you have tokind of accommodate as a result
of, you know, just the change inthat pixel size?

Speaker 4 (30:18):
I know it's a fast uh telescope and it's going to
gather light, you know that muchfaster you can get away with
smaller pixels, right yeah, andyou can and and and that does
help in the sense that you know,one of the things HyperStars is
not great at is smaller objects, galaxies, things like that,
and so people find, you knowthat when those objects are out,

(30:40):
that you know, maybe you putthe camera at the back of the
Schmidt-Cassegrain, you get moremagnification, but that makes
it harder, and so people love,you know, having image at F2.
And so the smaller pixels getyou better resolution so that
you can shoot smaller objectsstill with the HyperStar and get
the speed, the advantage ofthat, and get the wide field and

(31:01):
you can crop in and get smallerobjects at the same time.
And it does change.
You know the optical design hasto improve and that's happened
with, you know, digital cameras,canon.
You know the optical design hasto improve and that's happened
with, you know, digital cameras,canon, nikon, sony.
They've had to change theirlenses over the years.
As the pixels get smaller, thelenses have to be better.
What was good 20 years agoisn't so good optically now, and
so the HyperStar is involved inthat sense too, to accommodate

(31:23):
those smaller pixels.
But yeah, it has changed a lot.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
It's helped quite a bit.
Well, I was gonna say it's it'smore gone in our favor.
So I mean, one of our, one of,like our biggest selling cameras
back in the day was like astarlight express h9c, which is
still like a fantastic, you know, ccd camera, but it's like a
nine micron sensor, like thepixels are nine micron, which
are which are huge.
And so while we're gettinggorgeous, you know, wide fields

(31:48):
of view, we weren't maximizingthe resolution, meaning the
camera was not seeing theresolution the scope was
producing.
We were under sampling thereand so, as pixels you know from
you know we're trying to getthem into our phones.
So pixels are being driven down,smaller and smaller and smaller
.
So what's happening is thatshorter focal lengths are, you

(32:10):
know, in a better place thanthey've ever been and we're
actually seeing in the industryit's it's kind of harder if you
come in with an RC and you'relike, hey, give me a great pixel
pairing on this and it's likeit doesn't really exist in the
CMOS world.
You'd have to go into the CCDto accomplish that and really
there's just not new CCDs beingdeveloped.
So you're working generally alittle bit older system.

(32:30):
That doesn't mean it's bad oranything like that.
But you do have to be mindfulof the industry outside of
astronomy is pushing pixelssmaller, and so the scopes in
the future are going to have tobe faster and larger aperture,
and so I think, um, faster andlarger aperture is, uh, just
makes sense with a hyperstar.
So I think that's where we'reprobably going to be seeing

(32:52):
trends of scopes in the futureas well.

Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Just for not to get into the weeds too much.
But could you bin and have asimilar result with multiple
pixels being combined?
You?

Speaker 4 (33:05):
can decide.
Yeah, and the way CMOS camerasbin is different than the way
CCD cameras did.
It's done in the software sideof it and not in the hardware
side of it, so you don't gainthe same amount of sensitivity.
But there is still an advantageto it and people do that and
that's a reasonable way to do it.

(33:25):
But since it doesn't have quitethe same advantage, I think
Steve's right that the future oftelescopes is going to be
shorter focal lengths but biggerapertures, faster systems, so
that you get that resolutionlike you used to get with a very
long focal length telescope,but with the modern cameras and
doing it with the fastertelescopes.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And, like I was saying, sorry, ccd binning is on
the chip itself.
I mean, sorry, ccd binning ison the chip itself and so it
literally is becoming a onepixel, whereas it's more like a
digital zoom in post kind of athing.
So it's not, it's notcorrelating exactly the same way
, so your sampling is not goingto have all the same benefits
you really would have gotten bybinning a CCD sensor.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
And then one last question, that kind of related
color or mono.
What do you feel that?
I realize that there's benefitsto the mono and especially
narrow band type imaging, butwhat do you guys find yourself
landing Most customers are doingthese days?
Is it color or mono?

Speaker 4 (34:23):
I mean color is much more common.
We find it's much simpler forbeginning imagers.
You don't have to mess with afilter wheel and different
filters and more processing andstuff like that.
You get a more instant result.
And one of the advantages thatused to be to monochrome was for

(34:44):
, like narrowband imaging, you'dshoot H-alpha to get hydrogen
emission and then nebulae, you'dshoot O3 to get oxygen, and now
the filters that exist havechanged that.
You can get dual band, tri band,quad band filters that isolate
those and you can use those withcolor cameras and technically
you're losing something becausethe color sensors have less

(35:05):
sensitivity.
You're not using all the redpixels for red and all the
pixels for green, and so there'stechnically some disadvantage
there.
But if you look at the results,the pictures, it's just the
differences are not night andday for a lot of difference in
cost and processing time andthings like that.

(35:26):
So far and away we sell morecolor cameras because that's
what most people are doing andthere's there's nothing wrong
with monochrome camera and doingthat, but we find that many
more people are using color andgetting amazing results.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
And that might be our neck of the woods too, since we
are really into the fastimaging and I think with
advances in, you know,astrophotography, photo
processing, you know it's likePixInsight and a lot of amazing
tools out there these days thatare leaps and bounds every year.
There's like these new toolsthat are just blowing people

(35:59):
away and you're getting amazingchanges and just like how we're
interpolating that pixel valuearound a pixel.
How do we determine what thosevalues really are?
And it's, it's been amazing,and so we we have done some
tests between mono and color andthe.
The kind of school of thoughtwas hey, well, um, if I can use

(36:20):
all four of these pixels inarray for my monochrome, but I'm
only using, say you know, aquarter of that for my green or
blue, or half that or, sorry,half that for my green and
quarter for the blue and red, um, then it could be that.
Um, I'm kind of losing part ofmy train of thought here, but it
is that we used to say, oh,it'd be four times better the
resolution for monochrome.

(36:40):
But in reality, in what we'vebeen determining, when you're
done processing your photo, it'sabout 1.6 times higher
resolution as opposed to, likethis, four times from a ccd is
what, where we kind of got thesenumbers.
But when you actually usingmodern processing tools, it's
not as huge of a difference.
But it does depend on whatyou're trying to do.
If it's science-based or you'rereally trying to isolate

(37:03):
something, then there could be alot of great reasons, and we
personally use monochrome, but Iwould say the majority of our
stuff is probably color,focusing on the beginner, mostly
Um and uh.
But then again, if you just goto AstroBrand you search any
monochrome camera, you're goingto see people do amazing photos
and some people do just some allright photos and you'll see

(37:26):
that it's really the person'sprocessing that's making the
hugest difference, notnecessarily the hardware they
had at the time.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
So yeah, I mean personally.
I have both monochrome andcolor cameras, but I shoot with
the color camera much more oftenbecause it's just more
convenient and I'm notdisappointed in the results.
So there, you go.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Not bad now did I hear I was reading online a bit.
Uh, did I hear that you have aHyperstar on the International
Space Station?

Speaker 1 (37:52):
It's no longer up there anymore, but it was on the
ISERV mission.
Yeah, we specially designed aCPC nine and a quarter for the
wharf window, so it's a veryheavily modified CPC.
What's?

Speaker 3 (38:06):
a.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
CPC.
Cpc is a Celestron, celestronalt as telescope.
If you go to celestroncom andyou type in cpc, you're going to
see a great line of telescopesthat celestron sells, but
anyways, um, they are awesome,and so does starzona sells them
as well.
Um, but, uh, they're like afork arm gps unit in them.

(38:27):
Although they didn't use that,we're basically using it as a
robotic arm in this window totake pictures of earth using the
hyper star, and so we had.
We were reached out to by the Iserve folks and we got to work
with them for a better portionof a year.
It was up there for a while,but our involvement was about a

(38:51):
year on the ground, making threedifferent units one for them to
send up, one for them to breakand one for them to have as a
model down here, and so we madelike an autofocusing system for
them and we got the Hyperstar onthere.
So, yeah, it was awesome Reallyreally sweet.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
I mean that's quite an honor.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
I mean that's quite an honor, I mean congratulations
.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
They had it pointed back at the Earth to take images
.
The idea was the space stationis moving 17,000 miles an hour,
so it's not over any part of theEarth for very long.
If you're trying to take ahigh-resolution picture straight
down towards the Earth from 250miles up and get some decent
resolution, you need a veryshort exposure to stop the
motion you're getting.
And so the advantage of theHyperstar was you could have

(39:37):
this pretty good resolution withthe large aperture of the
telescope but use very short.
They were using like 8,000th ofa second exposures to sort of
stop the motion of the spacestation as it passed over what
they were trying to image.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Now, were those pictures taken by astronauts or
was it more mechanical andcontrolled by a computer program
?

Speaker 1 (39:54):
astronauts okay, thanks, the astronauts did the
installation and and put thingsin there, and then it's a, it's
a really cool process because,um, something we didn't know
ahead of time is that when yousend any equipment up to the
station, um, you can't like talkto the astronauts.
I mean like, obviously, butmission control is not gonna be

(40:14):
like, hey, I'm, you know, grabthat tool and put that screw
here.
You have to write instructions.
They're just so accurate andyou are not allowed to talk to
them unless they ask you aquestion.
And then if they say, hey,we're confused how we're
supposed to do this, then youcan answer otherwise they're
following the instructions andputting it in there.
You just have to watch a videoof them assembling everything
and just being like and it'sfantastic, just floating by as

(40:37):
they're putting it in and uhthrough the window though yep I
mean, is that taken intoconsideration when you're
designing the optics?

Speaker 2 (40:47):
I mean, is that part of the special?

Speaker 4 (40:49):
we didn't have to.
The window that they use isthis wharf wharf window they
call it and it's a specialoptically designed, interesting
you know, like half milliondollar window optical piece of
glass.
So you know it was like youdon't.
One of the goals was your.
Whatever you put in this littlebay where it looks through this
window has to not touch thewindow.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
The window is expensive, you can't scratch it
or break it and if you justsearch, uh like nasa wharf
window, there's some youtubevideos of them like explaining
how they put stuff in there, andit's a really cool.
It's pretty cool.
That's a really cool thing.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
That is neat.
I'm very jealous.
I don't have anything on theISS.
Can you tell us a bit about thelike?
How many people does it take tomake something like this?
And like what, what?
What do those people do, um,and, and how does that process
work?

Speaker 4 (41:43):
it probably takes more people than we have yeah,
it takes more people.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
We should not be doing this.
We're our whole entire team is,uh, made up of, uh, six staff
members, including us and ourmachinists here in town, and so,
between all of us even DianaPiloni, david Klein, uriah

(42:11):
Harrell, everyone there by justbeing users of telescopes, and
we do star parties veryfrequently, and we used to do
them four nights a week, um, andwe'd use those as like test
sessions to understand how areour customers interacting with
products that that celestronmakes, that other companies make
, and are we seeing somethingthat every customer is having an

(42:34):
issue with?
Maybe we should try to to solvethat problem, and so we make a
lot of accessories for thosethings, just from our sheer use
and seeing.
You know, one customer comes inI'm having trouble getting my
scope on my mount.
We made the landing pad andthat was like the first thing we
ever really made.
And then that was like, okay,now we're getting into machining
.
And then that turned intogetting into optics and Dick

(42:56):
Bookroader really, um, you know,took scott under his wing and
and so scott was kind of hisprotege padawan, if you will, um
, and uh, he's got one ponytailright behind here.
You just can't see it.
Um, but uh, but um.
So a lot of it comes down toone of us has a crazy idea and
when the store slows down enoughbecause we have a retail store

(43:19):
that we you know, you walk intostarzona in like three hours
from now, I'm going to be thereat the front desk saying hi,
packing an order, answering aphone, working on support issue
or something.
So we were a small team with alot of hats and so in between,
after hours, um uh, we just kindof all come together from from

(43:39):
that.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
So it's I mean we're, we're all people who use
telescopes and doastrophotography and stuff like
that.
So so we we sort of know whatwe would want and probably what
other people would want, and wedo know what other people,
because they tell us and and andand we and we learn what people
are having trouble with andthings like that and try to make
stuff that would help them andhelp us, just for our own

(44:00):
benefits.
And it's the stuff people wantand we can sell it.
That's great.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Sounds like a real organic process.
Sorry, I said it sounds like areal organic process where
you're really trying to buildstuff that you would use and
then selling that.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Exactly.
And it's just, you know, we seesome interesting idea or a
problem, that we find a way totackle that and make something.
Steve's dad, being the owner ofStar Arizona, has always been a
very mechanical guy and hefixes telescopes, and he fixes
telescopes that probably have noright to be fixed, and he finds

(44:38):
a way somehow.
Somehow is just dedicated todoing this, and you know so.
So he'll come up with an idea,or somebody come up with an idea
, and then you know, steve orI'll sort of you know, do some
mechanical design, figure thatout.
If there's optics, I'll look atthat and see if there's ways to
do that and just keep iteratingon it.
Is there a better way to do it?

(45:04):
And and you know, we'll haveprototypes made and test stuff
and and if we like it, you knowit becomes a thing.
If we don't like it, we go backand just keep making it better
until it is I noticed.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
I noticed that you're also selling some 3d printed uh
products, and that's somethingthat you know, I I know a lot of
people are familiar with 3dprinting.
Um, do you find that that hasrevolutionized your, your
process at all?

Speaker 4 (45:27):
as a 100 single most significant technology that
we've had.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
I don't know how we did anything before we had 3d
printers literally I mean we'resurrounded by printers at work,
we're surrounded by printers athome and, um, you know, all of I
think I think of a lot of ideasis like we just come in with
something like okay, so I havethis idea this weekend and this
is what I made.
What do you guys think?
And and they're like let's gosomewhere with that.

(45:52):
And so I think every homeshould have a 3d printer.
I think kids need to belearning how to making their own
stuff.
I think it's it's reallygetting anyone to start thinking
about things in a different way, especially when you can start
seeing what your idea was onpaper, then your computer, then
in real life, in a matter of,depending on the part, like 30

(46:13):
minutes, yeah, I mean to have inin a few hours, some part that
you've designed and you can seedoes this fit, does this work?

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Is there something I didn't see about it?
Your brain tries to think ofstuff in 3D and then you make it
and you're like, oh, this isphysically impossible.
I didn't realize that had tosend a drawing to the machinist
and wait a week for it to getmade and come back and realize
something was wrong.
In an hour you go, oh, I'mgoing to change this, and an

(46:42):
hour after that you've got itchanged and there's things and
it's just completelyrevolutionized our ability to
prototype stuff.
Uh, and just the fact that wecan make stuff like some of
these products, like we make,you know, focusing masks and
hand controller brackets andjust all these little things
that we can make.
That would be impractical tomachine, either because the
geometry would be difficult orexpensive.

(47:03):
Uh, or you, you know, you haveto, like you know, make molds
and make all these parts and geta thousand of them and it
becomes, you know, you know it'slike wait, we just want like
six and you can just have it,you know.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
So it's amazing, amazing yeah, yeah, and, and we
have optical designs held in by,like you know, plastic parts
just for the first couple tests,sometimes just because it's
like oh, I need to shimsomething, I need to make a
little spacer.
It's like sometimes, testing islike done on the fly, like hey,
let's, let's change thatspacing, let's see if that
actually has a real world resultchange something so quickly?

Speaker 4 (47:36):
it it's just yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
I'm thinking like remote work.
You can ship that file off tosomebody else who you're working
with globally and get theirfeedback right.
Like that's just incredible.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Absolutely yeah, I love 3D printers.
They're a ton of fun until theybreak.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
Now, they're so cheap you don't even care so much if
they break.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
That's true.
That's true, it is working outa bit.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Team Starzona is clearly leading in last minute
trivia.
Will Dave make a comeback?
Find out after this short break.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
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(48:36):
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Speaker 3 (48:42):
So we're coming down toward the end and so I have one
more segment of trivia.
So I have three more questionsfor you.
Who's winning?
They are Steve is winning.
We're all winners.
So I've got three more, and thefirst one is and I'll give it,

(49:04):
I'll give the points to whoevergets closest.
So not Price is Right, rulesScott.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
So since 1970, oh wait, how many active telescopes
are in space right now?

Speaker 1 (49:21):
um.
Is that defined as like ascientific research for
astronomy telescope, or is anycamera?

Speaker 4 (49:29):
lens such a thing telescopes looking back at the
earth or telescopes looking atoh all this hmm hmm, oh, this,
that's a good question.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
I mean, I don't have a better answer.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
I'm going to go with anything.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
It could be visible light, infrared, ultraviolet,
X-ray or gamma ray.
Yeah, let's just go with thatvague definition.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Okay, I'll give you an appropriately vague answer by
picking an absolutely randomnumber 87.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
And so it was research kind of based.
Right, I was actually doingless if that was the case.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Basically any space telescope placed into orbit by
NASA or ESA.
Let's put it that way.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Oh, okay, okay, I might go lower, then Go under.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
I was going to go a lot less because I couldn't
think of more than like 10.
So I was like 10?
.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
I think it's going to be yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Okay, like 33.
I'm going to go with 10 becauseI don't know more, but I'm sure
there are All right, we've got10.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
We've got 33.
Dave 15.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
You're right in the middle.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Okay, all right Well.
Okay, all right Well, scott,you said 33, right, you are the
closest 29.
29.
Now, how many can you name?
No, I'm not going to do that,but we've got stuff.
I was looking at a list ofthese and I see, of course,
hubble right, we've got JamesWebb up there, we've got Chandra

(51:18):
, we've got Iris, the Swift,gamma Ray, burst Exploder and
I'm looking at this list rightnow and I'm pretty sure every
other one is some sort ofacronym.

Speaker 5 (51:30):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
But yeah, so we've got 29 basically up there,
either in orbit or somewhere inspace.
So again, we've been talkingabout Schmidt-Cassegrain
telescopes, right, but of coursethose are a combination of two
designs, right the Schmidtcamera and the Cassegrain design

(51:53):
.
What is the difference betweenthe Schmidt design and the
Casagrande design?

Speaker 4 (52:03):
I'm an optical engineer, so I know the answer.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
We'll let him answer last.
Dave, you're on.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
So I mean with the Schmidt camera there was a
corrector plate primary and thenyou had your film in the center
and the classical is just asecondary in your primary and
you don't have a corrector, atleast in the front there.
So my assumption would be thecombination of getting a

(52:30):
corrector plate on the Schmidtto have a little better coma
correction would have been myguess To have a little better
coma correction would have beenmy guess, dave.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
All of the above, is it correct that there's a
difference in terms of the shapeof the primary being parabolic
versus more of?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
a Perhaps.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
I can't tell you for sure.
Not circular.
What am I looking for?
What's the word?
I'm looking for Spherical.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Spherical.
Yeah, spherical or something.
I think it would be All right,scott.

Speaker 4 (53:08):
So a Castigrain design, a classical Castigrain
has a parabolic primary mirrorand a hyperbolic secondary
mirror convex secondary primarymirror and a hyperbolic
secondary mirror convexsecondary.
And those shapes are difficultto make but they're required to
eliminate the aberrations in thetelescope.
A Schmidt camera, which isSchmidt's original design, is an

(53:31):
aspheric corrector plate.
It's this thin piece of glasswith a very specific aspheric
curve on it that's so small youcan't even see it.
But the idea is, in combinationwith a spherical mirror it
would eliminate the sphericalaberration.
And, like Steve said, in theoriginal camera it was this
corrector plate, a sphericalmirror and then a curved film
plane.
And so the combination of thoseis to take the Casagrain design

(53:52):
with the concave primary andthe convex secondary and instead
of making them parabolic andhyperbolic, you use the Schmidt
corrector plate in front of allthat and both of those mirrors
can then be spherical, which ismuch easier to make.
If you can make the Schmidtcorrector plate, which is a
difficult thing for an amateurtelescope maker to make, but if
you can mass produce it the wayCelestron does with their patent

(54:14):
on how to make those things,and replicate them, which is
awesome, which is awesome, whichis awesome Then you can make
the Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, which has sort of all those
benefits of correcting thoseaberrations in something that's
simpler and less expensive tomake, Very good 10,000 points to
Scott, he wins the game.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
We are done.
We cannot even catch up to him.
Well done, well done, noproblem.
Yeah, yeah, I just summarizedit as the Schmidt camera had
that corrector plate, so thenyou just add that onto the cast
of grain design and just changethe mirrors up a little bit.
But what I did for the thirdtrivia question is I asked AI to

(54:54):
come up with a better acronymfor SCT, and I've got three
choices here and I want to hearwhich one you think is the best
One.
A, the satisfyingly capabletelescope.
B, the stellar cosmic tracker,or C, the sizable, clunky tube

(55:18):
toy.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
I think that's clearly the best way, all the
way, whatever whatever the mostridiculous possibility is yes.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I like that.
I like that.
Well, scott, you're still aheadwith 10,000 points, so you are
the winner.
Very good, very good round ofapplause.
So, as we, as we start windingdown and we start thinking about
, uh, the future ofastrophotography and the future
of, uh, starzona, what sorts ofthings are on the horizon for

(55:54):
you, or what are you predictingum other than uh more pixels and
smaller, um bins or whateveryou guys were technically
talking about?
That went way over my head.
Um what, what kinds of thingsdo you see happening in the
future of astrophotography?

Speaker 4 (56:12):
um, more automation and everything becoming easier.
Um, you know, just that's beenthe trend is just everything
about the hobby has gottensimpler.
Astrophotography like when Istarted with film.
It was just like a nightmare.
If you got one picture a month,you were the most excited
person in the world and itwasn't even a good picture.

(56:33):
And now if I don't get like 10pictures on a partly cloudy
night, I'm upset and you know so.
It's just easier for people toget into it who haven't been
into it.
You used to have to be like youhad to be an astrophotographer
and dedicated to this hobby andlearning it and processing and

(56:53):
all this stuff, and now justpeople can go out in their
backyard and take these pictures, so so that's a big part of it
is just every aspect of it isgetting easier and faster.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Yeah, I think there's a, you know, introduction of
smart telescopes.
You know, celestial origins outthere's.
Just like you can't like throwa camera and not see a bunch of
them these days, Right, they'rejust, they're popping up like
crazy and um, and then they'rejust not going to go away.
Um, and I think, uh, there'snothing really wrong with that.
I think the more people thatare thinking about the universe

(57:25):
and looking up at it, at thestars, and learning uh is is
better for everyone.
And so you know, you're notgoing to have a lot of, uh, say,
flat earthers with a smarttelescope.
You're going to, you know,learn things by just being out
there and seeing.
Wait, why isn't the same thingup every night?
Well, you know there's reasonsfor that and you start realizing
why.
So I think, um, smarttelescopes, like I said, aren't,

(57:48):
aren't going to go away.
They can get more and moreadvanced Um, and so that will be
happening.
I also think that, um, liketraditional, what we're doing
now, um is probably not going togo away, but it's going to
change the way it looks and howwe're interacting with some of
our gear.
But I think the idea that a lotof us are kind of modularly,
putting together pieces ofequipment for certain purposes.

(58:10):
I think that's still going toexist, but I do think that, uh,
uh, the barrier to entry isgoing to get lower for a lot of
people economically and justlike the concepts and stuff you
know I got.
I have people from brand new,young, who want to get into this
, and then I have people youknow uh, you know later in life,
older, and both need to learnsoftware and be able to handle

(58:31):
it.
So I think that we're going tosee a lot more advanced software
get involved on our phones,controlling the, the stuff we're
using, and I think from thestandpoint of the optics too.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
The other thing I think of is that it's getting
easier to make more complicateddesigns.
It's easier to manufactureoptics Now the technology you
know, so you know I can.
I can design things now thatwould have not have been
feasible to make 20 years agoand now we can do that and
that's going to improve as well.
So you're going to see moresophisticated optical designs

(59:11):
that become, you know realityyeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
reality yeah, that's a good point.
We've thrown lots of money downthe drain on product or designs
for systems that we've thatwill never see the light of day
because we couldn't machine themor, uh, polish them to the
accuracy that we could designthem on zmex, and so, like
reality and what you can dotheoretically are two different
things right now, and so, um,that's a really good point, but
it's good.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
It's's improved considerably and will continue
to.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
So you kind of alluded to this and circled
around it a few times.
Rob and I are both teachers.
We're educators.
We work with young people allday.
Are there any things that youcan think of that would be words
of wisdom to people who areinterested in this hobby, would
love to make it part of theirdaily life and make money while

(01:00:03):
they do their favorite thing?
What could they be doing toprepare themselves?

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
I don't know about how to necessarily make money in
this industry.
I will say it's a really toughindustry to feed your family on
just because it's high volumeand margins aren't great.
So we stand out in makingsomething.
So I guess, to that point, islike, hey, if you have a 3D
printer and you're a hobbyistand you found something that

(01:00:30):
there's a problem you'reexperiencing you don't think
anyone's you know solving, wantcall StarZone and ask us to make
it for you.
Or you know, get a 3D printer,get online, start learning how
to code or solder something andstart tinkering.
You might just make somethingreally cool.
And even if not, to make money,just because you're like, you

(01:00:52):
know benefiting yourself andpeople around you that are in
the community that can learnfrom it.
And if you, you know, getyourself out of your comfort
zone, you learn something,everyone's better off.
So, um, I think, getting outthere too.
You know there's a lot ofkeyboard warriors in this hobby
and it's like, and gear headswho just care about the gear,
and I'm I'm part of that group.
But I think the magic is whenyou go outside and look up and

(01:01:15):
then you, that's when some ofthese really big questions start
coming in and just, uh, youknow that you can help, you know
this, that astronomy andscience can help you learn.
So I think, just getting outthere, I think the questions
will come um, the you know, whyis that, why is that this way,
why is it that way?
And, and I think those are thethings you just need people to
have, and so getting anexperience that to facilitate
that, so you know, join anastronomy group in your local

(01:01:39):
area, get out to some starparties they're free, you know,
maybe buy some binoculars and astar chart and just kind of get
lost.
That's my thought, I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
Yeah, I agree.
Now one last question.
This might take a little bit ofthinking here.
One last question as we'rewrapping up.
Last question this might take alittle bit of thinking here.
One last question as we'rewrapping up if you could have
one hour on any telescope or goto any location to for a night
of observing, where would you go?

(01:02:11):
And you know it doesn't matter,travel doesn't matter, you know
anything is possible.
Where or what telescope wouldyou use?

Speaker 1 (01:02:22):
I mean Atacama Desert sounds pretty awesome, High
altitude.
Scott's been there, I've beenthere, no, no.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
You got to dream big Any telescope.
So I have a friend who works atMount Hopkins Observatory and
he got to look through the MMT,which is a six and a half meter
telescope.
So he wins every battle.
I've looked through a gianttelescope so I have to be able
to top that.
So I'm going to say that whenthey finish like the giant

(01:02:53):
Magellan telescope that has likethe seven, eight meter mirrors
that were made at the Universityof Arizona and we'll absolutely
have no possible way of puttingan eyepiece on it, you can go
down there and maybe stick somebino viewers on there and find a
way to look through the world'slargest telescope.
That would be pretty good.

(01:03:13):
Or if you could get a way tolook through Hubble or Webb in
space, if you can get aneyepiece with long enough eye
relief to see through your spacehelmet, that would be pretty
good because it would beinteresting to look through a
telescope and not see the starstwinkle.
Yeah, I think it would bepretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Yeah, I agree, I was going to say yet-to-be-developed
mirror on the moon, rotatingMercury or something some weird.
You know crazy design at primefocus, right I?
I don't know if you guys haveever um looked back in the
history books, but uh, they usedto ride in cages at prime focus
and that sounds so freakingcool.

Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
I would love to do that palomar telescope 200
inches, like guys like up therein the cage, like yep, that
would be my dream right there onthe moon, though no, like a
state fair ride or somethinglike that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
That's wild.
Well, I'll tell you what stevehas got like.
This has been fantastic.
We, uh, we really appreciateyou coming on the podcast.
We love learning about theengineering behind these things
and and and where, where youguys are coming from.
It's really cool.
Thank you so much for joiningus.

Speaker 4 (01:04:22):
Thanks for having us, we appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
I appreciate it, thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Thanks so much, guys.
Really do appreciate itAbsolutely.
If you're still listening andlike this podcast, please
consider becoming one of ourPatreon patrons.
Memberships start as low as $3per month with benefits
including opportunities to askquestions of our guests.
Also, please consider liking,subscribing and sharing this
podcast to help us bring theuniverse even closer than you

(01:04:47):
think.

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Starizona's Hyperstar - Astrophotography at F/2 - Presented by Celestron

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Starizona's Hyperstar - Astrophotography at F/2 - Presented by Celestron