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As a person who has spent well more than $10,000 on his equipment and software setup for astrophotography, I disagree with the blanket "don't" statement. I thin

As a person who has spent well more than $10,000 on his equipment and software setup for astrophotography, I disagree with the blanket "don't" statement. I think the biggest cause of frustration is amateurs starting out with something like an AP1100 and a Takahashi FSQ, along with some ridiculous overpriced CCD camera they bought because it was listed as having "the most megapixels" in order to try and avoid the pains of a "substandard" setup. Ironically, however, this usually causes more pain than if the setup had been simpler in the first place. Additionally, it harbors resentment towards the hobby from the person who just dumped 15k on their bulky imaging system only to find they can't even get it to guide correctly. I operate my primary scope in a large personal observatory, but I can't rave _more_ about the amazing pictures I've taken with my cheap ZEQ25, Explore Scientific ED80, ASI 1600MM-C, and cheap set of narrow-band filters. Setup is fast, the focal length is short, the speed is (fairly) fast, and the results can be seen in just a single night of test imaging[1] for less than $2200. Additionally, new devices[2] are coming out that will make imaging even simpler! 1: https://imgur.com/a/fcFbh https://imgur.com/a/fcFbh 2: https://vaonis.com/telescopes https://vaonis.com/telescopes

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
Regarding your second link: great, just what we need, astronomy run by locked-down proprietary hardware and software. If anything should be hackable, it's your telescope. After reading through their FAQ, I'm ready to bet that it won't be possible to, for example, write a script on your Linux laptop to have the telescope track some arbitrary celestial target over several weeks. Proprietary firmware/protocols/apps for controlling hardware products should be illegal.
- jackhack 9y ago
  Illegal? You wish to use the power of the legal system to prohibit a closed protocol for telescope control? I think there are more serious problems in the world that deserve the attention of courts/police and prosecutors, but whatever. Let me propose a compromise in the spirit of YCombinator's startup-focus: As you feel so strongly about this, and AFAIK such an open-protocol system does not exist, that tells me you have a perfect opportunity for you to invent this stuff, market it and sell it. Why not go tackle this gaping hole in the marketplace?
  - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
    >Illegal? You wish to use the power of the legal system to prohibit a closed protocol for telescope control? Of course not. I wish to use the power the legal system to establish broader laws prohibiting the distribution of proprietary firmwares. Think farmers unable to repair their tractors without spending thousands of dollars bringing them to the manufacturer. Same umbrella of problems. >Let me propose a compromise in the spirit of YCombinator's startup-focus: As you feel so strongly about this, and AFAIK such an open-protocol system does not exist, that tells me you have a perfect opportunity for you to invent this stuff, market it and sell it. Why not go tackle this gaping hole in the marketplace? Capitalist incentives don't work here, which is why I suggest a legislative approach.
- joshumax 9y ago
  Funny you should mention this. The astronomy community actually suffers from "proprietary bloat" in terms of astronomy software and mount firmware. I used to own a certain red-colored high-end mount from a well-known astronomy software and mount vendor. This mount had a completely closed-source control protocol, and had to be used with buggy software that was only available for Windows and MacOS at the time (a big problem since I used FreeBSD and Linux), so I went to the liberty of installing a filter driver above their USB drivers on a Windows box to reverse engineer the protocol and develop an INDIlib (an open telescope control standard) driver to bypass the need of their bloated software suite. When I posted about my project, I received a rather nasty cease-and-desist letter from them threatening legal action if I discussed it any further despite the fact that I was well within the bounds of the exceptions allotted by the DMCA. Being a young lad of 16 at the time, I had no resources to fight back against them and as such never got the driver into INDI mainline.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago

Regarding your second link: great, just what we need, astronomy run by locked-down proprietary hardware and software. If anything should be hackable, it's your telescope. After reading through their FAQ, I'm ready to bet that it won't be possible to, for example, write a script on your Linux laptop to have the telescope track some arbitrary celestial target over several weeks. Proprietary firmware/protocols/apps for controlling hardware products should be illegal.

jackhack 9y ago
Illegal? You wish to use the power of the legal system to prohibit a closed protocol for telescope control? I think there are more serious problems in the world that deserve the attention of courts/police and prosecutors, but whatever. Let me propose a compromise in the spirit of YCombinator's startup-focus: As you feel so strongly about this, and AFAIK such an open-protocol system does not exist, that tells me you have a perfect opportunity for you to invent this stuff, market it and sell it. Why not go tackle this gaping hole in the marketplace?
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  >Illegal? You wish to use the power of the legal system to prohibit a closed protocol for telescope control? Of course not. I wish to use the power the legal system to establish broader laws prohibiting the distribution of proprietary firmwares. Think farmers unable to repair their tractors without spending thousands of dollars bringing them to the manufacturer. Same umbrella of problems. >Let me propose a compromise in the spirit of YCombinator's startup-focus: As you feel so strongly about this, and AFAIK such an open-protocol system does not exist, that tells me you have a perfect opportunity for you to invent this stuff, market it and sell it. Why not go tackle this gaping hole in the marketplace? Capitalist incentives don't work here, which is why I suggest a legislative approach.
joshumax 9y ago
Funny you should mention this. The astronomy community actually suffers from "proprietary bloat" in terms of astronomy software and mount firmware. I used to own a certain red-colored high-end mount from a well-known astronomy software and mount vendor. This mount had a completely closed-source control protocol, and had to be used with buggy software that was only available for Windows and MacOS at the time (a big problem since I used FreeBSD and Linux), so I went to the liberty of installing a filter driver above their USB drivers on a Windows box to reverse engineer the protocol and develop an INDIlib (an open telescope control standard) driver to bypass the need of their bloated software suite. When I posted about my project, I received a rather nasty cease-and-desist letter from them threatening legal action if I discussed it any further despite the fact that I was well within the bounds of the exceptions allotted by the DMCA. Being a young lad of 16 at the time, I had no resources to fight back against them and as such never got the driver into INDI mainline.