I’ve finished out 90% of the hardware for my “production version” of the camera controller. There’s a couple of software glitches that need to be resolved, but for now it’s a totally functional device.

The first bit is the radio remote/flashlight:

Thanks to the brilliant design on the Xbee radios, this remote consists of: (1) Xbee module, (1) Xbee breakout, (1) Bodhilabs AAA 3.3v, (1) switch, (1) Red LED w/ resistor. The switch is the sexy nav-switch from Sparkfun, which is a center push, and two contacts in each direction. I’m using the center for the shutter (contact closure on the xbee), and one direction of the switch to light up the red LED. The Xbee is programmed to forward the contact closure to it’s pair on the reciever.

On the receiving/controller end, we have this:

Parts list is a little longer here, but the basic components are a Bodhilabs vpack stepping (2) AA batteries up to 5v, a 2×16 serial LCD, another xbee breakout board, a trimwheel potentiometer, and my custom-built controller.

I did a custom pcb from batchpcb to cut down on size– it’s an 8MHz Atmega168 board, compatible with Arduino, and actually has the Arduino NG bootloader, which is slick. The custom board runs at 3.3v, which makes the interface with the Xbee really simple. That does mean some inefficiency in the power supply (switchmode to 5v, and then linear regular to 3.3v), but the high current device, the LCD, is running at the full 5v.

Overall, pretty cool, so far so good.

Cesar Augustus once said “Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.”, which roughly translates to: “Very cheap photographic prints in August!” — I’ve discounted all of my prints on esty to $15 >including shipping<. This is all 8×12 and 12×18 prints, formerly $35-$45.

So head on over there, and buy some prints!

I’m planning a couple trips this fall that will involve night photography, in trying to work out the various astronomical timings, I developed the above graph. The blue zone in the middle is when the sun is up, the blue and black triangles are the moon’s rises and sets. The up triangle means the moonrise time, the down triangle means the moonset. From this relationship, you can get the phase of the moon. If the sun and the moon rise together, you have a new moon. If the moon rises when the sun sets, you have a full moon.

Data pulled from here.