usb

Introducing Power*Star

 in Blog  tagged announcement / distribution / hub / new product / power / Power*Star / usb / USB3

If you’ve been following this blog you already know that I’ve been working (for what seems like years, but was really just 10 months) on a new product, which I have named ‘Power*Star’.  In my earlier posts I told you about the process of designing and manufacturing the product, and now that it’s almost ready to ship it’s time to tell you what Power*Star is all about. The core functionality of Power*Star (abbreviated P*S) is quite simple:  It provides a central distribution point for both the power (mostly 12VDC) and data (USB) typically needed for astrophotography.  In the most basic […]

Look, No Wires!

 in Blog  tagged backlit frame / battery / power tank / usb

My backlit film prints have been very popular since I first started selling them about 10 years ago, and from the beginning people have asked whether it would be possible to make them battery powered.  Until now, the answer has been, “Theoretically, yes, but…”  In the early days I had only large sizes, and it was not very practical to run them off batteries because getting a reasonable run time would require some very expensive batteries.  Although battery technology is always improving, it’s still fairly expensive today.  But for the smaller sizes (8×10 and 11×14), ordinary AA batteries can power […]

New: Astro-Flash Viewer

 in Blog  tagged astro-flash / screen saver / slide show / usb / wallpaper

For several years now I have offered a collection of my best astro-photos on a USB flash drive for use as a slide show, screen saver, wallpaper, etc.  The collection has now grown to over 45 images and I’ve added an application (for Windows computers only) that does a slide show with configurable text overlays. Each image has 3 type of information available; the title, object information, and technical data.  The “Setup” menu allows you to select which of these 3 is displayed during the slide show, but you can also switch it “on the fly” using hotkeys.  For example, […]