[ATM] re Anybody home etc.,

[Chris Welsh]

Just My 2 Cents...I am 32 and have been building, tinkering, and
experimaneting with scopes since my 16th birthday, when I met an "old timer"
who gave me an unfinished tube with no optics...just the mechanicial bits.
I bought a 6" mirror grinding kit and have been buidling since then.
Although I must say with full time work, the hobby sometimes takes a
sideline....

One point I have is that, in this digital era, I think a way to bring 'kids'
(i.e younger than me) into this hobby is to appeal to their interests... I
tinker with microcontrollers (HCS12 and Rabbit Micro) and am working on a
way to steer my scopes via a blackberry or Iphone...and view images from an
ATM Scope from a custom interface on their PC.  I know its been done
already...but not by me!

my work is still in the very infant stages, but if anyone is interested, let
me know...

Cheers,

Chris Welsh

On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 8:31 AM, Richard in the UK
<richard at foucault.co.uk>wrote:

> Hello lance,
>
> Sunday, October 18, 2009, 3:29:16 AM, you wrote:
>
> > It's easy to say it's because kids are lazy or have no attention
> > spans.
>
> I don't know what it is. I do know that when I was 8 and I first
> pointed a 3" refractor at Saturn I was awe struck at the beauty I was
> looking at and could almost 'feel' this object hanging there. Maybe
> you know what I mean. It was a defining moment of my life, I am
> certain.
>
> I showed a similar sight to a friends son and the comment was along
> the lines of "what does it do?". Oh well, slightly better than a grunt
> I guess.
>
> Back at the time of my epiphany, Mercury was under way and "Space" was
> on the tip of everybody's tongue. Following years just got better and
> better and there wasn't a kid on the block who wasn't interested in
> space etc. So now, yes, there is much to distract the younguns, but
> how much is our lack of follow up on NASA's early achievements to
> blame?. OK, we built a lumbering great piece of metal orbiting the
> Earth, but we should have been out there by now. We should have at
> least landed man on Mars and have a thriving Moon station. And if we
> had, I am sure kids would be a lot more interested in what is out
> there. Just my tuppence (0.02UKP) worth.
>
> --
> Best regards,
>  Richard in the UK
>
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>



-- 
Cheers,

Chris Welsh
IPTV / DTV Technical Specialist
kabukie at gmail.com