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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Astroscope + DSLR = Gallery! (1 Viewer)

Back from a long, well deserved(?) trip to Sri Lanka. Weather was shifting, quite rainy, still we had a great stay. Lost track of all species we observed, somewhere between 150 and 200, most of them on photo. Finally I managed to nail this guy. Small, hard to spot, wary and difficult to get clear views of.

TLAPO804, EM1
 

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Spent a good bit of the day making and testing an artificial star.;)
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The tricky part is making a really round pin hole about 0.1mm in diameter. Otherwise, it is just an LED and a 3 volt battery.
Pretty much a must when it comes to fine tuning. The basic idea is to center the front and back lenses mechanically by counting the turns of the adjustment screws, and then on the star, tune out the coma. These are with the "X-1";) Infra and extra focus.
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Notice how the bottom is blured compared to the top, and especially how one looks positive and the other negative. Ideally both should liik identical. We'll see.... Wish me luck! B :)
 
Done. Much better and not SO hard to do.
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And here on Polaris
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Not sure about the positive-negative thing. That might apply to Newtonian scopes... don't know...
Closeup of PolarisA-Ab
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According to my friend Tommy, those little "dents" are caused by a fleck of dust or something like that. Not in the glass.
 
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It's a Yellow Bittern, Ixobrychus sinensis

Great shot Tord ! Here in Quebec, we have the Bittern, which is a large bird and the elusive Least Bittern, which is uncommon and difficult to locate - it looks a lot like yours. I was lucky to see a few.

I envy you to travel to exotic places like Sri Lanka... I just come back from a birding trip to Florida in the US and the camera has been quite busy !
 

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White-throated Kingfisher

Thanks Jules,

Sri Lanka is a wonderful country offering great birding opportunities. Have visited four times. Here another photo with the TLAPO804. This one is a White-throated Kingfisher. These guys are common, found more or less everywhere there is water around abd tend to be perched some 2-3 meters above ground from a perch offering free line of sight. They are easily spotted but can be tricky to come close enough for detailed photo.
 

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Cranes

Back home...

Here some Cranes resting and refueling on their long journey towards the northern latitudes. Throwing in some Whooper Swans in the lot.

TS102 scope, E-M5
 

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Lovely weather we are having on this, the 19th of April... but it doesn't seem to bother some people. ;)
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Scope + EC-14, about 50 meters away.
These are with the Canon 400
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Temperature is hovering around +0.5°C. If it gets any colder, no apples this year...:-C
 
Scheibenkleister! Des is zu koit! ;)
Pichl-Kainisch? That is 800 meters in evevation. You would expect that there. We are just under 200 meters here. They had -8 on the Rax this morning.
 
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Shame the wing got clipped.

TS102 scope

Great shot Tord. Your hand holding of the scope amazes me.

Here is one to make you smile. I wonder if the stern thinks that the same color post is a member of the family ? Birdbrain ? Taken with the easier to hold PL 100-400mm.
 

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