Mᴀʀᴋ VᴀɴᴅᴇWᴇᴛᴛᴇʀɪɴɢ

@brainwagon
413 Followers
197 Following
3.7K Posts
He/Him. Formerly Senior Technical Director, Pixar Animation Studios. K6HX. Telescope Maker. Tinkerer. Woodworker. Programmer. Open source afficionado. Enthusiast for enthusism. Make stuff, and share your knowledge and expertise!
Everyone in Bristol knew who Banksy was 10 years ago. Just that none of them thought they'd suck the life out of a mystery for the sake of a few clicks.
@nanochess Thanks! I've admired your work on tiny chess programs as well!
@charliejane I am not sure that I agree with many of the themes, but even as a big fan of both Buffy and Firefly, I'm not eager to step back in to see a "fresh take" on those shows. Let's face it: "fresh takes" are often just "tepid rehash, tuned to modern sensibilities." They are bringing back M*A*S*H for crissakes. What take do you think we will have that wasn't already addressed in 11 seasons, 14 Emmys, 8 Golden Globes and Peabody award?
Where the heck did I put my M6 heat set inserts?
@nanochess I've been experimenting with using AIs to translate PDFs into english text. How did this thing do? https://github.com/brainwagon/msx/blob/main/MSX_Magazine_1990-10_pp118-121_EN.md
msx/MSX_Magazine_1990-10_pp118-121_EN.md at main · brainwagon/msx

An article translated via OCR from the October 1990 issue of MSX magazine. Mostly an experiment in machine translation. - brainwagon/msx

GitHub
I was experimenting with trying to photograph Jupiter with my SeeStar S50. A 50mm telescope with just 250mm focal length is really not the right instrument: it would be difficult to expect much more than this. I did think that perhaps seeing the Great Red Spot would be just about possible, but I was wondering: is it visible? I didn't know, so I used Claude Code to help make me a quick app that could determine its position and whether it was visible. #astrophotography https://mvandewettering.com/rspot
Spent a couple of hours trying to understand how to position 3 supports in a mirror cell optimally. #telescopemaking Didn't understand PLOP's suggestion, so I had Claude Code help me grind out a similar calculation in Python, and now I think I understand it much better. The basic idea is that variations at the edges are more harmful, so they should be minimized. I now reproduce PLOPs suggestions.
https://github.com/brainwagon/blip
I worked on roughly reproducing the 6" mirror cell from my first telescope as a 3D print, but as I work on it, I can't help but realize just how mediocre the design is. I think I'll start from scratch. #telescopemaking #3dprinting
@acsawdey That is in fact one of the changes I want to make. I am making this for a person, but I don't have specifics on what size of diagonal he has.
First prototype of a diagonal holder/spider that can be easily/cheaply 3D printed. Vanes will be made out of 1/16" aluminum strip. My idea is to be able to supply these for a pittance to our telescope making workshop. I have at least three improvements to make before I give it to our first guinea pig. #telescopemaking