http://joe.zawodny.com Observations Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:07:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="173" caption="New Year's Day evening Moon"][/caption] After way too many days of cloudy nights/mornings and poor seeing, the new year brought a welcomed gift of a clear sky and calm winds. Seeing was OK - good enough for f/10 and a red filter on my C-11. I shot ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2009/01/04/new-lunar-mosaic/ [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="251" caption="Wavelet Processing Screen"][/caption] As promised, I coded up an add-on to AviStack that performs wavelet based image enhancement. The functionality is similar to the Wavelets found in RegiStax, but are subtely different as you'll see in a moment. But before I tell you more about the new ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/31/wavelets-for-avistack/ Well as long as I'm taking shots here today. Caroline Kennedy is, "ya know", not exactly qualified for the Senate - by any stretch of the imagination. Simply being a Kennedy is insufficient qualification. She's been, for all practical purposes, in hiding for decades and now pops up (with someone) ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/30/caroline-kennedy/ I'm going to cross a few lines here. If you disagree, please feel free to comment. I'm open minded and can be persuaded to change my point of view. Having said that, here I go. First some context, I think it was arrogant and short-sighted when Israel was created after WWII. ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/30/middle-east-peace/ Another year has just about passed and it is always a good time to look back and reflect. A lot has happened this year, some good and some bad. For us it has been good enough in that we are all still here and in reasonably good health and spirits. ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/24/merry-christmas/ I was just reading this story on CNN and began thinking (always something to be worried about). In the old days, deflation was a worry because the reduction in prices meant cut backs in production which led to job losses and salary decreases which then reinforced the deflationary cycle. Those ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/17/deflation-threat/ I was contacted several weeks ago about the use of some of my Moon photographs for a TV show. They were looking for photos of lava tubes. Of course, the most easily seen ones are collapsed tubes, but they did not care. They saw some of my photos while they ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/12/02/my-moon-photos-on-discovery-channel/ [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="A comparison between stacking in RegiStax (Left side) and AviStack (Right side)."][/caption] I was recently introduced to a new and free (as in beer) stacking program and have been testing it. The program is called AviStack and it is written in a language called IDL. I've been ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/11/15/registax-vs-avi-stack/ I understand the argument that saving GM with a $25B "loan" might prevent an $80B shock to the economy, but who can say whether $25B will save them? GM does not produce a quality product that the consumer wants. If they did they would not be in trouble now would ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/11/07/gm-near-death/ [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="2008 Sticker"][/caption] I've cast my vote for president and was pleasantly surprised that I had virtually no wait to do so. I've been playing with some on-line electoral simulators recently and predict that the winner will end up with 338 electoral votes. The shocking news came this ... http://joe.zawodny.com/index.php/2008/11/04/election-prediction/