jeepx.net

If you want to take a peek inside a Skyscout from Celestron with its GPS, compass (magnetometer by Honeywell + accelerometer from Analog Devices) head to EETimes’ TearDown for a freebie.

Click the red On Demand button (buggy on Firefox, works in IE + RealAudio) and register for a 15 or so minutes long video (slides with narration) by David Carey from TearDown. Parts list included.

EETimes publisher CMP, just put out the second issue of ‘Under The Hood” showing (besides the Skyscout) the guts of a Toyota Prius, a Blackberry 8100 Pearl, the Sony game controller and a bunch of other toys.

A good point made at the Skyscout presentation is the fact that Freescale doesn’t produce the MG4100A anymore. Guess Motorola sold that IP to Sirf at some point.

Tags: Under the Hood, GPS & Astronomy, Navigation by gpsguy
No Comments »

FutureLab is a non-profit that is making available for schools Create-A-Scape. The package, based on original work developed by a research arm from HP in Bristol, UK enables students to produce “mediascapes”.

Or narratives with images, sound and GPS data. The whole package includes the necessary software and hardware. From ElectronicsWeek.

Celestron announced a new series of telescopes with GPS technology.

“The CPC Series’ internal GPS receiver automatically downloads the date and time from orbiting satellites and pinpoints its exact location on Earth.”

TeleAtlas will be providing map data to Nokia according to article from InformationWeek. Check the video at the bottom of the page showing how TeleAtlas produces map data with its mobile mappers. Nice PR.

Tags: Maps, GPS & Astronomy, DIY by gpsguy
No Comments »

Yes I know, tons of ways to answer it.

But did it ever occured to you to ask where exactly is our Sun headed to?

As in looking for the actual direction of the Solar System…

And if you decide to look for youself, here are good directions (take into account that the dates are not for 2006 moonless nights).

BTW, going up the Ecliptic by Equinox today.

Tags: GPS & Astronomy, Here by gpsguy
No Comments »

This came up a while ago during the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco and might indicate that it will be better if you keep your internal compass in working conditions when GPS signals start to get affected by changes in the plasmasphere or “plasma cloud surrounding Earth above the ionosphere” by solar activity. Check the article at ScienceDaily and this one from Space for more. Picture from NASA/NSF/MIT.

[Update: And the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is predicting that a big one is coming pretty soon.]

Tags: Under the Hood, GPS & Astronomy by gpsguy
No Comments »

To make even easier to find stars and other celestial objects in the sky, Meade announced a new telescope: the LX90GPS is equipped with an Autostar controller and a Sony GPS receiver that helps the telescope align itself by figuring out where and when it is located, how high, its true North, plus locating two stars from its database. With that it sets itself up without much effort by its owner.

Previous models equipped with GPS receivers include the LX200R and RCX400. You probably won’t learn to find many stars or constellations by yourself with GOTO type telescopes but it is quite amazing that a telescope got to this level of autonomy. Check under Goto Drivers on this article of the Astronomy Magazine for more details on the operation of this kind of telescope.

SkyScout

A while ago Celestron published a more detailed list of the features and specs of SkyScout, a truly amazing device by its innovative qualities. The idea is that you can point to the sky and have a description of what you are looking at. The internal GPS plus its star database makes Astronomy pretty interesting. It also allows you to upgrade its firmware through an USB interface and it includes a slot for an SD card for an optional “Sky Tour” with voice presentations. Initially planned for March, Celestron now says that it should be available by May 2006.

Tags: GPS & Astronomy by gpsguy
No Comments »

AstroNavigator from Vito Technologies can be tried for 15-days before you have to fork US$25 for a license. Vito produces several other packages including Vito Navigator and Vito Manager (soon to be reviewed).

Probably because of that, AstroNavigator can hook up to a GPS receiver and obtain location information plus time to display the stars and planets in your sky plus the current position of the NAVSTAR satellites.

AstroNavigator offers sliders to help position the sky, plus a circle-around-the-Sun type dial that you can control to display the sky at any location.

You can locate stars and constellations like Orionic and control the amount of clutter to be displayed (grids, labels, etc). Pinpointing a star or planet will provide a popup with all its related information and position.

Tags: Pocket PC, GPS & Astronomy by gpsguy
No Comments »

Another way to figure out where you are, and not a new one is by looking up the stars. If you use a sextant to measure how high in the sky Polaris is (in the northern hemisphere) for example, you can from that figure out your current latitude.

Orionic is a pretty handy freeware package (available for ARM, MIPS and SH3) that you can use to figure out constellations and stars on a clear night.

Enter your current latitude and longitude and choose between current system time or some other and you are done. Orionic will display the current sky for your time/position.

By tapping a star you can see its name. A Go to menu will let you choose a constellation you want to see or display the stars on a given direction (N, S, W, E and Zenith).

Check it out.

Tags: Reviews, Pocket PC, GPS & Astronomy by gpsguy
No Comments »