I am a retired Electrical Engineer. I spent my career in the Steel Industry where I was responsible for making changes to, and supporting, very large automation systems. Lots of closed loop control systems, both electric and hydraulic. I also designed and installed data aquisition and instrumentation systems based upon the software language called LabVIEW by National Instruments.
I like woodworking and I have a shop in my basement. Lately my astrophotography hobby has taken over so now I only do small woodworking projects.
My wife and I like to sing so we joined several choirs. Obviously 2020/21 really has put a damper on singing with choirs.
My wife is a quilter and we decided way back in 2002 to purchase a robotic quilting machine called a PC Quilter. I designed and built a quilting workstation that could handle a Queen size quilt. The software that came with the PC Quilter got the job done but it was a DOS program with simple graphics. Does anybody remember drawing graphics using alphanumerics?
I realized I needed to invent something to change this situation, so I created a LabVIEW program called PCQ Designer. I showed my program to a lady who represented the PC Quilter folks and she thought it was a great idea. I set-up an internet company call Quilting Mouse Technologies and began selling PCQ Designer On-Line. Several years later PCQ Designer has evolved into Pro-Q Designer which supports many different robotic quilting machines.
I have always been fascinated by astronomy. When I retired I purchased a Skywatcher 8″ Dob. After I figured out how to connect a small camera to the telescope I knew I was hooked. I upgraded to a German Equatorial Mount and replaced the 8″ Dob with a 3″ Refractor and a 8″ EdgeHD SCT. I bought a Nikon D5300 and in 2020 I bought a QHY294C.
I am a member of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomer group which is a very large group and has monthly meetings with excellent speakers. I have submitted a few articles for their newsletter and I always submit photos for their calendar.
I have been writing LabVIEW programs to control my set-up and to calibrate my LIGHT frames. It certainly burns up 1,000’s of hours but that’s the whole idea behind having a hobby.
In 2019, I decided to polish up a program I have been using to calibrate my LIGHT frames. There is a huge amount of work required to develop a program that is usable by others. The program is called CaLIGHTs and it is free to download and use.
I started off with a google groups for CaLIGHTs but I found that search engines could never find it?. I thought that was very strange…a Google Search can’t find a Google Group? I decided I needed a website so in January 2021 I started building this site. Of course, since then I notice that Google Search has found both my website and the google groups page.
I hope to use this website to blog about what I am up to and to feature my software programs.
Peter