Tech Questions
-
@voodoo said in Tech Questions:
Random question, but does anyone know anything about Telescopes?
Thinking about getting one for my 9yr old, looks a bit of a minefield. Reflecting, refracting, etc?
Are the ones around $150 any good or just a waste of money?
I'll ask Mrs M who bought one recently and get back to you.
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Tech Questions:
@voodoo said in Tech Questions:
Random question, but does anyone know anything about Telescopes?
Thinking about getting one for my 9yr old, looks a bit of a minefield. Reflecting, refracting, etc?
Are the ones around $150 any good or just a waste of money?
I'll ask Mrs M who bought one recently and get back to you.
What was she looking for and did she find it ?
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Tech Questions:
@voodoo said in Tech Questions:
Random question, but does anyone know anything about Telescopes?
Thinking about getting one for my 9yr old, looks a bit of a minefield. Reflecting, refracting, etc?
Are the ones around $150 any good or just a waste of money?
I'll ask Mrs M who bought one recently and get back to you.
OK. Depends on what you want to use it for. Ours/hers is for planet/star-gazing and we've actually had it 2-3 years. Obviously check on the web for advice, but from what she remembers:
-
A decent tripod and mount for adjustment is essential for sky watching.
-
Make sure it has an aiming device (most do) to locate what you're looking for as the field of view of the actual telescope is quite small and it can be a real pain to find what you want to look at otherwise.
-
The bigger the mirror or lens the better the telescope but there's a trade off with size, portability and cost. Most decent ones are refractor types.
-
Consider one with an adaptor for a camera or phone so you can save pics of what you have seen. Most have a variety of different eyepieces or magnification, etc
-
You can certainly get a decent one (e.g. lower range Celestron) for your budget. Amazon
We are in no way experts but hope that helps!
-
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Tech Questions:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Tech Questions:
@voodoo said in Tech Questions:
Random question, but does anyone know anything about Telescopes?
Thinking about getting one for my 9yr old, looks a bit of a minefield. Reflecting, refracting, etc?
Are the ones around $150 any good or just a waste of money?
I'll ask Mrs M who bought one recently and get back to you.
OK. Depends on what you want to use it for. Ours/hers is for planet/star-gazing and we've actually had it 2-3 years. Obviously check on the web for advice, but from what she remembers:
-
A decent tripod and mount for adjustment is essential for sky watching.
-
Make sure it has an aiming device (most do) to locate what you're looking for as the field of view of the actual telescope is quite small and it can be a real pain to find what you want to look at otherwise.
-
The bigger the mirror or lens the better the telescope but there's a trade off with size, portability and cost. Most decent ones are refractor types.
-
Consider one with an adaptor for a camera or phone so you can save pics of what you have seen. Most have a variety of different eyepieces or magnification, etc
-
You can certainly get a decent one (e.g. lower range Celestron) for your budget. Amazon
We are in no way experts but hope that helps!
Legend, thanks mate
-
-
My laptop had a slight tumble yesterday with a USB flashdrive attached. Needless to say but it landed on the flashdrive and broke/upset something within said flashdrive as it is now not recognised when inserted in any USB slot. As it holds a good number of files (including a huge number of downloaded youtube music files) is there any way to recover this data given the above?
It could be as simple as breaking the plastic casing containing the drive and sticking it but with my luck it won't be that easy. I do have an external drive reader thingy that I can plug into this current laptop via USB cable to read other hard drives extracted from old computers if that is any help (but that is down in Wellington and I am up home in Napier for a month or three so not much use at the moment)! -
@Higgins I would hazard a guess that it's just a connecting pin that's been dislodged. The actual flash memory should still be good. Problem is if you're not handy with soldering you'll have to send it to a specialist recovery place who should be able to recover the files for you.
-
@antipodean Thanks, hopefully you are right and that all it will take is a bit of solder to get things going again.
-
-
@taniwharugby said in Tech Questions:
@nzzp I have a DVD/Video player combo!
After I transferred all my videos to DVD, it has been on the shelf int he garage for years...to think, we used to think video quality was good!
Shit, even thinking DVD (720p) quality was good astounds me now.
Can PS4's play DVDs or just Blu-ray?
-
@taniwharugby said in Tech Questions:
@nzzp I have a DVD/Video player combo!
After I transferred all my videos to DVD, it has been on the shelf int he garage for years...to think, we used to think video quality was good!
How times have changed
Someone wanted a copy of an old video I had and asked if I could put it on a DVD. I just uploaded it to the cloud and sent them the link...
-
Sticking this in here as there's no Gardening thread.
Looking at robot lawn movers and interested in the ones that don't use a boundary wire but a camera and/or GPS. Have 2 lawns of about 150sq m & 250 sqm. Anyone had any experience?
-
@Victor-Meldrew there was a thread somewhere I had asked the question re robo mowers, I ended up buying a new ride on!
-
@Victor-Meldrew said in Tech Questions:
Sticking this in here as there's no Gardening thread.
Looking at robot lawn movers and interested in the ones that don't use a boundary wire but a camera and/or GPS. Have 2 lawns of about 150sq m & 250 sqm. Anyone had any experience?
The place I stayed in Sarlat had a Stihl iMow. The grass looked good.