On Monday, 9 January 2017 02:59:03 UTC+1, StarDust wrote:
On Sunday, January 8, 2017 at 5:10:16 PM UTC-8, RichA wrote:
Image stabilization. To damp images in case of wind, or touching the scope to reduce or eliminate damp-time, using high-power eyepieces, taking images. Camera stabilization is reaching incredible quality, you can now (with some of them) take hand-held images with normal lenses with 1-4 second exposure times. Stabilization isn't needed on scopes all the time, obviously, since we have tripods and mounts, but sometimes it would be an advantage when looking at objects where critical resolution is required.
However, I wouldn't want it if it costs as much as the ridiculously overpriced stabilization in binoculars.

I guess, DSO object are too dim for the image stabilization to work and planets need too high magnification.

The human eye has a remarkable ability to overcome image movement and to grab a fleeting moment's clarity.
The insistence by amateurs to capture an image of what they see has driven delayed processing and best image software selection like Registax.
Even I was able to produce images at the first few attempts which I thought completely impossible without huge investment.

Software which can process and grab best image quality during the actual capture period, perhaps aided by faster processing, may be the way forward for Solar System imaging.

Stable, commercial mountings, piers and tripods still remain in the realm of multi-thousand dollar investments.
Perhaps they need serious competition from upstart Chinese manufacturers or DIY/ATM examples to bring down prices?

A sturdy steel pole in the garden, set in concrete, offers a level of stability which overcomes many problems of vibration.
Thanks to massive mountings and piers I used to take extra focal images of the Solar System by simply holding a cheap digital camera up to the eyepiece.
To do so with many commercial mountings and their flimsy tripods would be to invite violent shaking of the image.

It is the constant repetition of the same design mistakes which I find so irritating.
Is there absolutely no user feedback to the factories churning out the same crappy designs year after year?
The commercial and amateur designs which do actually work are there to be studied by reasonably competent engineers.

China is supposed to churn out huge numbers of qualified engineers every year.
Is there a complete absence of upward movement of information in the slave wage, Asian economies?
Even the utterly loyal, jobs for life, unquestioning Japanese workforce had a technological miracle after the war.
They held workforce meetings to share information and improve the products and manufacturing processes. The hive mind!
There was no area of consumer manufacture where they didn't soon dominate.
European and American legacy manufacturers went bust trying to compete with their tired old pre-1920s, cast iron designs.
Now Japan is suffering the same fate against Chinese manufacture by becoming too rigid, too smug and aloof from reality.

Are there no small disruptive manufacturers of anything better in China which aren't crippled by communists party member's protection rackets?
Surely not all Chinese factories are run like Soviet rust manufactures by Xi's corrupt henchmen?