STEM Educator and Researcher.
The hardest bit so far has been trying to get 2 serial devices to synchronize within 2 milliseconds of one another. I had some success. Using 2 of the researchers pulse oximeters, and at least 7 subjects, I managed to get clean photoplethysmograms (PPG waveforms)!
Over the course of the week, I also managed to synchronize 2 Pulse Sensor Amped and get at least 2 clean waveforms with the promise of more and I also synchronized one CMS D50+ pulse ox and one Pulse Sensor Amped pulse sensor and get a few clean waveforms.
These data are meant to help my fellow teacher researchers in answering their questions more so than mine, but it is nice to be helpful.
Best timing results for all systems (once synchronized by hand) was time resolution of ±3 m/s. This is enough to characterize a single waveform and even to find the pulse transit time.
The hardest part has been getting up to speed on the biology material. The next hardest part has been diving into digital signal processing. But I feel like I have mastered these to a large enough degree to effective learn to process signal data and produce a useful GUI.
Once that task is mastered, the problem will be learning to use multiple pulse oximeter devices simultaneously. ^__^ 
Last night was clear and cold here in Meadows Place Texas. It was a great night for observing. The light pollution is quite bad here. Meadows Place is within literal walking distance of both Houston and Sugar Land. So this is urban observing. I managed to get a good image of my green laser pointing at Capella. It is a Laser 303 and it very powerful indeed.
The seeing wasn’t great for my area but there was no cloud cover and it was cold! After 9 pm some lights had clearly been turned off and the light pollution was better. Some dew settled on the Telrad but other than that, the equipment did really well. No fogging up. I initially attempted to use the school’s 8″ Celestron C8 go-to scope but gave up after having alignment issues. Also the thing NEEDS a Telrad. I will work on that. The mount is also shaky and the pointing stinks too. It needs a wedge with a sturdy mount! My 10″ Orion Skyquest Dobsonian reflector worked like a champ though. I used my Orion Expanse 15mm and 9mm plus a Shorty barlow lens and my 2″ wide-field 40mm. The images were taken with the 9mm eyepiece and my iPhone 7.
The best thing of the night was finding the planet Uranus. It took many tries, but I finally found it. It’s currently located in Pisces in the middle of the “V” and not really near any bright stars. This took a LONG time. Patience and perseverance paid off though! The disk was very pale indeed but clearly visible.
I also found my favorite carbon star V* WZ Cassiopeia. It was less coppery red than the last time I saw it. I also picked out the 3 open clusters in Auriga. All were in the glow of Houston to the northeast, but I like the challenge of finding them anyway. They looked a lot better as they climbed higher in the sky.
My list:
Saturday, November 25, 2017, I volunteered with my 10” Dobsonian telescope at the George Observatory inside Brazos Bend State Park south of Sugar Land, Texas. The night was party cloudy, but 9 PM we had mostly clear skies. There were around 150 there from dusk to 9:30. The other volunteers help me find some first-time targets and I went through a lot of other well-loved targets. I also did a short 1-mile hike around the observatory along the Creekfield Lake trail. It’s short but usually empty. It’s a nice walk through the woods.
Here is my list:
I spent a few hours outside tonight with my 10″ Orion Dobsonian telescope hunting for celestial objects. These were all things I’ve seen before, but it was still really cool and very rewarding. I navigated with my iPad and used my wide-field Celestron binoculars to help me along. I fiddled with my iPhone and iPad camera a bit and produced these images. The software screenshot is from Starmap 2.
Here is my observing list for the evening:
It was a nice cool evening. The wind was brisk. This made the seeing pretty bad. But the transparency was excellent. And the lack of a bright moon helped a lot.
