Personal Blog

Almost one month ago i was lucky to visit Paris to present a paper in a CS conference (SBAC-PAD). Although bit expensive for my taste, Paris is really a city of light. You can find interesting places to explore the city. Unfortunately, i didn't have enough time to visit Louvre Museum and the catacombs,  i really suggest you to visit them if you ever go to Paris. Here are some photos from the walk i did: Outside of Louvre museum. Eiffel tower. Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. One night we visit a strange old building " Mairie de Paris ": Mairie de Paris. Mairie de Paris. Last day i had my morning free, so i visited the Jardin de plantes Paris : Jardin de plantes Paris with flowers. Jardin de plantes Paris.

Last week i was lucky to watch a demonstration of a F-16 of Hellenic Air Force. Although the video and the pictures are not the best i was able to get some average shoots. My biggest mistake was that i left the shutter speed to 1/160s - 1/200s and in my case it should be lower, as the F-16 is a high speed object. Ideally i should had decrease the shutter speed to 1/400s and in crease the ISO to 200, 400 or even 800. Here are some pictures: F-16 of Hellenic Air Force flying demo. F-16 of Hellenic Air Force flying  demo . On the other hand, when i was shooting the video i had some issues with the focusing, i guess i need more practice. After the first two minutes i was able to focus better and i got better shots. Here is the video:

Chania is the second largest city of Crete and the capital of the Chania regional unit. It lies along the north coast of the island, about 70 km west of Rethymno and 145 km west of Heraklion.   Elafonisi (Ελαφονήσι) is an island located close to the southwestern corner of the Mediterranean island of Crete, in the regional unit of Chania. When the weather is fine it is possible to walk to the island through the shallow water. The island is a protected nature reserve.

End of August i was lucky to visit one friend on Cyprus for some days. We decided to make a roadtrip to explore the island. I think we spend more than 15 hours driving in various areas. Here is the plan we followed: Roadtrip in Cyprus with the dates on each city. There are 3-4 big roads so it easy to go almost anywhere. Larnaca Beach in Cyprus. Larnaca is the third largest city in Cyprus, located on the southern coast of Cyprus with population of 85000.   Larnaca Beach and Port in Cyprus. Driving to Limmasol from Nicosia in Cyprus during sunset. Driving to Paphos in Cyprus. From the few places that we saw trees. Cyrus is mostly dry place with small number of forests. Paphoos tunnel in Cyprus. Driving from Paphos to Polis Crysochous in Cyprus. from that point the road becomes smaller. Driving from Paphos to Polis Crysochous, you have to go through the mountain. This is in the middle of the trip. Baths of Aphrodite near Polis  Crysochous...

It was about time. After almost 4 months of non-stop working and trying to understand the huge amount of source code written in C and assembly i decided to go for 6 days and visit my friends in Rhodes. Rhodes is an island located in the eastern Aegean Sea in Greece,. It is a quite big island in terms of land area and population, with a population of 110000 permanent residents. In the summer the population explodes due to tourism. In mid of August at the highest peak of the season it is expected that around 30000 people are going to use the airport. Back to our topic: vacations. One of the things i like more in Rhodes is the dark skies. At least if you are living outside of the city center the night skies are quite dark for the observation: light pollution is class 4 or 5. After the sunset the temperature comes down and allows relaxing observation of night sky. Looking at the stars during summer with my telescope (Astromaster 70AZ). The second thing i like most is the beach...

The T2 mount is finally here. I was able to use it with my Celestron Travel Scope . The T2 mount took almost 40 to receive it from China. I replaced the eyepiece and removed the mirror prism, and suddenly I had a lens 400mm. Of course, the quality is much worse than the actual lenses, and I will need a lot of post-processing, but the price I paid it was less than 100 euro. Nikon D3200 attached to the Celestron travel scope 70 using a T2 Mount. Here is my first impression: I need a good tripod. Even the light wind I had on 4th floor makes the images blurred. The tripod I way too cheap for this work, and the exposure more than 5 seconds does not forgive. Anyway I also did some daylight tests, here are my results: View from my camera with 55mm. View using the travel scope. Here is one plane, note that I had to increase the ISO due to darkness. My next target was the second most bright object in the sky: the moon. Again the quality was not the best, and I think it ...

Two years have been passed from my last serious exploration using a cheap RTL TV receiver. I still remember my self trying to found a connector from the Canadian antenna to European type connector. I couldn't find my  Lifeview LV5T Deluxe usb that i bought last time, so i bought a new one, this time a HAMA DVB-T based on the FC0013. The reception is similar with my old lifeview stick, however a noticed worse performance when going over 800 MHz. The time has come again to see if something changed in the field of applications that support the RTL receivers. Last weeks i have used four different applications, so here is my opinion and some screenshots: 1. SDR# (SDRSharp) One of my favorites when i 'm using windows. The newest version has been improved considerably from the last time i used it. The application was open source, but unfortunately the programmer switched to closed source, but it is still free to download. 2. HDSDR   This was the first SDR application ...

Recently i visited south of Crete to take a taste of the beautiful beaches. The waters on the area were the clearest i have seen in Crete. The trip going from Heraklion to kaloi limenes  takes around 1 hour and half. It i will be better to start early and take as much water you can. The sun is really strong on the summer and then temperature is probably higher than anything you have felt. Here is the route we used. Unfortunately the route is not easy especially in the last part. Here are some photos from the trip: View of inner Crete. Here is the top view of the beach. Note the oil storage and terminal facility, located on the small island of Aghios Pavlos ("Saint Paul") at the port's entrance. Despite the industrial appearance the beach i exceptionally clean. View of the beach. Note the oil storage. View of the Beach. Few people only and mostly locals. View from the road. The area is perfect for organized and non-organized camping. Suns...