Cat Cam by Eyenimal

Ever wondered what your cat spends its time doing when you’re not around? Where do our purring pets go when they disappear through the cat flap? Armed with micro-cameras, a team from BBC Two’s Horizon programme in collaboration with the Royal Veterinary College set off to a Surrey village to find out. If you fancy having ago at seeing what your feline friend does during the day a similar idea to that of the  ‘cat cam’ is available HERE. The first of its kind video camera firmly attaches to your pet’s collar thanks to its especially-designed fastening clip. With the video camera safely in place, press the Record button to start recording. When you have finished recording, recover the camera and connect it to your PC using the USB cable provided. The recorded video sequences can then be viewed directly onto your computer screen without the need for any drivers or installation CDs.

Nexstar+ Handset Boot Loader Error

Over the past few weeks I have been contacted by a small number of customers as their SLT / SE scopes  are showing  ‘Boot Load Error’ on the handset when turning on the scope. My advice, don’t panic ! It can be hugely frustrating I agree, but can be easily rectified by a quick download from the Celestron website http://bit.ly/WE9MCB. Click the link and save the downloaded Zip file, then simply unzip into a folder connect the handset data cable that was supplied with your scope (if you don’t have one we can supply one for you), turn on the scope (you may need to hold the ‘menu’ & ‘Logo’ buttons together whilst doing this) and run the program called CFM that you have just unzipped. The program then scans your serial ports looking for the scope and guides you through the rest of the process to re-install the handset firmware. The only snag maybe that you don’t have a serial port on your PC, if you don’t have one we can supply a USB – Serial port adapter to you. The whole process takes about 5 minutes and you shoud then be back up and running.

If you get into problems remember we are only a phone call away.

Matt…

CLA Gamefair Exhibitor images

The 2010 CLA Gamefair at Ragley Hall was this weekend just gone, thankfully the weather held out for what was a busy weekend. We welcomed many new customers to our stand where you could view products from and talk to expert representatives from Opticron, Vortex, Meopta and Barr and Stroud.

Chris from Opticron

John from Marchwood (Vortex & Meopta)

CLA Game Fair – Ragley Hall Warwickshire – 23rd-25th July

We have now been given the stand number for the upcoming CLA Game fair at Ragley Hall. We will be located to the front right of entrance A on stand A0100. There will be representatives on our stand from the following otics companies:

Marchwood UK – Vortex Optics binoculars, spotting scopes and riffle scopes. Meopta Optics
ODS UK –  Barr & Stroud, Vanguard and Bresser optics binoculars and spotting scopes.
Opticron UK – Opticron binoculars and spotting scopes.

We will also have stock with us to hand of FoxWatch, Wildlife World, Spypoint game cameras, StealthCam game cameras, Minox binoculars, Swarovski binoculars.

If you are visiting the show and wish to collect something specific please contact us. Alternatively as we are located only 15 minutes from the showground in Morton Bagot why not come and visit the showroom and try out our optics.

Hawk Trail Cameras

This week saw the first delivery of the Hawke PC5000 & Hawk PC2000 trail cameras. They are smaller than other offerings on the market making them easier to place covertly. Interested to see how they performed, I set the higher resolution Hawke PC5000 to run over the last couple of days.

I baited the area with peanuts hoping that the muntjac deer would make an appearance and giving me something a little more exciting than the rabbits that have previously made appearances on my tests with similar cameras.

This morning with some excitement, I connected the camera to a PC and success! 180 images on the SD card, admittedly some of me setting up but also rabbits, pheasants, partridge, munjtac deer and a fox. Admittedly I may need to hone my set-up skills a little more especially when it comes to baiting the area.

The day shots are as expected better than the night shots, as the one frustrating parts of this technology is that the exposure using the IR leds is fixed so as you can see from the images, if the object is too close you loose some of the definition of the features. That’s said for a first attempt I was pleased with the results and it certainly did what was requested of it.

I hope to be able to set up shortly at a badger set close to home so watch this space, I will post my images here if I get anything decent.

Stealthcam – Featured on BBC Countryfile

Last night (25th April) the Stealthcam IR cameras were featured on the BBC Country file program (about 29 minutes in). It was a useful feature showing the type of images that can be gained from these sort of covert IR cameras. It was a little unfortunate that they chose the Stealcam’s as a brand due to their scarcity in terms of stock. If you are looking at finding out what is prowling around in the garden at night or even the day for that mater, then an easier alternative to get your hand on is the Stealthcam range would be the latest models from Spypoint; The range consists of four cameras ranging from true 6 mega pixel up to 12 mega pixel they offer a fast response time (between activation and images being taken). Another newcomer to the market would be the Bushnell Trophy camera which offers 8 mega pixel resolution and is smaller than most other  cameras on the market. If you need to know more or want to discuss technical details…give me a call.

Matt…

Helios Fieldmaster 7×50 – Overall Winner in Group test Sky at Night Magazine

This months BBC Sky at Night magazine includes a Group test of 7×50 binoculars suitable for quick astronomical observations. The winner with a score of 92% was the Helios Fieldmaster 7×50 which we have listed on our website here.