iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 22/08/2026

I prefer this processed image to my previous attempts. Will probably be playing with the data for a while before I get something I'm happy with to get printed

A processed HDR image of the total solar eclipse

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 18/08/2026

Had a first quick attempt of hdr processing images from totality.

A processed High Dynamic Range image of the eclipse during totality

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 13/08/2026

The sun was setting as the eclipse was ending, but I missed the final phases as it went behind some trees (which I had thought it would miss, but Stellarium lied to me!!) Also looks like I lost focus at some point, likely due to the temperature drop.

A photo of an orange sun partially eclipsed by the moon and some trees

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 12/08/2026

I thought we'd be in a relatively secluded spot, but the entire local village came out to where we had set up.

A photo of a telescope and camera pointing at the solar eclipse, with the live image shown on a laptop.

A photo of the laptop and telescope with a large group of people in the background

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 12/08/2026

A couple of shots of totality. I'll have to wait until I get home before I start properly processing the shots

a photo of the solar eclipse during totality, from spain

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 11/08/2026

Test, test, test... melt 🫠

A photo, taken in Spain, of a telescope pointing at the Sun, with a laptop displaying a live image from one of the cameras, in preparation for the solar eclipse

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 07/08/2026

Off to catch the Sun and Moon's dance recital.

A photo of the car ferry from Ireland to Spain

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 11/07/2026

Testing focusing on the Sun in preparation for the eclipse next month. Left is a live-stack of 250 frames. Right is a split with a single raw frame and the processed stack. Still figuring out the best combo of scopes/cameras with automatic capture methods to use.

A processed live stack image of the sun, showing the full disc of the sun with sun spots on the surface

A side-by-side split view of a single raw frame on the left and a full processed stack on the right.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 11/06/2026

Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition now has a mobile version! And it's free this week on the Epic mobile store!

A screenshot of the Epic mobile store showing Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition as a free game for this week.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 15/05/2026

I guess more Irish me is running for election.

The bottom half of an election poster showing the name Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, the irish version of my name.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 07/05/2026

Farewell truly dark nights. 🫡 The telescope is already missing you.

A chart showing the duration of stages of twilight and full night, over the next six days, with increasing length of astronomical twilight and reducing duration of full night.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 06/04/2026

The Guards, so professional! from the game The Ratline.

A screenshot from the game The Ratline, with a transcript from a phone call with a Garda of Ballymun Garda Station. Sgt Kelly tells the player "we ain't got nowt to say to ye" and ends with "Oh piss off!"

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 20/03/2026

I need to fix the focus on the allsky camera. Stars need to be sharper. I have to print a pulley to fit around the lens to allow it to auto-focus, but I've been procrastinating even my procrastination

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 20/03/2026

A moonless clear night! Yay! Should finally have some decent imaging time, despite the fog rolling in to say hello for some of it. The ISS passes through at around 20:30

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/03/2026

Found an old card from a camera. It just has some photos of typical game devs doing typical game dev things...

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 24/02/2026

watching the feed from my all-sky camera, it looks like a perpetual random height map generator.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/02/2026

When you encounter an old comment. Some things never change.

A code comment that reads "I really don't like this, but too brain-dead to come up with a better solution... - Owen"

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 14/02/2026

Happy St. Valentines Day. Here, have a Heart... nebula. #astrophotography #astronomy

An astronomy photo of the Heart nebula, in the SHO 'Hubble' palette

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 13/02/2026

This seems too perfect, I don't know if I can trust it! I haven't seen two consecutive hours of perfect observing conditions in months! It's been nothing but the rain for weeks on end. #astrophotography

Weather prediction for a full night of perfect astronomy observing conditions

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 12/02/2026

It's now. That time is now

A thumbnail from a PBS video titled "That time it trained for 2 million years"

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 09/02/2026

Officially a non-indie video game professional outsider

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 12/01/2026

Decided to try out getting a print on aluminium of one of my astro shots. I like it, but it's a tad pricey so not something I get regularly.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 10/01/2026

'scope is increasingly looking like an improvised "device". And the dew heater ring in the flat panel cover got a teeny bit too toasty last night. Need to dial that down a bit, and reprint it in ASA instead of PLA.

Photograph of a telescope with a lot of wires dangling off of it. The 3d printed cover is partially melted.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 10/01/2026

The opposite. It's this in one image

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 05/01/2026

You don't just take a single photo of the moon. You take a video then stack the best frames to try to eliminate atmospheric distortion. I took 3min videos, which was about 20gb, then stack the top 20%. Do that for all 4 LRGB filters (sane people use a colour camera). Then sharpen and combine

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 05/01/2026

Decided to try reshooting the moon last night, this time in LRGB. Muuuch better. #astrophotography

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 04/01/2026

It's mainly to visually monitor the telescope (the top of the mount is in the bottom right) and checking for clouds. But I hope to get it working as a safety monitor that can link up with the scopes PC to automatically close the cover in case of clouds/rain. timelapses & star trails are a bonus

An all sky camera on a wooden post beside a telescope pier

The internal electronic components of the camera

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 03/01/2026

it's too much for bluesky

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 03/01/2026

Me: Finally! After weeks of cloud, a clear night to do some deep sky imag.... Full Moon: NOOOOPE! So I guess I'll trying capturing the moon for the first time instead.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 02/01/2026

in an investigative mood

A steam page showing the games The Case of the Golden Idol, The Roottrees are Dead, and Loco Motive

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 22/12/2025

It's alive! Now to get the flat panel to work, as the original creator of this driver/board, Dark Sky Geek, didn't make it as a dimmable light but just an on/off spectral calibrator.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 20/12/2025

My desk is just a mess of various incomplete electronics projects. I'll eventually finish one... someday

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/12/2025

I could then layer that on top of the main character texture with an unlit shader, so it appears similar to the other flames in the game. That to me is the brute force dumbness; an entire texture the same size as the primary with just 3 little flames on it.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/12/2025

I wrote a simple scriptable render feature to temporarily divert the rendering destination, from the camera's main render texture, to a separate render texture when drawing transparent objects (the sprites) This gives me a texture with just the (correctly occluded) flames.

A black texture with just 3 bright flame sprites added to it.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/12/2025

The flames on the player's candelabra are those same sprites tacked on to the 3D model, which ended up being handy as it meant they were being rendered at a different point in the camera's render pipeline than the 3D geometry.

An in-engine screenshot showing the 3D candelabra candles with sprite flames on the wicks.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 19/12/2025

but this means that the flames of the candles would also affected by that lighting system and not appear as bright light sources on their own, like other instances of flames, which are just sprite animations with an unlit shader. Although black flames are creepy in their own way.

An in-game screenshot of a character holding a candelabra with dark flames

an in-game screenshot showing a scenery candelabra with bright flames

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 17/12/2025

I've just a few hours on the game

A screenshot of Eyes of Hellfire steam page showing 1160.7 hours of play time

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 17/12/2025

when Steam thinks the editor is the game

Screenshot from Steam yearly recap, showing top game activity. Eyes of Hellfire with 30% play time in 434 sessions. the Eyes of Hellfire playtest with 26% in 91 sessions. then Blue Prince with 11% in 27 sessions.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 15/12/2025

I also captured some of the Horsehead and Flame nebulae on friday, but the data is pretty trash. I don't have the best view of it, it's pretty close to rooftops not to mention wires and a tree. Maybe 3 hrs on it after throwing out the worst frames, so just did a speed run (over)processing

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 14/12/2025

The Elephant Trunk Nebula IC 1396 I captured just Ha and SII on first night, due to moon being a bit too bright for OIII. Had to wait ten days to capture some OIII (blue) on Friday, the single night it'd been clear since. telescopius.com/pictures/vie... #astrophotography

Astrophotograph of the Elephant Trunk nebula

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 30/11/2025

I had a go a reprocessing this data. I think it turned out better #astrophotography

An astronomy photograph of the Pacman Nebula NGC 281

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 29/11/2025

Not sure if I'm happy with this. at the point of just poking at sliders and probably just making things worse if I look too closely at it. Andromeda galaxy M31, LRGB (L 60sx53, R/G/B 120sx20)

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 29/11/2025

The Cygnus Wall of the North American Nebula NGC 7000 in SHO, captured last night #astrophotograhpy

A processed astronomy photo of the Cygnus wall of the North American nebula

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 27/11/2025

It's coming right for us!! Haven't had much luck in processing LRGB images yet, but I shall keep trying.

A screenshot of astrophotography software NINA, showing an in-progress capture of the Andromeda galaxy

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 21/11/2025

For the past year I've been building up an astrophotography rig. Clear nights are few and far between here, but I managed to get a full session in last night for the first time and had a first go a processing the images. This is the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281), in the Hubble palette.

An astrophotography image of the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) rendered in the Hubble palette

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 05/11/2025

I'm off for 2 weeks, so time to replace one spooky Irish house with another

Photo of the title screen of the game The Séance of Blake Manor on a TV.

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Owen Canavan @oscan.net · 02/09/2025

No Man's Sky might be running out of names. Planet Frank.

A screenshot from the game No Man's Sky, showing a planet with a randomly generated name called Frank

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