Navigation Menu

What's it all about?

This part of the website provides for my interest in Astronomy. The background page attempts to explain why I am interested in astronomy and provides a potted history of astronomy experience and publications.

The equipment page more fully explores the equipment I use, its limitations and why I use it. The biggest downside to astronomy as a hobby is that if you haven' got the time, the skill or sometimes the equipment to make parts you have to buy, beg or swap them. And astronomy parts can be very expensive....

So what's here then?

Mostly pictures, features on new events and itemised links to the rest of the web in the same subject.

What's current ?

Continuing projects in Astronomy include:

Imaging using the Phillips Toucam Pro - oneof the only CCD webcams in current release - this is the first ever picture assembled from video footage by myself. I used Christian Buils Iris software ( I tried registax but it couldn't convert the AVI file.....)

Imaging using my newly acquired Starlight Express HX916 CCD Camera. The following pictures are the first light images of my new acquisition - a Starlight Express HX916 cooled Megapixel CCD camera. The intention is to use it for photometry and solar H-Alpha movies. Here they are:

	Saturn (Tif ) 17 Dec 2002	70 millisecs f/10 p.f. VC200L on GP./DX with SS2k roughly aligned.
	M42 17 Dec 2002	30 secs f/10 p.f. VC200L on GP./DX with SS2k roughly aligned.

The first thing I have to do is characterise the camera - cooling time to consdtant readout noise, identify any hot pixels at cooldown, take some flat fields and examin the fixed pattern noie. The medium term is to use the camers to take spectra using the Edmund holographic transmission grating at 500 lines/mm. The apparent resolution looks good. !

• Meteor photography
• Aurora observations
• Magnetometry in support of Aurora observations
• Solar observations using mylar and H-Alpha filters, including photography
• Attempts to use a web-cam based on the Phillips SA8113H chipset and some cunnig jigger-pokery
• Scanning of old negatives into the images archive.

What's new ?

The equipment pages have been updated to include more pictures of each of the kit I own(ed).

The background pictures have been updated with more detail.

What's up and coming ?

The first is the continual update of these pages to provide more information - particularly with respect to the imaging details of which telescope, where, when and what exposures etc. I havce all this imformation, just not transcribed.

Secondly is the BIG project of putting the entire web telescope control project together. This project is all about using a webserver hosting a serial-port controlled telescope protocol to allow anyone off the internet ( ie me from work ) to open the observatory and control the telescope. What's kmore it's open-source. If its useful - help yourself from here