Astronomy

I have been interested in Astronomy for as long as I can remember.  My father bought me my first telescope when I was nine.  He bought me a larger one over the next two years.  I remember one of my first books on the subject, "A 1001 Questions on Astronomy".  Read it cover to cover.  Over the years, other distractions kept me from pursuing the hobby beyond taking several classes in college.  When we moved out East in 1977, poor observing conditions further frustrated my interest.

Except for enjoying the dark skies at my father's ranch in Colorado, I had to wait until 1997 before doing much to develop my interests.  When we decided to move out West, I began researching the possibility of buying a serious telescope.  With the help of several friends, I settled on the Meade LX200.  It is a 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain instrument that has a wide variety of useful features including a computer-guided "GOTO" function that allows me to view with the pros. That is, I am able to locate and view/image 1,000's of objects that the telescope will find for me..Neat. I have used several cameras to capture the grand views that are not available to the naked eye, they are too dim. Time exposures allow an astronomer to capture the dim light that, if accumulated, can resolve beautiful objects.

I began astrophotography using a home-built camera, the CB245. It is a very sensitive device that allowed me to capture very dim objects and store them on a computer. The captured images are processed later. I have used a low cost QuickCam camera which allowed me to capture interesting bright objects such as the moon and the sun (through a sun filter).  I have also used a computer to guide the telescope to objects that are not in the telescope's database.

Not long after I began imaging, I began work to be able control the system remotely  We have a 5th Wheel camper that my wife and I have traveled around the countryside setting up to allow me to remotely control my telescope/camera. I could set up the telescope and camera and the retire to the camper to monitor the imaging process and to steer the telescope around the skies. This was particularly important when it was cold outside, or, buggy! The setup was a bit complicated, but not as bad as some of my astronomy friends!

The following are some of the images I have taken with the Cookbook camera.  Amazing stuff.
M51- The Whirlpool Galaxy NGC 891 The Antennae (colliding galaxies)

The following are the scope's setups at CORA and at home.  Viewing is great in both locations...unless it snows!

 

Fort McKavett

After arriving in Galveston, we soon joined an Astronomy club, the Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society.  We have been members of this informal club for over thirteen years and have many good friends we still get together with, with even though we now live in Colorado.  We have been going to the star party in the spring and fall at a remote site in West Texas, Ft Mckavitt, for the past twelve years.  We continued to participate in this event even after we moved to Colorado.  A great time and great friends.

Even though I had recently purchased a new CCD astro camera, I have not spent the time I should in learning how to use it effectively.  The end process in getting really excellent images is about setup, execution, and after-the-fact computer processing of the images taken.  When I was really focused on the process, in the early years, the results were not bad...not great...but not bad.  Optimizing every last pixel to end up with a breath-taking shot takes significant time and patience.  Something many of my astro friends know I do not possess!  So, I may opt to do visual observing, which I love to do, and rely on my NASA buddies, and their friends to do the REALLY GOOD STUFF. 

To demonstrate this point, my mentor in astro photography has been a retired NASA engineer, Al Kelly.  He got me started with my cookbook homebrew camera back in 1998.  This guy is THE wizard of image processing.  Besides capturing many wonderful images with his own equipment, he has regularly helped the BIG GUYS do it. And again! And again! And again! I wished I could do that....ah..patience..don't have it!

The science of Astronomy and related fields has grown exponentially  in recent years.  The Hubble space telescope lead the way but has become less significant, recently, with the creation of a wide variety of highly specialized instrumentation.

But first, the Hubble: http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/GreatObservatories/Hubble/Hubble.html

The GREAT stuff  -->  http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

http://kepler.nasa.gov/

http://arachnos.astro.ulg.ac.be/Sci/Trappist/Trappist_main/Home.html

http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/GreatObservatories/Chandra/Chandra.html

http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/GreatObservatories/Compton/Compton.html

http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Telescopes/GreatObservatories/SIRTF/SIRTF.html

http://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/

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Since I was a small boy, the night sky has intrigued me.  As a human being, I, as many, have searched for meaning of life.  Why am I here?  What is life?  Is there a God?  When Hubble captured its "Ultra Deep Field" image several years ago...I gazed across its vastness and gained new insights....

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) is an image of a small region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24, 2003 through to January 16, 2004. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken by humans,[1] looking back approximately 13 billion years (between 400 and 800 million years after the Big Bang), and it will be used to search for galaxies that existed at that time. The HUDF image was taken in a section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies.

I am blessed in being born in the century I was!