For more years than I care to remember, I’ve watched The Sky at Night TV programme presented by Sir Patrick Moore when it was transmitted live in the UK late on Sunday nights. Patrick’s enthusiasm for his subject shone through but I can’t say I always understood what he was presenting, and luckily when domestic video recorders started to become affordable I didn’t have to wait up so late.
It’s only been possible within the last few years for amateur astrophotographers such as myself to take long exposure images which used to be the domain of large professional telescopes.
This breakthrough is mainly down to the software which is available these days for the PC (regretfully the Apple Mac is poorly serviced in this area).
To give you an idea, the sky from horizon to horizon is divided up into 24 hours (like a clock). Each hour is approximately 14° across the sky. Then divide that by 60 to get arc-minutes, then by 60 again to get arc-seconds (or arc-sec).
So just how big is an arc-sec?
Imagine if it were possible holding up a human hair several metres away. This would cover approximately 1 arc-sec of sky!
WOW, that’s incredibly small!!!
The software I use is able to make corrections to my mount's guiding, keeping the error to below ± 1 arc-sec.
I am lucky to be able to visit a local full-sized observatory at The Observatory Science Centre, Herstmonceux nearby. They often hold open evenings where one can turn up and have a look through their large telescopes (26in refracting telescope, 13in refracting telescope and a 30in thompson reflecting telescope).
In 2010 I attended one evening and I got my first look at Saturn through a modern 12inch Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope set up on a tripod on the grass – WOW!
That year the rings were end on, but I persuaded the astronomer to let me put my DSLR onto the end and I obtained my first image.
Not that it would win any awards, but it was mine and my first light!
The astronomer who owned the telescope was only visual so knew nothing about exposures, I had to quickly guess any exposure and ISO settings as there was a queue building up behind me.
Also not too far away is the South Downs Planetarium on the outskirts of Chichester (located at the southern end of the Chichester High Schools campus). It's located not far from where Sir Patrick Moore lived and he often frequented it in its early days. Today there he stands guard in wax to greet visitors.
For very little money, my eldest daughter and I have attended lectures given by Dr John Mason (a S@N regular guest in the past when Patrick was alive) who speaks for at least 45 minutes entirely unscripted. Again his enthusiasm for his subject really comes across. Mind you, the seating is made up of ex-aircraft seats (probably 1st class) which are reclined, so in the dark warm room he has probably lost half his audience to the land-of-nod by the end.
One certainly meets and forms friendships with really nice people with this hobby.
A lady who produces stunning images, and has helped me an huge amount is Sara Wager based in southern Spain.
There are also a number of excellent Facebook groups. One notable one is Disciples of the Dark Arts run by John Slinn from the UK.
So I guess, astronomy has always been in my blood hidden deep somewhere; astrophotography in particular started to interest me about three years ago for many reasons:
- It could be performed from one’s own back garden.
- Was technically based (which attracted me).
- I already had an excellent digital camera, which could be used for astrophotography.
WELL - I certainly got the last point wrong!!!