How An Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector Works Over the past few years, there has been a revolution in planetary imaging among amateur astronomers. CCD sensors with high sensitivity have made it possible to rapidly obtain large numbers of short-exposure images of the planets. This coupled with powerful computers has allowed amateur […]
Explore Scientific ES 80 ED Triplet APO Review Explore Scientific is known for refracting telescopes, quality eyepieces, the David H. Levy Comet Hunter , a Maksutov-Newtonian telescope and Twilight I and II alt-azimuth mounts. I own a Twilight II mount and enjoy using it with various small refractors and […]
Sharing the Cost of Remote Observatory Rental Remote imaging promises virtually hundreds of clear nights a year under dark skies and excellent seeing – conditions that allow very deep images. Most of us look into imaging at a remote site, take one look at the costs, and assume it cannot […]
By John O’Neill John O’Neill is a retired advertising and marketing consultant living in Seminole, Florida and is a member of the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club. Over seventeen years ago, he started into the world of astro imaging, using film, then upgraded to CCD cameras with color filters. Visit his […]
By Dr. James R. Dire Dr. James Dire has an M.S. in physics from the University of Central Florida and a M.A. and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University, both in planetary science and is an associate provost at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Spring, N.C., and a professor of physics […]
With each new advancement in the technology available to amateur astronomers, the line between amateur and professional – already barely distinguishable – is further blurred. There may be no better example than the feats of the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search (with the enviable acronym, “BOSS”). Boss represents an amateur collaboration […]
The SBIG STXL series is a high performance astro imaging platform supporting large format CCD sensors. It includes support for self-guiding filter wheels, and the AO-X adaptive optics accessory. The STXL-11002M uses the popular 35 mm, 11 megapixel KAI-11002 sensor. The STXL-16200 is a 16 megapixel, APS format camera. The […]
By Gary Parkerson, Managing Editor of Astronomy Technology Today Telescope Support Systems’ website describes the company as, “… founded by a pair of guys who live and breathe astrophotography. Between us, we have over 40 years of experience. While we currently shoot with CCDs and DSLRs, a peek in our […]
Clear Sky Lab’s AstroPiBox, a French-language autonomous autoguiding platform, is based upon the Raspberry Pi Linux platform. Recently released out of beta, the platform leverages the Raspberry Pi for autoguiding, offering several distinct advantages: (1) Power consumption of only a few watts, which makes it possible to use a portable […]
It’s always fun to see the astro-tech so many of us deploy nightly used in larger contexts, but sometimes those larger contexts are so over-the-top, it takes our collective breaths away, as was the case when we were treated to first reports of the Dragon 44 discovery of the Dragonfly […]
By Simon Tang I’m no pro compared to some of you – okay, compared to most of you. In fact, I’m so not a pro that I have only been doing astronomy since the beginning of 2016. I didn’t buy my first telescope until April of the same year. So, […]
Alan Dyer has revised and updated his interactive ebook, How to Photograph & Process Nightscapes and Time-lapses, adding 100 more pages to cover the latest equipment, software, and processing techniques for creating great still images and time-lapse movies of the night sky. Want to learn how to take panorama images […]