The Star Vistas radio programme was broadcast on Radio Solent on the morning of Friday 28th November 2008 – you can download this interview over the Internet.

Meridian TV will be at the New Forest Observatory this coming week to cover the Star Vistas story and to get up to date with the most recent developments at the observatory.

It appears that the forthcoming publication of Star Vistas has caught the attention of the Press.  Although they have as usual got the detail incorrect, it’s a case of all publicity for Astronomy is good publicity.  The Sun has something here, and the Daily Telegraph has something here.  I believe the Daily Mail has something in preparation that is not yet published.  Just been told that it is also in the Metro newspaper, some friends based in London sent me this link.  And within the last 10-seconds I was sent a link to the Daily Mail’s article.  The Daily Mirror too!!!

Tomorrow there should be an interview on Radio Solent and possibly something on BBC South Today.

A final 3-hours total exposure time using 30-minute subs completed the Autumn 2008 mega project – M33 the pinwheel galaxy in triangulum! Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you that have used AOL as your internet service provider will know that they have now stopped their web hosting service.  This is quite a blow for those of us that have used this service to promote our work, hobbies or interests over the years.

My Consultancy company is Parker Technology and this was well up the search engines’ listings after having been with AOL for a number of years.  However, we are now back at square one again.  For anything related to Parker Technology, high speed flash systems, panoramic and macro-photography, Scientific Consultancy and Due Diligence services – please go to my new site Concept2Innovation for further information.

Here is the second marathon processing session by Noel.  This time it’s the Belt region of Orion. Read the rest of this entry »

Noel has been very busy processing recently and the first to come back across the pond was this composite image of the North America and Pelican nebulae in Cygnus. Read the rest of this entry »

It is just as well I don’t have the funds available to proceed with the mini-WASP concept as it has given me time to think about the whole system.  Since coming up with the idea of multiple imaging scopes to effectively cut down the total imaging time on an object, I have had real trouble trying to couple the colour imaging system with the narrowband imaging system.  Basically, no combination of scopes and cameras could cover what I wanted to achieve.

But sometimes a walk with the dog over the forest can achieve wonders, and it came to me that I should not try to combine both systems in one.  It would make far more sense to keep the Hyperstar III system as is for taking the colour data, although this will mean a 4-frame mosaic for each object, and use the mini-WASP array with its FSQ106 scopes and 35mm format mono cameras for just taking the narrowband data.  The colour and narrowband data can then be put together by Noel to create unique wide field images.  In addition the framework of the mini-WASP can be adapted to hold up to 10 scopes plus a finder scope, so this flexible system allows for a variety of FOVs to be taken.  Since the mini-WASP array will now only be used for narrowband imaging I have renamed it the Narrowband Imaging Platform or NIP.  Now all I need is a substantial Lottery win!

Noel has just completed some precision image processing on this latest Hyperstar III image taken over 3 nights. Read the rest of this entry »

More great news!!  Today we got the Jellyfish nebula (IC443) and its companion IC444 published as an Earth Science Picture of the Day.  Read the rest of this entry »

This Month’s gems are a pair of beautiful emission nebulae in the constellation Auriga.  Of the two, IC405 is the more famous as it is the well-known “Flaming Star” nebula, a region of H-alpha emission, but with an amazing reflection nebulosity in the “head” of the nebula caused by the reflection of short (blue) wavelengths of light by dust particles. Read the rest of this entry »