Monthly Archives: October 2011

Deep-Sky Image of the Week by astrophotographer Alan Chen

This jaw-droppingly beautiful image of the M42 and “Running Man” region in Orion has been sent in from sunny Florida U.S.A. courtesy of Alan Chen.  I have known Alan for many years and have always admired his work, much of … Continue reading

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Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson II

Well – I am very pleased to say that I have finally finished the Steve Jobs biography so now I can resume my work.  I am also very sad to have finished the book as it is one of the … Continue reading

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Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Now exactly half way through this book which I started two days ago.  Can’t put it down – it is completely disrupting my work.  Will give a fuller report when I finish it, but I can say that it is … Continue reading

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Icy Dock 8Tb storage solution for the mini-WASP data

The white Aluminium box with 4 x HDD bays is my new “Icy Dock” attached storage unit for the mini-WASP data.  Each evening’s imaging (if we ever see a clear sky again) will generate a lot of data from the … Continue reading

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Deep-Sky Image of the Week – Harry Page

This week’s image is a superb ultra-deep offering of the Cocoon nebula from fellow PAIG member Harry Page – VERY nice Cocoon Harry! The Cocoon nebula (IC5146, Caldwell 19) is a small emission nebula in the constellation Cygnus.  Why I … Continue reading

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Blast from the past II

Another image using the original Hyperstar and the little H9C one-shot colour camera.  Pretty deep for just 2.5 hours total exposure time – shows the speed of the Hyperstar lens 🙂

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FTL neutrinos

Having spent an academic career in advanced optics I am more than a little sceptical about the recent faster than light neutrino claims as you will know from posts below.  As astronomers we should also be aware of the 1987A … Continue reading

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I am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

O.K. so once you get past the first 150 pages (roughly the length of the first book) the great chunks of text transposed from the first book thin out.  So my recommendation is if you buy both books don’t bother … Continue reading

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The third NFO “Deep-Sky Image of the Week”

This week’s spectacular image of M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy) comes from Bud Guinn who hails from the U.S.A. and frequents the American astronomy forum “Our Dark Skies”.  Unbelievably this is the “first light image” taken using Bud’s new remote facility … Continue reading

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Blast from the past

I just came across a load of very old imaging files taken using the original Hyperstar (no collimation screws) and a tiny little H9C one-shot colour CCD (1.4 Megapixels from memory).  Did a pretty good job all told, and this … Continue reading

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