mini-WASP Array Project

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Greg Parker

The name for this project comes from the Wide Angle Search for Planets or SuperWASP project.   As you can guess it is used for hunting exo-planets.  

If you look at the SuperWASP site you will see an impressive imaging array comprising 8 Canon 200mm f#1.8 lenses with their associated Andor CCD cameras all sitting on a massive torus fork mount – certainly very nice gear!

Living in the U.K. we have a major problem to contend with trying to pursue our hobby – the weather.  There are very few good clear Moonless nights to take those perfect images.  I have also compounded the problem by moving from a very fast (Hyperstar) imaging system that worked at f#1.85, to a much slower refractor-based system working at only f#4.5, i.e. six times slower. 

I’m going to tackle this problem piece by piece and I will be posting details of my thoughts in the mini-WASP Array category.  You can also see a list of the posts below:

I hope you’ll keep reading as I learn about what is needed and my experiences of putting together such an exciting piece of equipment.

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Sky at Night Magazine (July 2007 Issue)

Posted on June 18, 2007 by Greg Parker

No matter how many publications you have, a new publication is always exciting.  The July 2007 issue of Sky at Night magazine is including our widefield M42 image on the cover CD-ROM.  This image was taken with the Sky 90/SXVF-M25C combination.

This is one of my top ten favourite images and shows just how far really have come in two years (and maybe just how far we have to go!).

The Sword of Orion
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Astronomy Now Magazine (July 2007 Issue)

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Greg Parker

Sir Arthur C Clarke sent Greg a tribute to Sir Patrick Moore on the occasion of his 50th Sky at Night anniversary with instructions to get it published where the astronomically-interested would see it (of course you can read the tribute here as well!). 

Astronomy Now took up this wonderful offer and in the July issue the Arthur C Clarke tribute to Sir Patrick Moore can be seen on pages 40-41.  Sir Arthur has put a lot of very interesting history in his tribute.

More importantly 🙂 on page 93 in the Picture Gallery you’ll find a full-colour 2-frame Sky 90/M25C shot of the Markarian Chain region.

The whole of Markarian's Chain
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EPOD: Coma Berenices Galaxy Cluster

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Greg Parker

We are on a roll, Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) have chosen our negative image of the Coma Berenices Galaxy Cluster as their picture today.

Spring is definitely galaxy season for astronomers and we take advantage of it (weather permitting). Continue reading →

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Astronomy Now Magazine (June 2007 Issue)

Posted on May 19, 2007 by Greg Parker

In the June 2007 issue of Astronomy Now there is a 4 page article on the work that we have been doing (pages 28 – 31) titled “Picture Gallery Special – Greg Parker”.

We are really, really happy and excited with this article.  Two years ago there is no way that I would have thought a single image would get published let alone a four page article!  Here you can see a number of our best images to date and some explanation of how the images were acquired by Greg, and processed by Noel all the way across the pond in sunny Florida.

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Sky at Night (June 2007 Issue)

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Greg Parker

I’m really pleased! We have made it in the June edition of the Sky at Night [“Hotshots”] with our widefield image of M67 (cropped).  This was taken with the Sky90/SXVF-M25C combination.  The uncropped version of this image made an Astronomy Picture of the Day for August 9th 2007.

M67 in Cancer cropped
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EPOD: Wide Field Image of the Horsehead Nebula

Posted on April 27, 2007 by Greg Parker

Great News!  Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) have selected one of our pictures – the Wide Field Image of the Horsehead nebula as picture of day today.  If you haven’t bookmarked the EPOD site then do it now!

The wide field image of the Horsehead region near the bright star Alnitak in the belt of Orion was taken using the Sky 90/SXVF-M25C combination by Greg at the New Forest Observatory and processed by Noel in Florida, U.S.A.   You can see the Horsehead Nebula at the center of the image.   Continue reading →

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Patrick Moores 50th Anniversary Sky at Night Party

Posted on April 27, 2007 by Greg Parker

Sometimes one just gets lucky!  I was invited to go to the 50th Anniversary Sky at Night Party which was held on the 25th April 2007 at Sir Patrick Moore’s house “Farthings” in Selsey.

It was a great day, and at last I finally managed to meet up with Brian May!  I had planned to meet Brian at the Astrofest in London at the beginning of this year, but got clobbered by a migraine which was perhaps the most annoying event of 2007 for me.

 Arriving at “Farthings” I immediately met up with Dr. May (as he is now 🙂 ) and Sir Patrick, and presented Sir Patrick with a framed A2-sized image of the Belt Region of Orion region.  Although the Orion’s Belt image is not our best work – it has something awe-inspiring about it – and the main thing was Patrick was very happy with his picture.

 Things then turn a bit surreal.  Brian and I found quiet room in Patrick’s house [quite difficult, and quite an achievement with over 200 people there, but Brian knows his way around] and we had a chin-wag for what turned out to be a couple of hours.  If you don’t know him personally, Brian must be the most unassuming celebrity out there, and what’s great is he loves talking astronomy!  Brian brought out the laptop and got me involved with the PhD thesis he was then in the process of writing up.  I was very happy to go through it and hope I was of least some little help with his big day on 23rd August.  I must admit, I was highly impressed with the quality of the work, and I think Brian was also very lucky that nobody else had chosen his subject in the intervening 30 years for their own research – shows he knew how to pick a good topic.

 It was a great day for meeting fellow enthusiasts too – I met Pete Lawrence for the first time, and managed to catch my long-term supernova hunting friend Ron Arbour before taking the run back to the New Forest.  Great day, will always remember it!

Patrick Moore and Brian May
Greg Parker and Brian May
The Belt of Orion

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Practical Astronomer (May 2007 Issue)

Posted on April 26, 2007 by Greg Parker

Our deep image of M42 taken with the Sky 90/SXVF-M25C combination appears in the May 2007 edition of Practical Astronomer in the Readers Gallery on Page 61.

The Sword of Orion
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Astronomy Now Magazine (May 2007 Issue)

Posted on April 18, 2007 by Greg Parker

Our picture of M51 appears on page 48 under the article heading “Beginner’s Challenge: The spiral arms of M51.  Our image of M13 and M101 also appear on the Messier Challenge Poster – these are all single frame Hyperstar/SXV-H9C images.

M13 in Hercules
M101 - the Pinwheel galaxy
M51 galaxy pair in Canes Venatici

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