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Smart Telescopes

By Gurbir Dated: September 19, 2024 Leave a Comment

In 1608, Galileo Galilei turned his telescope to the night sky. His observations of the Moon and planets laid the foundations for the solar system, our galaxy and the modern understanding of the universe. During the last 400 years, telescopes have incrementally got bigger and better. Innovations include digital drives for precision tracking, sensitive sensors to detect fainter objects, in-line filters to remove unwanted light and hyper-sensitive sensors for detecting faint objects from the distant part of or cosmos.

Seestar S50. Credit ZWO

Now, those technologies are available in consumer-grade telescopes known as Smart Telescopes. This is only possible because of the smartphone, another mass-consumer product we already have. A smart telescope operated from an app or a phone (or tablet). The App use the existing open-source tools for integrating multiple short-exposure faint images (a process known as stacking) into one corrected, brighter and enhanced one.

Smart Telescope don’t usually have an eyepiece. All interactions are via a screen and an App. Using a GPS, the telescope can figure out where it is, and by selecting one object from a list observable from the user’s location (and time), it can move to the object and start imaging. It is possible to have a high-quality stacked image of a distant galaxy, five minutes after switching on the telescope.

There are many “Smart Telescopes” on the market. One of the popular, costing around £500, is the Seestar S50 from the China-based company called Zwo. The pictures below are the first images I acquired over two nights in September 2024. They are as the came from the Seestar S50 – no post-processing.

A 50mm primary lens has a focal length of 250mm. There is no eyepiece! At f5, it is not really suitable for planets but ideal for the Moon, Sun and deep-sky objects. It has built-in filters for light pollution, the sun, H alpha and Oxygen 3. There is also a built-in dew heater to mitigate against condensation. Including a 6000mAh, 64 GB of memory, everything is integrated into a tiny 2.5kg Telescope. It comes contained in a small carry-case with a small but sturdy tripod with a total weight of 2.5kmg.

Will all future telescopes be like this? Probably not, but the benefits it comes with will attract many younger observers and those new to astronomy. For me, the primary benefit is that whilst the telescope has to be outside in the cold, the user does not.

The Seestar S50 stacks multiple 10-second exposures. The higher the number of these exposures, the more detailed and richer the final image. But it can also take video. This is the sun for 30 seconds.

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Episode 98 Astrophotography with Nik Szymanek

By Gurbir Dated: October 18, 2021 Leave a Comment

Nik Syzamnek is one of the UK’s leading astrophotographers and one who has been doing it for almost four decades.

Nik Szymanek

In this episode, Nik shares his unique perspective on how the hobby of astronomy and especially astrophotography has evolved since the 1980s when he first started.

We cover a lot of ground including modern software used for image processing and telescope control, increasing use of robotic telescopes e.g. Telescope Live by amateurs and the obstacles introduced by Climate Change and the mega-constellations of satellites. We conclude this episode on his lesser-known skills as a drummer in a band.

Books
2005 – Infinity Rising: A Personal View of the Universe
2018 – Co-author of – Spacerocks: A collectors’ guide to meteorites, tektites and impactites
2020 – Shooting Stars – 2nd Edition (AstronomyNow website)

Nik’s images on Flickr.

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A video of this interview is also available here on Youtube and includes many of his images.

As the lock-down begins to end – Nik is getting out and doing some talks live. If you are in the area – catch him live in 2021 here


2nd November: Stour Astronomical Society
17th November; Havering Astronomical Society twitter.com/HaveringSociety

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Episode 59: Astrophotograpy

By Gurbir Dated: December 31, 2012 Leave a Comment

Nik Szymanek
Nik Szymanek

If you have ever been to London and used the underground Tube service, it may well have been driven by the speaker in this episode. That is his day job but Nik Szymanek  is one of Britain’s best known astrophotographers.

This interview was recorded during National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Manchester in 2012. Nik collaborates with Ian King and in this episode discusses how he got started, issues to consider for those moving in to astrophotograpy and how things have changed in this developing field. He also talks about another growing area of interest to amateur astronomers  – a personal remote telescope.

David Ratledge another accomplished astrophotographer based in the north west of England has  some very useful links for astrophotography on his website http://www.deep-sky.co.uk/links.htm.

 

 

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Episode14:Titan

By Gurbir Dated: May 6, 2008 2 Comments

After a 7 year journey, Cassini/ Huygens arrived at Saturn in 2004 and Huygens landed on the surface of Titan on January 14th 2005. The only moon within the solar system known to have a substantial atmosphere.

On Monday 3rd of July 1989 it was possible to study the atmosphere of Titan from here on Earth when it occulted a 5.8mag star 28 Sagittarius. Ken Irving from Salford Astronomical Society describes the observation he made and video recording of the unexpected central flash. Available below.

Using data from the onboard Acoustic Sensor Unit, the Planetary Society compressed Huygens two and half hour descent into a 10 second audio clip.

After landing, Huygens continued to transmit data including those incredible pictures of the surface for another 70 minutes until the communication link to Earth – Cassini disappeared over the horizon. It would not come in range again for 40 days by when Huygens’ batteries were dead. There in its dark cold -180C deep freeze it remains. Probably intact. Professor John Zarnecki from the Open University who lead the Surface Science Package team talk a little about the achievements f the Cassini/Huygens mission.

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