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Episode 59: Astrophotograpy

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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.

 

 

Episode14:Titan

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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.