Looking Back: SBIG Interviewed at NEAF 2011
As we look forward to sharing all the news SBIG released at last week’s AIC, here is a quick look back at Sky & Telescope’s inverview with SBIG’ Ron Bissinger and Alan Holmes at this year’s NEAF. Ron talked about his plans for SBIG as its new CEO, and Alan shared details about products we had released over the previous 12 months, including the all-sky camera, the ST-i autoguider and new accessories for the ST-8300.
A Favorite Moon Mosaic Image Created with ST-i Planet Cam
Moon Mosaic taken with SBIG ST-i Planet Cam and Autoguider
When we field-test our new products before releasing them for production, we do a lot of different imaging sessions under a variety of conditions. Out of all that work comes a range of images. Of course, we keep the great ones and share them among ourselves.
One image that we have been sharing within SBIG a lot lately is this moon mosaic taken during testing for the ST-i Planet Cam and Autoguider. It may not be the most refined, or unique, but it seems to catch people’s eye when one of us has it up as a screen saver or displayed in other ways. So we decided this must be one worth sharing with our community.
What do you think? Do you have a great moon image that could be a companion to this one, or improve on it in some way? Let us know!
You can post yours on our Facebook page, or send us an e-mail at images@sbig.com and request we post it right here in the blog.
Always remember, only send us your own images! Here are our image sharing guidelines for reference.
SBIG Customer Image Sharing
As we get more deeply into social media, we are excited at the opportunity these social sites give you, our customers, to share images you have taken. Many loyal SBIG customers have already made our Yahoo user group a great place to share between themselves. Now we are adding two more public places for you to share what you have captured with your SBIG camera:
On our Facebook page. This you control. Simply upload an image and describe how you created it. Please include a statement that you own the image. We cannot permit people to share images taken by others, even with permission, as that may cause issues with who owns what online!
On our blog. This we have to control, but we will accept any image sent to us at images@sbig.com for consideration. Please add details about the location, all the work that went into creating the image, and any other “backstory” that would bring the image to life for your fellow astronomers.
Please also confirm in the e-mail that you own the attached image, and that you give SBIG permission to post it.
The owner of every image that we post to our blog will receive an SBIG tee-shirt as a thank-you!
We encourage you to use our social media tools to show off the results of your hard work! We look forward to many years of sharing images, steadily growing our community around the world.
For more detailed guidelines on the SBIG Image Sharing initiative, click here.
What Is the Appeal of Amateur Astronomy?
Posted by Alan Holmes
“Why do we amateur astronomers put ourselves through the physical and mental hardships of our hobby?”
How often have you asked yourself that question up in the middle of the night when struggling to keep pace with a moving night sky and keep ahead of the weather and the clock?
In the 24 years since Mike Barber and I first sat back and listened to the relays clicking on our ST-1 guider, I have often pondered the reasons behind the appeal of amateur astronomy and CCD imaging in general. Local bookstore sells picture books with beautiful celestial images. Why drag heavy equipment out into the cold darkness and sit through hour-long exposures to make our own? After asking that question a bunch of times myself, I came to the conclusion that astronomy is a lot like traveling. One can buy fascinating books with pictures of the Egyptian pyramids, for example, but looking at the book is not the same as going in person.
Pictures are worth 1000 words, but still don't tell the whole story (Image courtesy of 1.BP.blogspot.com)
I once had an opportunity to visit the pyramids during an eclipse trip in 2006. The first thing you notice when you get to the pyramids is the pervasive smell of camel dung. Then you encounter the very pushy postcard salesmen, the camel ride vendors, the huge tour buses that try to run you down when you step into the street to get that good picture, the heat, the dust, and the bad case of sunburn coming on. You become incensed at the carloads of men wolf-whistling at your wife who made the mistake of wearing shorts in 100 degree weather. You see the sweat running down the face of the tourist police who have to wear their heavy fabric uniforms buttoned at the collar year round because if they don’t, ten other men are lined up waiting to take their job. You will marvel that for the entire huge Giza pyramid site there is only one toilet for men (upstairs in the solar boat museum). And strangely enough, I enjoyed every minute of it! The point is – the picture itself is not the whole story! The experience of creating your own personal “image,” with your own story to go with it, is what makes everything special.
This is, I think, the essence of amateur astronomy: The picture in the book does not give you insight into the real brightness of the object, its size, and the subtlety of the detail. Nor can you appreciate fully the picture in the book without having attempted it yourself, and learned the challenges implicit in producing a very good image. Not only that, scientific astronomical observations also offer a unique perspective only available to the serious traveler.
The first time I captured the spectrum of M82, I noticed the H-alpha lines near the center were noticeably shifted, relative to each other, evidence of the titanic velocities near the exploding core. I detected the rotation of Saturn’s rings, and the red shift of a distant galaxy.
You read about this stuff, but actually seeing it in your own data “brings it home”, to use some American slang – it makes it real. This is what I love about amateur astronomy – it is like traveling to gain that individual insight and perspective that those who don’t travel never get, but you can do it all from your backyard, at least for half the sky. And here’s more good news: It probably costs less than a trip to Egypt!
Astronomy retailers are astronomers, too. Ask them to share their stories!
Posted by Ron Bissinger
I recently returned from a trip to Asia, and especially enjoyed spending time with our dealers in Japan and Singapore. One thing I notice is that every one of our dealers has some unique story of how they became involved in the astronomy business.
Some of our dealers started out as enthusiastic amateur astronomers themselves and saw an opportunity to combine business and pleasure. Even as businesspeople, their enthusiasm continues to show. Often they do a lot of astronomy outreach to schools and the public, and can be found doing imaging or observing themselves on clear nights.
Other dealers built similar businesses, perhaps selling other optical products to the public. They saw an opportunity to expand with astronomy gear, and they often seem to be able to attract many new amateur astronomers as they are shown some of the latest and greatest telescopes that are now available.
In my own past, I recall knowing Dr. Jack Marling, the founder of Lumicon. Lumicon was started in Livermore, near San Francisco and near where I live. Dr. Marling I think began his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories as an optical physicist. He started Lumicon with a line of astrophotography filters, and he grew it into a dealer of telescopes, mounts, and accessories, all aimed at astrophotography. He was one of the few sources of hypered film for deep sky imaging. I spent many a Saturday morning at his showroom with my cup of coffee, talking to him and his knowledgeable staff and doing more impulse buying than I will admit. He left the business after the 9/11 attacks caused a softening in the market.
By coincidence, I was having lunch a few weeks ago when I saw someone who looked like Dr. Marling. It has been over 10 years since I last saw him, but it was indeed him. Looking great and enjoying retirement, he enjoyed hearing about some of the advances amateurs have been making with their CCD cameras. But it was he, his filters, and his hypered film that helped many of today’s great astroimagers get their starts.
So next time you walk into an astronomy shop, do spend time with the owners, and ask how they got involved in the business. I’m sure they’ll have many a great story.
ALMA Radio Telescope Comes Online in Chile
We seem to be talking about Chile a lot as we launch this blog, but interesting news keeps coming and we want to report it.
The world’s most powerful radio telescope has come online high in the mountains of Northern Chile, positioning enough of its multiple antennae to start its quest to view the formation of the first stars in the Universe. The Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA) telescope is located on the Chajnantor plateau, 5000 meters (16,250 feet) above sea level in Chile’s eponymous Atacama desert.
Here is a BBC video about it.
The installation will grow to close to 70 dishes
ALMA is a single telescope of revolutionary design, composed initially of 66 high precision antennas. It measures waves in radio spectrums rather than light, and uses a number of them simultaneously to capture faint signals.
ALMA is an international partnership of scientific government agencies in Europe, North America and East Asia with the Republic of Chile, and is the largest astronomical project in the world.
Calibrating the telescope
In some ways, this immense telescope is no different than our own more human-sized units. It still needs to be calibrated, for instance, and what a process that is! Click here for a description. This certainly puts my own occasional calibration issues into perspective.
Viewing Time Already Sold Out!
Scientists wishing to observe with ALMA have already submitted over 1,000 proposals, “about nine times the number of observations that are expected be carried out during the first phase of Early Science,” according to a recent press release. “This demonstrates how excited researchers are to use ALMA, even at this early stage. Furthermore, the proposals cover a very broad range of scientific topics, emphasising how ALMA will have a wide-reaching transformative effect on astronomy and astrophysics.”
Each individual radar station can be repositioned depending on the project.
These scientists don’t get to (or don’t have to) travel to Chajnantor to carry out the observations: They will be dynamically scheduled to run remotely, depending on weather conditions and the array configuration. Observations will be carried out 24 hours per day by ALMA astronomers.
We expect ALMA to have a dramatic impact on what we know about the universe’s origins, although with full operations still a few years away (2013), we have to wait a bit longer to find out exactly what this new instrument will find.
More than You Ever Wanted to Know about Autoguiding!
By Alan Holmes, President of SBIG
SBIG has been in the autoguiding business for 22 years and has learned a lot over that time. A lot of that learning went into our newly released ST-i guider. Indeed, we make a strong claim that, coupled with a 100 mm F/2.8 lens, it will perform quite well as a guider. There is good science behind this claim. Get the details in a paper I wrote here.
When we started with autoguiding with our ST-4 back in 1989, we stated, with only anecdotal proof, that a focal length half that of the imaging scope’s focal length was a good choice. It was an educated guess that seemed to work based on our experience, but using our new ST-i autoguider, I now have a new answer to this question with some data to back it up!
Click here to open the full paper.
It always feels great to be able to make a definitive statement! There are urban legends in CCD astrophotography that came from me that are still circulating, and I need to correct them.
I look forward to your reactions to all of this. You may comment here, send us a note to sbig@sbig.com, or place a message in the SBIG Yahoo User Group.
Visiting the Atacama: A Worthwhile Adventure!
Posted by Alan Holmes
I’m sure many of SBIG’s customers have often wished for a chance to journey to the southern hemisphere and see with their own eyes many of those objects they have only read about. I recently took such a trip to Alain Maury’s Atacama Lodge south of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, with my son Patrick. I had never heard of San Pedro de Atacama, but as it turns out, it is quite well known and popular in Chile. It is a tourist town deep in the Atacama desert near the foothills of the Andes, at 7500 feet elevation. Alain, a former astronomer at the European Southern Observatory at Paranal, started the lodge with his wife as a place for astronomers to come and enjoy the night sky.
I will share my sky viewing experiences in a second post, dedicating this to the joys and logistics of being a tourist in the Atacama.
Roughing it? Just a little!
The Atacama Lodge was rustic but very comfortable
The lodge part of Atacama lodge was quite comfortable. The rooms were spartan but adequate, with cooking facilities, a refrigerator, and spacious bathroom.
One of the real pluses of visiting the Atacama Lodge is the opportunity for tourism close by for the whole family. We drove into San Pedro every night for dinner, which has a wide variety of restaurants and is a fun place, with mostly adobe buildings, dogs sleeping in the street, and little shops and markets selling Chilean goods. From San Pedro one can take tours to see flamingoes in the middle of the salt flats south of the city, Laguna Micanti, a high altitude lake in theAndes, the Tatio geyser basin at 14000 feet, the Valley of the Moon, a badlands type geologic feature, and a number of other sites.
Getting There Takes Some Work
Lake Miscanti, surrounded by volcanos
San Pedro de Atacama is a logistic challenge. First you have to fly to Santiago. Spend two nights there so you have a day to tour the city. I recommend that you arrive and leave on a Saturday or Sunday to avoid the congestion. We stayed at the Hotel Director El Golf, a nice hotel for $95 a night in an excellent part of the city (Providencia), with many restaurants and tree-lined streets. The 30-minute taxi ride from the airport was $30. A walk aroundSantiagothat includes the presidential palace and Cerro Santa Lucia, a tree-lined hill, will give one the flavor of the city. To reach San Pedro de Atacama fly from Santiago to Calama, and rent a car there. The airport is on the San Pedro side of Calama, so finding the road and driving to San Pedro de Atacama is easy. The Atacama lodge
The Tatio Geyser Basin is the highest in the world
is a few miles south of San Pedro. I strongly recommend you take guided tours to the interesting sites as the roads are mostly dirt, and not that well marked. A small pickup has no problem with them, but a sedan might bottom out in places. Driving from the lodge to the San Pedro de Atacama parking area is easy, as is the Valley of the Moon. The locals are friendly, but a small knowledge of Spanish will go a long way here. Alain Maury speaks excellent English (as well as French and Spanish), but you need to be able to puzzle out a menu or road sign.
For more information about the Atacama Lodge, please see www.spaceobs.com.
Sky viewing in the Atacama: One Step Closer to Heaven!
Posted by Alan Holmes
For the second installment of my short travelogue about my recent visit to Chile’s Atacama Desert, I will share our astronomical experiences, which is the real reason to visit the Atacama!
The lodge had an excellent set of viewing options for the visitor.
As I noted in my first post, we stayed at Alain Maury’s Atacama Lodge south of San Pedro de Atacama, a tourist town near the foothills of theAndes, at 7500 feet elevation. The lodge is devoted to visual observations, but Alain has equipment for CCD imaging and also a few piers and telescopes devoted to remote imaging over the internet by the users who provided the equipment. As you can see below, his main telescope field has a spectacular view of the sky and a nearby 19,000 foot volcano.
We used the 24 inch Dob of the left side of the picture one dark night and had some really impressive views of Omega Centauri, Eta Carina, Centaurus A, and the Tarantula nebula in the large Magellanic cloud. Omega Centauri was a religious experience, as is to be expected with a large scope. The nebulosity surrounding Eta Carina is much larger and brigher visually than the Orion Nebula is to Northern hemisphere observers, being much more prominent to the unaided eye, and showed considerable structure visible without averted vision. The Tarantula nebula structure was also spectacular. The dark band across the Centaurus A galaxy was the most impressive, being very distinct and sharp-edged.
I captured the Tarantula Nebula during one viewing session
We did spend a night attempting CCD imaging and I must admit some problems with this. It is always a challenge with unfamiliar equipment. We were able to capture a pretty good image of the Tarantula nebula with Alain’s Takahashi FSQ106 and his STL-11K. Alain is constantly improving the equipment that he has at this site and I would expect that imaging will be easier in the future. If you can bring your own equipment, you can avoid the learning curve!
Long Winter Nights with a Clear Desert Sky
The best time of year for viewing is open to debate. I went in April, and the Southern Cross is overhead at dusk. The large Magellanic cloud is going down, but you have a few hours to view it. At midnight Scorpius and Sagittarius are starting to get well up, and the small Magellanic cloud is not high until dawn. I would think the best times are from March until July (the Southern Fall and Winter,) but Alain might have a different answer. Of course, time it to go when the moon is dark. True to its reputation, in the Atacama it virtually never rains or is cloudy, and is never that cold.