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At 16 years of age, Martin
Pugh left his home town of Dudley in the West Midlands (UK) to join the Royal Navy as a
Junior Radio Operator. While he spent many nights staring into pitch-black mid-ocean
skies using a pair of binoculars, his Naval career simply did not allow for any further
pursuit in astronomy. For 20 years, he moved between ships and establishments and in
the late 90’s, together with the overwhelming appearance of Comet Hale Bopp in 1997,
he became increasingly interested in the idea of observing and imaging. Then in 1999, he
spent his first evening looking through a dusty old 3” refractor recovered from his
brother-in-law’s loft, and instantly became fixated with the idea of owning his own
telescope, with the possible addition of a CCD camera.
A few months later, Martin purchased an 8”
LX200, and a couple of months after that, a small CCD camera. However, in Dec 1999,
he was appointed to a NATO position in central Belgium where the consistently poor air
quality added to his frustration while coming to grips with an equatorially mounted LX200.
In an attempt to get an image out of this system, he even spent an evening on the
phone to Adam Block who at the time was imaging with a 16” LX200 at Kitt Peak.
A camera upgrade to an SBIG ST-8 (parallel) was
next on the cards, but still, the only thing Martin was able to do was to learn and
practice.
A follow-on NATO appointment to Portugal in Jul
2002 basically mandated a complete equipment upgrade. A Takahashi FS128 and NJP160
were purchased and were soon followed by an SBIG ST-10XME, shortly after its release.
While mostly completely saturated by light
pollution from Lisbon, the seeing in Portugal was very good, so Martin spent most of his 2
years there concentrating on planetary/lunar imaging. However, he had to drive almost an
hour in very heavy traffic to get to the site where his portable set-up was located, so
imaging was limited to weekends only. Consequently, deep-sky imaging was still
unachievable. Learning and practicing continued and he purchased just about
every astrophotography book available on the market at the time.
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The next major equipment upgrade occurred
before a move to Australia was even on the cards. Ironically enough, while still yet
to take a deep-sky image, Martin purchased a Paramount ME, a 12.5” RCOS, and an SBIG
STL-11000M. This new equipment was briefly used in Portugal in early 2004, before it
was packed up and sent to Australia via the UK. It did not come out of its box again
until mid 2005 when at long last, Martin had built a roll-off roof observatory on his
property in Yass, New South Wales. An SBIG AO-L Adaptive Optics accessory and FW-8,
eight position filter wheel for the STL camera were then added to the equipment list, but
his RC was sent back to the US to be converted to the truss version.
http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.au/images/IC434LRGBV3.jpg HALRGB, 19 hours exposure, STL11K, all AOL guided.
Martin's other image, a 5 panel mosaic of the Corona Australis region
came in 3rd place as an Honourable Mention. http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.au/images/NGC6726_50pct.jpg
This is 39 hours total exposure, and a total of 180 individual frames. SBIG
STL11K, all AO-L guided.
You can read more about this and the other winners here. http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/winners/
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In addition, Martin's images have appeared
in Australian Sky and Telescope (several times), Astronomie (France), The Boston Globe, US
Sky and Telescope, as part of a Celestial Navigation DVD for the Royal Australian Navy,
Explorations: An introduction to Astronomy, Astrophoto Insight, as part of a video release
of NGC 3603 by Hubble and several occasional articles and lecture pieces. A crowning
achievement however, was the release of a 3-stamp collectors set by Australia Post, to
mark the International Year of Astronomy, which featured Martin’s image of M78.
Martin, with his wife Karen, accepted (what is hoped to be) one last overseas posting and located to Omaha (Beaver Lake in Plattsmouth), NE in Jan 09. Unfortunately, the RC remains in a box, but the STL11000M continues to produce fantastic images through a Takahashi FSQ106. However, light pollution from Omaha is very troublesome and he is back to a roll-out set up once more. He is very much hoping to place his RC and STL combination on a remote site before he returns to Australia in 2012.
“In having this tremendous
accolade bestowed upon me, I simply wish to acknowledge the likes of Rob Gendler, Russ
Croman and Ron Wodaski from whom I have learned so much through their exceptional talent
in this field. I would also like to acknowledge John Smith (CCDAutopilot), Paul
Kanevsky (CCD Inspector), and Stan Moore (CCDStack) for developing great software, along
with many others I could list. SBIG deserve special mention in my mind, because I
think the manner in which they have had the foresight and technical skill to integrate a
camera, external filter wheel and an Adaptive Optics unit has been absolutely first rate,
yet to be achieved by any other manufacturer. However, it is my dear wife that I have to
thank the most, who has had to endure a few years worth of equipment woes with me, as well
as sharing the sound of a Cloud Sensor going off multiple times a night. Thank you.”
Below
is a small sampling of some of Martin's work. Click on an image to enlarge.
For details of these images, and to see more of Martin's work,
please visit his web site at http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.au
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Congratulations and Thanks to Martin!
Revised: September 15, 2009 11:14:41 AM.
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