I have been interested in astronomy and cosmology as far back as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is of watching the Apollo 11 mission on TV. My first view through a telescope was of Saturn with my brother’s homemade 3.75 inch newtonian reflector. I still have the primary mirror. I saw Saturns rings for the first time. It was such an odd experience, all the books I had read about the solar system, galaxies and cosmology I found fascinating, but seeing Saturn for the first time made it real, but more than that it opened up my mind in a way I find hard to explain, but it is one of those experiences that was crucial to my philosophical outlook. I could see Saturn’s rings for myself not just a picture in a book, there it was in space so small, so far away, but I could see it. It made me feel part of something extraordinary. We spent most of the evening trying to keep Saturn in the field of view with no slow motion controls with the optical tube attached to this very basic tripod, just a wonderful experience.

Over the years I have built several telescopes  and even exhibited a 8.75 inch f7.5 primary mirror which I ground myself as part of my B.A. Hons fine art degree show.

 I now have four telescopes and an observatory which I built myself out of recycled materials. Usually I have a 12 inch LX200 gps permamnently mounted onto a pier but I have rigged up attachments that allow me to put any one of my telescopes onto that pier.

                  

 Helios 8 inch Newtonian Reflector

 I have had this telescope for about 10 years. It has dual axis drive and independent slow motion worm gears on the R.A. and Dec. axis, polar alignment scope, 8×50 finderscope and originaly came with an EQ 3/2 mount which I found was not really adequate for this size of telescope. Mounting it onto the pier makes quite a difference. It gives good wide field views but cannot compare to the flat field of view the LX200 gives. Still I’ve had loads of fun with this and often take it with my family on our camping trips. As it is not computer controlled and does not have gps or anything like that it’s great for my children to play around with  as it is quite robust. These are some of my first attempts at astrophotography using a nikon coolpix 995 back in 2002. Notice the rings are still wide open.

                    

             

 I recently upgraded the mount to an EQ 5 and replaced the rack and pinion focuser with a duel speed Antares crayford focuser which I use with a 2 inch diameter tube extender. This has made a big difference to the stability and I can now use my 55mm Tele - Vue Plossl eyepiece and 10mm, 4mm Tele-Vue Radians. The wide field views that these give are absolutly stunning. As soon as I upgrade the drives I’ll be puting more images on here.

Meade LXD55 10 inch Schmidt Newtonian

Transit of Venus

This one I have had for about 4 years. During the last transit of Venus I approached Mr. David Leek headmaster of Trythal school with the idea of organising an observing session for this event and just for once the weather was fine mostly blue skies with some cloud. The school organised some press coverage and some refreshments. It was a wonderful experience and all the children had a chance to view the transit.

A word of warning about observing the sun

This is potentially extremely dangerous as looking directly at the sun without proper equipment WILL cause permanent damage to the eye. A solar filter must be used. For this occasion I used astro Baader solar safety film to construct a large aperture solar filter that completely covered the end of the telescope. The finderscope was also removed to prevent any accidents.

                     

The following images of the Moon were taken with Meade’s LPI imager

         

Private Astronomy Sessions.

Weather dependent I can offer nightly astronomy sessions for anyone from complete beginners in a relaxed atmosphere. During the sessions I can demonstrate how to find your way around the night sky through recognising constellations and some of the easier deep sky objects and any planets that are visible. A tour of the night sky is a wonderful  and unforgetable experience from seeing cloud bands on Jupiter, open star clusters, planetary nebular to distant galaxies.

During the session you will have access to any of the telescopes I have. (click on the thumbnail as an example) A typical tour will comprise 25 or more objects depending on the time of year with explanations of distance and characteristics. The cost is very reasonable at £10 per person. For more details please see the tuition page on this web site with a typical example of a tour of the night sky and if you have any questions you can e mail me at doms598@aol.com  

At The moment I am re - building my observatory. Lot’s of people have done a blow by blow detailed account of how they built their own observatory, and I did think about doing this. I decided not to go into to much detail in the end but instead to just include the odd image to give an idea of how I did this. The interesting thing about the observatory is that it is built out of re cycled materials. I was very fortunate in that a couple of years ago I was put in touch with a couple that were renervating a cottage just down the road from us. During the 1970’s the previous owner had built this observatory. The new owners had demolished the base but still had the 9ft diameter dome and shutters which they were simply going to skip. So anyway as it happens they new I was an artist and were planning to purchase a painting so in the end I swapped one of my paintings for the dome which at the moment is in sections in the garden. My son Aaron and I spent a weekend dismantling the dome into 4 sections in the teeth of a gale on top of a hill on the North cornish coast ….. great fun. getting the sections back home was interesting as we piled the dome sections onto the roof of the car with the shutters sticking out the back. It was only a ten minute journey but I was very glad when it was over. Fortunately we only passed one other road users except for one slightly nervous cyclist.

Work has kept me occupied recently so I have had very little time to pursue this project. However over the summer when the weather and time has allowed I have been making progress. After looking at what other people have done I decided to isolate as best as I could the plinth - telescope assembly from the observatory floor. To do this I made a concrete base to attach the telescope plinth and built the floor of the observatory keeping it separate from the plinth - telescope assembly. This keeps the vibrations down to a minium while I am in the observatory. Here are a couple of images.

       

Although it was cloudy when I took these images we have had a few very clear nights so I brought the 12 inch LX200 gps out to give it a go and so far it seems to work well and vibration is non existent as far as I can tell. The next stage is going to be the construction of the observatory base walls. I originally made these out of wood and have decided to do so again.

Having found a source of wood….The first image of the octagonal base comprises 8 horizontal lengths  42 inches long and 2.5 x 1.5 section. Each length has two short dowel lengths inserted into the ends to allow secure attachment of the uprights. The base length angles are cut to 22.5 degrees.

         

The second image shows a test fit of the uprights and the third shows the top octagonal lengths in place. Each of the uprights have been bolted together while the bottom and top octagonal lengths are glued in place and left to dry  for a couple of days. These are the first images I have put on the web site which show my studio so you can see paintings stretched on the wall in progress and one just finished on an easle. 

         

The thumbnails show the next phase comprising the construction of the observatory base walls. I managed to find a supply of stirling board again like the dome a swap for a painting was done and so continuing the use of recycled material and keeping the cost down to an absolute minimum. Once the odd nail had been removed I cut a rough size of stirling board and secured it to the frame with decking screws and then cut the stirling board down to the correct size and edge angle. The outer and inner walls and frames were then primed, undercoated and finished with an exterior gloss.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be bringing sections of the fibregalass dome to renovate and building the tracking ring for the dome. Should be fun.

         

This is the bottom ring section of the dome made up of four sections with some images showing the damage that needs repairing. The dome at it’s original location was really well built and all the sections securely glued and bolted together. In dismantling the dome I managed to break three chisels and some of the sections have small cracks and chips, all the sections will need sanding cleaning and some areas will need repairing with fibreglass and resin. But for the next few days I’ll be cleaning sanding and using a filler to repair the damage to the 4 ring sections.

       

Ok so renovation underway which entailed an awful lot of sanding and cleaning. I then used a fibreglass reinforced filler to fill holes, chips and old bolt holes. This took two sometimes three layers carefully sanding between layers. There is some rather more serious damage to the final ring segment which I will have to use fibreglass tape and resin and this I will be doing over the next week. As I have never used fibreglass and resin materials before I’ll be continuing with the least damaged areas including the ends of the ring sections for the next few days.