Introduction
To my surprise, very few active
amateur astronomers bother to undertake any form of scientific effort with their
observing time. This is a great pity as there is a plethora of expensive
equipment out there being used for little more than taking happy snaps (or
pretty pictures) of the same celestial bodies that every one else has taken
pictures of. I just can't fathom it!
Well, from time to time I
have been asked to present what I do to other amateurs. These amateurs
seem interested and ask lots of questions but one common piece of feedback seems
to be 'its too difficult' or 'its beyond me'. What a load of rubbish!
A trained monkey could do what I do and get the same results I get. All it
takes is a little bit of knowledge and experience and a willingness to stick to
it. So in an effort to prove my point I have decided to dedicate a portion
of my web site to education; to simple 'dummies guides' that anyone will be able
to follow and see just how easy it is to do what I do, to make the discoveries
that I make, to contribute to real science.
I am no genius! I did
relatively poorly at school and just as poorly at diploma level tertiary
studies. I have a practical nature and a logical mind and that's about all
I have going for me. If I can do it - you can. So, start reading,
viewing and listening to what I have provided in these pages and you to will
start to learn just how easy it really is (and stop wasting your time taking all
those pretty pictures and happy snaps - you are just wasting good observing
time).
Topics
Subject
|
Field
|
Topic
|
| 1. Observatory |
Putting it
together |
Observatory
Construction |
| |
|
Observatory Equipment |
| |
|
Astroplanner - Planning your observing
session |
| |
|
ACP - Automating your observing |
| 2. Minor Planets |
Astrometry |
Introduction to Astrometrica |
| |
|
Platesolving |
| |
|
Track and Stack |
| |
Photometry |
Introduction to MPO Canopus |
| |
|
Solving Images |
| |
|
Simple Differential Photometry - Image Reduction |
| |
|
CSS Differential Photometry - Image Reduction |
| |
|
The dark art of the Lightcurve
and period analysis |
| |
Asteroids Wiki |
Things to know about Minor Planets |
| 3. Eclipsing Binary Stars |
Photometry |
Wow that Comparison star is a variable |
| 4. Mathematica |
Photometry |
Period Analysis |
| |
|
Dual Period Search (Binary
Asteroids) |
| |
|
SNR to Precision Conversion |
| |
|
Asteroid Parameters (Binaries) |
| 5. Swinburne Astronomy
Online |
Units Studied |
|
|
