This book is based around the author's beautiful and sometimes awe-inspiring color images and mosaics of deep-sky objects.
The images were used as the basis of a public exhibition held at the University of Southampton (Summer 2006), attended by the press, local radio and TV interviewers as well as the public. The book describes how similar images can be created by amateur astronomers, using commercially available telescopes and CCD cameras. Subsequent processing and image enhancement in the "electronic darkroom" is covered in detail as well.
Not everybody can afford the biggest and best telescopes and CCD cameras, so a range of telescopes and equipment is considered, from the author's 11-inch with Hyperstar camera, down to more affordable instruments.
Appendices provide links to free software - not available from a single source - and are themselves an invaluable resource.
About the Author
Professor Greg Parker is Head of the Nanoscale Systems Integration Group at Southampton University in Southern England. His deep sky astronomical images have been published in Astronomy Now and Sky at Night magazines. He is the author of Introductory Semiconductor Device Physics (IOP, ISBN 0750310219), and has written many scientific papers and articles, mostly in the area of photonics and optoelectronics, as well as a chapter (Guided-wave Optical Communications: Materials) in Elsevier's Encyclopaedia of Materials: Science and Technology. Read more...
