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Contact information
e-mail
nik@ccdland.fsnet.co.uk
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website
http://www.ccdland.com
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Locator Map
http://www.frappr.com/apppublic
Level of accuracy: town of West Horndon, England
Biography
I’ve had a lifelong interest
in astronomy but really caught the astronomy bug in 1980 and spent 10
years as an armchair astronomer. In 1990 I bought my first serious
telescope, a Meade 10” LX3 SCT. Around this time came the introduction to
the amateur market of the first CCD cameras, which proved to be a real
bonus and could at last do battle with the ever-present light-pollution
here in England. After a few years of learning the procedures to produce
good images I travelled
to La Palma, in the Canary Islands, with a portable set-up to acquire
images under the pristine conditions there. This proved to be a real
turning point and I try to get over there at least once a year. I teamed
up with a lot of the professional astronomers and public relations people
at La Palma and on numerous occasions have been invited to apply my image
processing techniques
to professional data taken with the 4.2m William Herschel, 2.5m Isaac
Newton and 1m Jacobus Kapteyn telescopes located there. Two of these
images have appeared as full page spreads in Sky & Telescope magazine’s
“Images” section.
In 2003 I travelled to the observatory
at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and spent an enjoyable 10 days doing film-based
astrophotography at 14,000 ft and at the astronomers’ residential area at
9,000 ft. Part
of the reason for this trip was to acquire public-relations material to
showcase the UK’s involvement with the telescopes at the Mauna Kea
Observatory (predominantly, the James Clerk Maxwell Submillimetre
telescope and the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). The funding
for this visit was provided by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research
Council (PPARC).
Observing trips abroad are still
happening but recently I have become heavily involved with an exciting new
venture, the Faulkes telescope Project. For this, I have been given
unlimited observing time on a 2m robotic telescope located at an altitude
of 10,000ft on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The telescope (along with a
sister scope located at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia) is available
for schools, colleges, universities etc. to use for observing projects.
Many of the images I have taken with this telescope are available on my
Web site.
In July 2004 I was very pleased to
receive the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Amateur Achievement
Award and travelled to Berkeley, California, to receive the award. During
a very enjoyable few days there I was able to meet and hear lectures from
many top name astronomy people, such as David Levy, Leif Robinson, Tony
Hallas, Geoff Marcy and many others.
My most-recent project is a book on
astrophotography Infinity Rising, produced in collaboration with Astronomy
Now, the leading UK astronomy magazine. I also have a fairly busy lecture
schedule which covers astrophotography, CCD imaging, the trips to Hawaii
and La Palma and image-processing techniques.
Other interests include rock drumming
and listening to progressive rock bands such as Dream Theater, Symphony X,
Rush, Yes.
Astrophotography publications
Magazines
Astronomy Now, Sky &
Telescope, Astronomy, Popular Astronomy, Sky at Night, BAA Journal, CCD
Astronomy, Deep Sky Observer, Tahdet ja avaruus (Finland)
Book
Infinity Rising
Astronomical Equipment
Telescope
Pentax SDHF 75mm apochroamatic
refractor
Mount
Vixen GP-DX with SkySensor 2000
mount
Cameras
Starlight Xpress SXV-H9 CCD
camera
SBIG ST-4
Canon EOS 20D digital SLR
Filters
Astronomik narrowband
filters. IDAS RGB filters.
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