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Telescopes - refractors and reflectors - are the main items of equipment used by almost every amateur astronomer. The purpose of astronomical telescopes is to collect and focus more light than the human eye can, forming an image that can be viewed, photographed, or analysed. Astronomical Equipment for Amateurs makes buying and using both telescopes and their ancillary instruments easy for astronomers of all abilities. It begins by looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the basic types of refractors, reflectors, mountings and accessories. Observation techniques are also included, along with the use of filters, (colour, anti-pollution and nebula), types of photography (piggy-back, prime focus and eyepiece projection), and also CCD imaging (including types of CCD camera and their advantages and disadvantages compared to photography). Martin Mobberley provides a fascinating insight into astronomical software.
List of contents
1 Fundamentals for Beginners.- Using Low Magnification.- Using High Magnification.- Eyepiece Sizes.- 2 Refractors and Reflectors.- Achromatic Refractors.- Apochromatic Refractors.- Semi-Apochromatic Refractors.- Refractors or Reflectors?.- Newtonian Reflectors.- Long-Focus Newtonians.- Collimation.- Dobsonians.- Buying a Telescope.- Beginners' Telescopes.- Buyer Beware!.- High-Quality Refractors.- Apochromats for the Connoisseur.- Other Telescope Considerations.- 3 Catadioptrics, Cassegrains and Schmidt-Cassegrains.- Cassegrains.- Schmidt-Cassegrains.- Maksutovs.- Schiefspieglers.- 4 Binoculars.- Stands for Binoculars.- Image-Stabilised Binoculars.- 5 Eyepieces.- Magnification.- Practical Considerations.- Comet Seeking.- Focusing-Tube Diameter.- Real Field Limitations.- Popular Commercial Eyepieces.- High-Definition Eyepieces.- Barlow Lenses.- Eyepiece Projection.- Illuminated-Reticle Eyepieces.- Commercial Guiding Eyepieces.- 6 Telescope Mountings.- The Equatorial Mounting.- Commercial Telescope Mounting Systems.- Commercial Drive Systems.- Home-Made Drives and Unusual Mountings.- Electronic Drive Design.- Unusual Mountings.- Poncet Platforms.- Alt-azimuth Field De-Rotators.- 7 Accessories.- Finders.- Guide Telescopes.- Off-Axis Guiders.- Horses for Courses.- Photographic Equipment - Film versus CCD.- Undriven Astrophotography.- Simple Tracking.- Dew.- Film, Meteor-Photography Equipment and Wide-Field Camera Equipment.- Satellite Trails.- Medium-Format Cameras.- Fish-Eye Lenses.- Developing and Printing.- Developing Tanks.- Developing Colour Film.- Black-and-White Printing.- Cold Cameras and Film Hypersensitising.- Camera Interfaces.- Focusers.- Commercial Schmidt-Cassegrain Focusing.- Manual Guiding and Off-Axis Guiders.- Guiding for Comet Photography.- A CometMarathon.- Coma Correctors.- A Final Word on Focusers.- Filters.- Planetary Filters.- Deep Sky Filters.- Comet Filters.- Photographic Filters.- Photometric Filters for CCDs.- Schmidt Cameras and Astrographs.- 8 Electronic Imaging and the Electronics Revolution.- CCDs.- Buying a CCD Camera.- Starlight Xpress.- SBIG and Meade.- Auto-Slewing with a Schmidt-Cassegrain and a CCD Camera.- SBIG Autoguiding.- Other Manufacturers.- Using a CCD Camera.- Understanding and Processing the Digital Image.- A Dark Frame.- Background Brightness.- Flat-Field.- Diffraction Focusers.- Useful Processing Routines.- Unsharp Masking.- Deconvolution.- Median Filters.- Non-Linear Contrast-Stretch.- Image Formats.- Astrometry.- Photometry.- 9 Image Processing, Planetarium and Telescope Control Software.- QMips 1.81 by Christian Buil.- MIRA AL by Axiom.- Hidden Image by Sehgal.- CCD Astrometry.- Paintshop Pro.- Adobe Photoshop.- Printers and Scanners.- Planetarium Software.- Planetarium Telescope Control.- 10 Video Astronomy.- Image Intensifiers.- 11 Observatories.- The Simplest Solution.- Simple Observatories.- If It Can Go Wrong.- Observatory Domes.- 12 Equipment for Observing the Sun.- Eyepiece Projection.- Direct Solar Observation.- Observing in White Light.- Seeing.- Hydrogen-Alpha Equipment.- Viewing Eclipses.- 13 Star Atlases and Deep Sky Atlases.- Appendix 1 Dealers, Bibliography and URLs.- Equipment Suppliers.- Quality Binocular Mounting Suppliers.- Societies Worth Joining.- Internet URLs.- Books.- Appendix 2 Photographic and Visual Magnitude Limits.
About the author
Martin Mobberley has a BSc Honours degree in Electronic Engineering from Brunel University, and is a former British Astronomical Association President and Goodacre Medallist.
