.This digest has two aims.
The first is to cover in depth, without being too technical, advances in our knowledge, equipment and techniques that I hope will be of interest to all amateur astronomers.
The second is to add to the content of the books recently published by Cambridge University Press and so keep them up fully up to date.
Monthly Night Sky Guide
The author also writes a guide to each month’s northern hemisphere night sky. Just click here: Monthly Night Sky Guide
Recent Pages added to the Digest
Most recent: Deep Sky Stacker Sigma-Kappa stacking mode
Starfixer 0.2 Alpha – an AI star correction program
A user built EAA astrophotography telescope
Astrosharp Astronomical Sharpening Tool – an update to describe the July 2023 version
Astrophotography using an Alt/Az mount
Untracked Imaging from a dark site
GSO Ritchey-Chrétien Baffle problem and simple solution.
Neat Image – a free (with limitation) noise reduction program
Astrosharp Astronomical Sharpening Tool
Imaging M31, the Andromeda Galaxy
The best free astronomical data image processing software: ASTAP and Siril
Photometric Colour Calibration using Siril: the Messier 67 open cluster
Processing an image of M13 using free software – a complete step by step through article (updated)
Thoughts on Calibration Frames
Siril – an excellent free astro-imaging tool.
A Guide to Stacking, Background Extraction and Stretching
Imaging the Sword of Orion – a complete work through
The Cff Telescopes 127 mm, f/7, refractor – a world class telescope
Choosing the sensor size of a deep sky imaging astro camera
Thoughts about my refractor telescopes
ASTAP – An excellent stacking program
I would like to dedicate this website to Rod Mollise whose posts in ‘Uncle Rod’s Astro Blog’ have, for many years, been a source of great inspiration for me.
Ian Morison FRAS is an astronomer and
astrophysicist who served as the 35th Gresham Professor of Astronomy. Though a radio astronomer by profession, now in his 58th year at the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester, he has been a keen amateur optical astronomer since making his first simple telescope with lenses given to him by his optician when 11 or 12. In 1990 he helped found the Macclesfield Astronomy Society of which he is now patron and he is a past president of the UK’s Society for Popular Astronomy, now acting as its Instrument and Imaging Advisor. He writes a regular ‘Telescope Topics’ column for ‘Popular Astronomy’ and has made many contributions to the ‘Sky at Night’ and ‘Astronomy Now’ magazines.
His books published by Cambridge University Press are shown below and all can be purchased from Blackwell’s, just search for ‘Ian Morison’.
A book aimed to bridge the gap between books for beginners and the specialised books about individual practical astronomy topics.
A book based on the author’s Gresham lectures on Astronomy.
A book covering all aspects of Astrophotography.
[The opening image is of the galaxy M33 in Triangulum. It was taken remotely using an ASA 8-inch Newtonian Astrograph located in Spain. The data acquisition and image processing used to achieve this image are described both in ‘An Amateurs Guide…’ and ‘The Art of Astrophotography’.]