SMARTER STRATEGIES

How to Make Celestial Observations in Your Pajamas

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 03-01-10 | Comments

Poor man's astronomy can be performed by slewing over to Slooh.com (the name sounds like the slewing action of a telescope when it aims at a new object). There, anyone can take control of an observatory to photograph celestial objects.

Making astronomical observations usually involves buying an expensive telescope, learning how to use it, waiting for a cloud-free night, doing a long time exposure, then despairing when your photos do not match the quality of the ones you can download from NASA.com for free.

Slooh took this photo of the Great Orion nebula�a cosmic �nursery� that contains dozens of newborn �baby� suns.

Now all that has changed by virtue of Slooh.com, where anyone can sign up to point a sophisticated telescope at nearly any celestial object, take a time-lapse photograph, then download the stunning resulting images. There is even a chance that you might discover a comet, supernova, asteroid or other celestial object.

"Our most avid members have already discovered a comet, have confirmed several new supernova and just six weeks ago were able to observe an asteroid that was just 20 meters across as it flew past the Earth," says Rick Lamb, president of Slooh.com. "Slooh is also being adopted in schools from grade school, where it introduces students to astronomy, to high school, where it illustrates certain mathematical principles, all the way up to the college curricula at several universities."

Slooh.com lets anyone do live, hands-on astronomy (while sipping hot chocolate in your pajamas) by operating its own worldwide network of observatories.

Slooh's main observatories are in four mountaintop locations�two in separate domes in the Canary Islands (Spain off the coast of Morocco); one in Victoria, west of Melbourne (Australia); and one near Santiago (Chile). The networked telescopes in all four locations stream live images from those observatories every night, often with live audio commentary and chat.

Each location has three telescopes�an "all sky" telescope that does not move, but points straight up to show a wide angle view of the entire sky at that location. The other two telescopes, one with a wide angle field-of-view and one with a telephoto lens for making close-up images, can be pointed by members at any astronomical object in their range.

Most of the astronomical objects of interest are already slated for viewing by one of Slooh's telescopes, but any member can add new objects to the schedule. Once chosen, Slooh slews over to your chosen astronomical object at the chosen time, spends 5 minutes setting up and taking a time-exposure digital photograph, then uploads the image to the archive, where any member following that mission can enjoy it. Members can also choose from among different image processing alternatives to enhance their photos. Since 2003, Slooh has taken more than 1.2 million photographs for its members.

Slooh also hosts well-known astronomers to do online radio shows about all things space. Check the schedule of upcoming events here.