Rob Hawley's Pages
 Eclipse Photography
 Widefield

Almaden Observatory
 Almaden Observatory Web Page
Welcome to my web page showing the photos taken by the Observatory.

For more Information

About the Observatory
 Equipment and Construction
Narrowband Imagery Creating Color from Narrowband Images
Photography Overview Typical Workflow
The Sharpless Catalog provides a list of targets that can be used with narrowband filters


These are the most recent projects I have completed. Click the photo to view the web page on the project.

SH274 in HOS

Sharpless 274
 Leo Triplet LRGBH

Leo Triplet
 M1 in HON

M1


Image Galleries


These are the galleries of all of my projects.  Click the section title to browse or an individual project.
Nebula

Messier Objects
M1
M42 HDR in Halpha
M42 in Color (HOS ) in progress

NGC Objects
IC Objects
IC 434 B-33 HorseHead
Sharpless Objects
SH 2-274
SH 2-277 (Horsehead)
Galaxies
Messier Objects

NGC Objects
Other
C/2009 P1 Garradd
Pluto


About the Observatory

Equipment and Construction Page

Backstory

I have always been interested in taking photos of the sky.  I am best known at this point for my Eclipse Photography, but I have also dabbled in wide field.  What I have not been interested in doing is lugging hundreds of kilograms of sensitive equipment to a remote site and then frantically setting up in the dwindling twilight.  In 2009 I got permission to build an Observatory in the backyard.

Located in Almaden Valley I am on the edge of San Jose's light dome.  My local site is well populated with lights from tennis courts as well as neighbors who make heavy use of "decorative" and insecurity lighting.  (Lights in my yard are on motion sensors). They are only on when they need to be. One of my neighbors now sees fit to illuminate my backyard with a "insecurity" light!   Oh yes and then there is the unshielded LPS streetlight across the street from me.  While my area is darker than area's closer to downtown, there is still enough light to make significant gradients.  Thus I will be taking primarily narrowband.  However, for galaxies I have to use LRGB and just deal with the light pollution.

Observatory construction began in February of 2010 with first light in December 2010.  Unfortunately the optics I had then were not very good so the observatory shut down for a couple of months while I installed the Takahashi FSQ106, the narrowband filters, and completed the dome automation.  First Light with the new equipment was Feb 27 2011.  After imaging for about 9 months and completing 10 projects the observatory shutdown again in Mar 2012 to replace the pier, upgrade to an AP900, and replace the wheels that support the dome.

The Observatory is fully automated using ACP and ACP Scheduler which will allow the observatory to efficiently schedule the roughly 60 hours of work each project requires without staying up all night.


Copyrights for Photos


Creative Commons License

Except as noted, all work on this site by Robert J. Hawley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This permits the non commercial use of the material on this site, either in whole or in part, in other works provided that I am credited for the work.

1 OK some imagers use cameras that capture all three colors at once, but that just means the filters are attached to the sensor instead of being held in front of it. The camera is combining the 3 images to produce a "one shot color" image.