Home-Grown Observatories The Sky at Night

Good evening. You know, astronomy is still one of the few sciences

where amateurs can and do make valuable contributions.

They have their own telescopes, their own observatories

and every clear night you see them out there

making measurements, taking photographs.

See, all kinds of things professionals don't want to do -

haven't got time to do.

This evening, we're going to go to some of the amateur observatories,

beginning in Northumberland with Dr Chris North.

This view of night-time Britain seen from space

shows the light-polluted cities and the dark countryside.

In this programme, we visit astronomers

who are observing from both.

We start our observatory tour in Country Durham,

in the northeast of England.

I've come to the little village of Chiltern

to find one of our best planetary imagers.

Keith Johnson lives here with his wife Kath

and he has an impressive set-up in his garden.

Keith has a reflecting telescope - a nine-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain.

He well remembers what got him started in astronomy.

It was 1972 and power cuts opened up a whole new world to a young lad

hungry to see the stars.

The first time I actually got the bug of astronomy, erm,

was when I was 14-year-old.

At that time, there was miner strikes

and the power stations had to conserve fuel.

So, now and again you would get power cuts.

I went to call on me friend, who just lived over the road from me,

and he said, "Come here, look through this,"

and I could just make out a bit of light

in what turned out to be an eye piece.

-And I looked through and it was Saturn.

-Wow.

And they way I would explain it is, that's another world.

You're looking at another world there.

And it was the first time I actually looked at it

and that was it, it just got us.

I think Saturn's one of the first things I saw through a telescope

and it's such a hook cos it looks so different though an eyepiece.

-Yeah.

-Cos it goes from a small pinprick of light

to this ringed world, it's marvellous.

Keith likes to look at our planetary neighbours.

Being relatively close and bright,

the planets are ideal targets for astronomers in a light-polluted area.

Mars is a fascinating world, with weather and seasons

causing changes that can be visible through a modest telescope.

Here is Syrtis Major,

a dark volcanic plane created by a long-extinct volcano.

Another favourite is the gas giant, Jupiter,

with its ever-changing bands of clouds and famous great red spot.

Keith also has some fabulous moon images.

This montage of the phases shows how it changes over the month.

Even with binoculars, you can see the craters and dark laval planes.

But with a telescope, you can see features,

such as the Apennine Mountains, in remarkable detail.

These ancient volcanoes, some as high as three miles,

sit on the edge of the Mare Imbrium, a conspicuous lava field.

The moon, an alien world, which is so close yet so far.

The cold nights in County Durham are quite a challenge,

but Keith has found a way of returning to his comfort zone.

So, Keith, you've got this telescope here

and I'm used to seeing telescopes on a tripod in people's back gardens'

but this one's on a plinth.

Yeah, basically, what it was,

I wanted to make life easier for myself.

I'm predominantly into planetary imaging

and one of the things that I found when I was planetary imaging,

was to do high-magnification imaging,

you had to have a very, very accurate polar alignment.

So, that's making sure

that the telescope is aligned with the pole star

so that it tracks the sky as the Earth rotates.

That's correct. But what I found was,

it takes that much time to get polar-aligned every night,

and to feed the cables out for the camera, for the power supply,

that more often than not

I'd no sooner get sorted out than the clouds would roll in.

And then if it was a lovely clear night,

then there was the added trouble of, around four o'clock in the morning

when it's bitter cold and you're tired,

and the thought of having to put everything away again.

And it's just... Just something you don't want to do,

which is why a lot of people have observatories.

Because of light pollution in the area

and there's not a lot of space, I thought, well,

it's not going to be practical building an observatory.

I thought the next best thing I can do is a sort of pedestal

and have the cables running outside from the conservatory.

On a bitter cold night, you'd be lucky if you can stand ten minutes

before the cold's biting through you.

But in there, where it's nice and warm,

you're there for as long as you want to be, as long as it's clear.

Keith also likes to look at things outside our solar system.

The Orion Nebula is an immense cloud of dust and gas

around 1,500 light years away.

The young stars forming at its centre cause the gas to glow,

but its immense distance means that long-exposure photographs

are needed to capture the intricate detail.

Such faint objects can be washed out by light pollution,

but Keith has found that a friendly word with the council

helps matters along.

'I can't help noticing there's a couple of street lamps

'right outside your house.'

Do they interfere with your observing?

They do, but not as bad as what it used to be.

Right, OK, how did you solve the problem?

Well, the first thing I did,

I actually got in touch with the County Council

and what they are implementing is, throughout the northeast,

as a cost-cutting exercise as well,

it to have full cut-off lights, which are cheaper to run.

The light is beamed straight down,

it's where the light's supposed to be.

-None of it goes up into the sky.

-Exactly.

And they came out, and they had a look,

and they tilted the lights -

they tuned the lights away.

So, it's not perfect, but it's a lot better than what it actually was.

The other thing that they're going to implement

is that all the street lights are going to be computerised

so they can switch individual lights off, or dim them,

in places where the light isn't necessary.

In the battle against light pollution,

Keith has shown that perseverance pays off

and his magnificent images are proof that, even in urban areas,

you can do some amazing things.

We're staying in the northeast of England,

where there certainly seems to be a cluster of superb astrophotographers.

It's now onto our next astronomer, who lives in the city of Durham.

Well, here we are to see Juergen and this is a chap you know, isn't it?

'Paul and I have come to visit Dr Juergen Schmoll...'

He's an amazing chap.

-He's very technical and grinds his own mirrors.

-Oh!

During the day, Juergen builds astronomical instruments

for large telescopes, such as the VLT,

but the night is all his.

Juergen has a vast collection of telescopes.

Some like this Ritchey-Chretien, which he has bought and adapted,

but many he has built himself - like this Newtonian reflector.

And from his back yard, he takes amazing images

of just about everything you can think of astronomically.

I am really keen to see his set-up.

I can see telescopes... Oh, WOW, look at this! That's amazing, isn't it?

'Juergen originally came from Germany but he's settled here

'and loves the north of England.'

-Ah, Juergen!

-Ah, Pete and Paul!

-Hello!

-Nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Yes, yes.

-What are you doing up here in the frozen wastes of the north?!

-THEY LAUGH

Yes, observing, you know?

I didn't bring any telescope with me when I came.

I said, "Oh, it's only for two years and it's always raining in England."

-You've noticed?

-Yes, first thing, first thing I came,

there was a spell of clear sky.

Jupiter was grinning at me and I had no scope.

What about this telescope, Juergen,

cos it looks very large and brand-new?

What type of telescope is this?

It is indeed brand-new, I just got it a few weeks ago.

-Won't touch it then!

-THEY LAUGH

It's actually a Ritchey-Chretien telescope,

which is named after two opticians who developed this in 1928

and lots of professional telescopes are built like this.

They are quite good - I got a bit addicted to the high-image scale.

Isn't Ritchey-Chretien the same technology used for the Hubble?

Yes, it is.

So, you have your own little Hubble?

Yes! Oh, yes, yeah, you can say so, yes.

Juergen has so many wonderful images, it's hard to choose some favourites

but his star clusters are particularly nice.

Some are new objects with stars that have formed together,

such as the Pleiades or the Messier 45,

or the double cluster in Perseus.

Others are much older objects, containing many thousands of stars,

such as the globular clusters M15 and M13.

-What kind of astronomy are you into?

-Mostly deep-sky astrophotography.

Do you have any favourite objects that you like to image from?

For example, the Andromeda Nebula,

I got a bit addicted to an object called NGC 206,

in the Andromeda galaxy.

Oh, yes, star cloud area, isn't it? On one edge of it, yeah.

I like Juergen's comets, such as Comet Garradd.

Small, dirty snowballs tumbling through space.

As they near the sun, the surface evaporates,

creating a halo and characteristic tail.

In 2007, Comet Holmes graced our skies

and underwent a massive outburst,

which unbelievably created a halo bigger than the sun.

'Juergen keeps alive an old tradition in astronomy -

'making your own telescopes.'

-Do you grind your own mirrors and optics as well?

-Yes.

I have to say, I always admire people with those sort of skills, cos I'm quite hopeless.

-You have some mirror-grinding equipment outside, don't you?

-Yes, yes, I do, yes.

-Can we have a look?

-Yes.

And my word, that is a big bit of glass, Juergen.

-Oh, yes, it is, definitely. It's 24 inches.

-It weights a ton!

That's enormous - 24 inches.

Yeah, I want to make a 24-inch mirror out of this piece of glass.

Can you explain to us then,

how do you turn THIS into a useable telescope mirror.

Actually, what you have to do is grind the mirror.

Then you have something called a tool, for example here's a tool,

and this tool goes on with some abrasive.

So you put on a little heap of Carborundum, which is an abrasive,

and you wet it smooth with the wet-grinding process.

I remember when I made my telescope

the tool was the same size as the mirror blank.

-Oh, yeah.

-So is that not the case here?

So for small mirrors it's the case,

but when we have bigger mirrors it's just...

A, it's the cost, because they're quite expensive, mirror blanks.

-Of course, yes.

-And secondly, you can't drag it over any more

because the friction gets to much.

And so what do you do with this, then?

You put the glass on it, then you start grinding,

which is actually quite noisy.

It's like you're scratching the mirror to the right shape.

And then, once the shape is there,

you start to get finer abrasives, to get the surface...

-To get the surface roughness down.

-Once you've got it very fine,

you've then got to polish it.

And I love that bit, that's the best bit. I recognise this.

That's what this is for, is it?

Yes, the ground mirror looks like this, it's actually...

It doesn't reflect light, it looks like a milky glass,

like frosted glass.

-Yeah.

-And actually, I have a mirror here which looks,

from the back side, exactly the same.

But the other side looks different.

There's no frosting on this.

Yes, it's now completely reflective. And how do you get there?

It's actually, you use a tool with some soft material on it,

which is optical pitch.

It's a pitch lap. And this pitch lap...

I'm going to put this on here.

This pitch lap is made wet

and pressed on to get it exactly the same shape

and then you start polishing the mirror.

You hear no noise doing it, it's very silent.

It's an odd thing that, I remember.

And magically, after about an hour or so,

your mirror starts to get glossy.

After a few hours the mirror is polished out

and then you can, for example, focus the sun on it

and you can project the sun so that you can see this mirror is working.

I got into a lot of trouble actually, making my pitch lap,

when I made my mirror,

because I boiled the pitch up on my mum's stove in a pot.

-You hooligan, Lawrence!

-And it makes quite a lot of smell, doesn't it?

Yes, it's very smelly.

And when you drop some pitch down and you walk it through the...

-I wasn't popular, no.

-I did not get to the pitch stage.

When I tried grinding a mirror I did not get to the pitch stage

-because I managed to break both the mirror and the blank.

-Ooh!

But then once you've got it polished,

that's when you send it off to be aluminized.

Once you have it aluminized,

and there's a silicon layer on it to protect the aluminium layer,

it lasts for years.

'Juergen's first telescope took him two years to make

'but he has it down to a fine art.

'His record is making an eight-inch mirror in just 21 days -

'impressive stuff.'

It's the feeling,

once you put the telescope together with your self-made optics.

and you put it together, look at a planet, or something,

-and you see it in full glory and you realise it's your optics.

-It is.

-Feelings I shall never have!

-Well, maybe one day.

-Maybe one day.

-Juergen, thank you very much.

-Yes, thank you.

-Oh, you're welcome.

'Back-garden observatories are the backbone of astronomy.

'Over the years, The Sky At Night has visited a few,

'so it's back to Patrick for something special from the archives.'

In 1970, I went to see another of our well-known amateurs,

Dr Frank Acfield.

He has his observatory and here's the clip.

Good evening. Well, as you can see, I'm not in the BBC studio.

I am, in fact, at Newcastle on Tyne,

at Frank Acfield's observatory at Forest Hall.

And we are delighted to have Frank with us

for this evening's Sky At Night.

This very neat and efficient-looking dome

contains a ten-inch reflecting telescope

and, just to make sure that we all know where we are,

the latitude and longitude's given on the door.

'Frank's dome and telescope were all built by his friends

'just after the war.

'In those days, enthusiasts made everything by hand -

'from the mirror to the telescope mount.'

Yes, Patrick, actually it's made from Ruberoid roofing felt,

reinforced with wire netting underneath to stop it sagging

in case of any weight of snow or anything on top of the building.

Do you find that the dome's easy to turn?

Yes, once you get it going, Patrick, it's quite easy.

Look here, you see.

-Just you have a try.

-Yes.

That's pretty easy, there's no difficulty there.

Well, it's a very nice observatory.

Now let's have a look at the telescope, shall we?

-Yes, do come and have a look inside.

-Right.

Well, you've told us about the observatory,

what about this very fine ten-inch reflector.

Yes, Patrick, this reflector was made for me

by Mr Tom Whitham, of Newcastle,

and he came to me and said he didn't like the mounting I had,

it didn't fit the lovely observatory,

would I allow him to make a mounting

equal to the beautiful building in which it was housed.

Let's have a look at the mirror.

That's a very nice mirror indeed.

Do you always have it aluminized rather than silvered?

I do, Patrick, yes.

It's aluminized on the face and anodized on top,

-so that you can dust it, you know.

-What's the focal length?

-19 inches.

And there at the bottom of the tube you can see the ten-inch mirror,

which is the essential part of the whole telescope.

'Astronomy today uses digital cameras and web cams.

'Back in the 1970s, Frank used photographic plates,

'which were extremely delicate and had to be developed by hand.

'These are some sunspots he imaged just before Patrick arrived.'

I think you're very wise, too,

in doing your developing and processing actually on the spot.

Yes, this is my dark room, Patrick, and what I do is this -

I have my developer and my hypo, here.

Then I put my plate into the developer

and I am able to rock the dishes

for the required time at the required temperature.

Once this is done, I can remove them,

wash the plates and then transfer them into the enlarger, here.

Then, if you have a picture like this, say, and wish to enlarge it,

then simply by moving this height, up here...

..then you can enlarge from a picture like this

to a picture the size of the table.

This is one of Frank's pictures of the full moon,

taken with the ten-inch reflector, of course.

'Frank contributed a great deal to Astronomy,

'although nothing now remains of his observatory.

'But it was the tireless work of dedicated amateurs like Frank

'which inspired today's generation of astronomers.'

Next in our observatory tour, we're going to Hexham

and the light pollution-free rural countryside of Northumberland.

I've come to visit amateur astronomer Peter Vasey.

From his back garden, Peter looks over the Pennines

and has a wonderful view of the southern horizon.

Quite simply, an astronomer's paradise.

Peter has an eight-inch reflecting telescope

and takes all sorts of wonderful images.

Not only of the popular Messier objects

but also some more obscure targets.

Have you ever seen anything as perfect as the Soap Bubble Nebula?

So, Peter, here we are in rural Northumberland.

It's a lovely area and at the moment, we've got beautiful sunshine.

Is that a common occurrence up here, or...?

-Well, it does happen, occasionally!

-Yeah?

I'm more interested in the night-time. Having said that,

you saw me looking through my solar scope

and we see sunspots and prominences.

-OK, so you do some solar observing as well?

-Oh, yes indeed, yes,

when the sun shines - which it does.

But, of course, night-time is what I really came here for.

The dark skies and clear southern horizon,

combined with his little observatory tucked away behind the bushes,

allow Peter to take pictures of some of the most beautiful objects

that grace our night skies.

Here is the Lagoon Nebula,

a fabulous sea of gas which contains a vast array of astronomical objects.

Peter also has wonderful images of the Cocoon Nebula

and the Trifid Nebula.

It's easy to forget that these objects are many light years across,

and thousands of light years away.

More distant still, galaxies are a particular favourite of Peter's.

-Well, everybody likes M51, don't they?

-Oh, it's wonderful.

We get a lovely view of it here. It gets quite high in the spring.

I like NGC 891, that beautiful edge-on galaxy.

There are some fainter galaxies, more obscure galaxies,

which aren't well known, but they're a challenge,

I like to have a go at them, you know?

Galaxies are island universes, each containing billions of stars.

They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

From enormous elliptical balls, to grand spiral galaxies.

They're sometimes found in groups and clusters,

making for some beautiful arrangements.

When they get particularly close to each other

their immense gravitational pull distorts their shapes,

and it's these oddball galaxies that Peter particularly likes to observe.

The light has come from such a long way away.

Those photons have travelled for millions of years to get here

and either end up their journey on your retina,

if you're doing it visually,

seeing a little faint grey blob in your telescope,

or, of course, on the camera chip, or film,

where you can integrate it over a long period

and pick out all the wonderful complexity and intricacy

of these marvellous things.

'Peter is fortunate to live in such a dark location,'

but some astronomers manage to successfully observe

from the light-polluted cities.

It's the last of our observatories

and time to leave the northeast and come down to Southampton.

I'm here to meet Dr Lilian Hobbs,

who has a very interesting set-up in her back garden.

Dr Lilian Hobbs's first passion is astronomy.

Her second passion is motorbikes,

touring the world seeing spectacular locations.

Dr Hobbs has been to Patagonia, in South America,

Chile, and the roof of the world, the Himalayas.

Lilian has two observatories.

The largest one houses her refractor,

where she does most of her astronomical imaging.

And like some of our other astronomers,

she has taken some fabulous images of the galaxies.

I take a journey down to the bottom of her garden,

where Lilian keeps her observatories.

-Hello, Lilian?

-Hello, Paul!

TWO telescope domes - I'm very impressed!

Well, this is just the small dome, let me show you my larger dome.

Oh, yes, please!

I am very impressed...

and just a little bit envious.

This is where all the action happens - in here.

Oh, this is where I lose my head!

Well, Lilian, thanks for inviting us

to one of two magnificent observatories you have here.

Why don't you tell us what got you into astronomy?

-Well, I first got into astronomy during the Apollo era.

-Ah!

I remember watching the Apollo landings

and my brother also had a great interest in astronomy as well.

So, as soon as I was old enough, I joined my local astronomy club

-and used to dream of owning a really nice telescope.

-Yes.

And, so, that was really how it started.

And what was your first telescope?

My first telescope was a nice three-inch refractor

and I just used to go out, look at the moon.

I did take my camera and I've still got a paperweight

with my first photograph of the moon that I took.

Good Lord, first photo?

I've never even managed to take a photograph of the moon

so you've got one up on me!

Well, I think it's fair to say you've upgraded since then.

I've upgraded a little over the years.

Then you got hold of this, this is a fine telescope.

This is a seven-inch refractor.

No, I must confess, there were a few more telescopes before this one.

-Good lord!

-So, I worked my way up, really, over the years.

Lilian loves galaxies.

You can see them in binoculars but with Lilian's telescope,

they look magnificent.

The many billions of stars are resolved beautifully.

This is M51, or the Whirlpool Galaxy,

which is in the constellation of Canes Venatici, or the Hunting Dogs.

These are two galaxies caught in a gravitational embrace.

The serene beauty conceals the fact that the smaller galaxy

is being ripped apart.

Who knows, perhaps in one of the stars, in one of these galaxies,

there may be a planet with an astronomer looking back at us.

-Is this your main observatory, then?

-This is my main observatory,

so this is an eight-foot fibreglass dome.

-It's quite sturdy.

-It's, yeah, it's very sturdy.

It's survived a few storms!

And, in here, what do you mostly do?

-Well, in here, what I like to do is I like to take photographs.

-Right.

All right? Just nothing serious,

although I've got some very serious kit, but it's just for fun.

I love to image, sort of, galaxies, nebulas, things like that.

-One of my favourites is the Horsehead Nebula.

-Ah, yes.

That's very hard to pick up visually.

It's very hard to pick up visually. In fact, even here, with the scope,

I find that I get a very faint image after about a minute,

so I know that I'm in the right vicinity,

and then it'll take me about an hour to image the Horsehead.

-Apart from the Horsehead?

-The Flame Nebula, as well.

I like to do that with my small refractor

cos it's nice and wide-field and I can capture that in.

'The Flame and Horsehead Nebula in Orion is made of dense gas and dust,

'which is lit by the new stars forming within it.

'The horse-head shape is an optical effect

'and is just a patch where the dust is so dense

'no starlight can be seen.

'Spotting shapes in space can become an astronomical pastime.

'Lilian's image of the Pelican Nebula is jaw-dropping.

'This is the Veil Nebula and to the left is the Witch's Broom.

'Simply magical.'

So, what about some of the objects?

So we have in Sagittarius, we have a lot of interesting deep-sky objects,

like globular clusters, do you do anything with them?

I do. One of the problems I do have is anything that's a bit low,

cos sometimes the garden might need a bit of trimming -

it's often called the Sagittarius cut

if it's really low!

-Middle of the night?

-Middle of the night, yes.

Get the old head-torch out

-and trim the bushes off a little bit cos it's in the way!

-I can imagine!

But I have gone after some of the galaxies in Leo, for example.

Actually, that's a good, fun thing to do, I find.

To do the wide field and just see how many of those galaxies I can pick up.

Does that mean the Virgo cluster, for example?

-You've got many, many galaxies in there.

-Yes.

I love seeing those long-exposure photographs.

-The whole field is just full of galaxies.

-It's just full of them!

Have you managed to count how many you've been able to pick up?

-No, cos I keep losing track, actually.

-Good lord.

Do you ever do anything else other than deep sky?

-Have you tackled planets?

-Yep, I love to do planets as well.

In fact, it's one of the things I encourage youngsters,

when I go out and give talks, and I say to them,

Jupiter's a great target, because it rotates.

-And it rotates quite quickly.

-Very quickly, yeah.

-And also, you don't need a guided scope for it.

-No.

So, yes, if there's no decent deep-sky objects.

Or sometimes, like now, when the weather's not very good,

and I can only get a short observing spell when the planets are up.

-The planets are great for that.

-The planets are great.

-And the moon as well.

-And the moon is great.

In fact, I also... I got into doing quite a lot of lunar observations,

as it were, or lunar imaging,

purely because the weather was so bad and at least you could come out and do something.

That's the great thing about astronomy. There's always something.

There's always something that you can have a look at in the night sky.

Lilian, thank you for inviting us to your observatory.

-You're very welcome!

-It's a pleasure to be here.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you!

This recent image of Jupiter,

with its stormy belts and vivid red colouring

shows the upheaval in the North Equatorial belt.

Jupiter is a turbulent planet

and all you need to see these Earth-size storms for yourself

is a small telescope.

Although we have seen some amazing telescopes,

you could enjoy looking at the night sky with a Mark One Eyeballs

or a pair of binoculars.

Here is some advice Patrick gave back in 1970

about how to get started in astronomy.

It's as relevant today as it was back then.

You know, I'm asked many times every week

how one starts taking up astronomy as a hobby

and I always give the same answer.

You don't, in fact, need any optical equipment whatsoever

and you certainly don't need a large and expensive telescope.

And my advice is,

that if you want to start taking a real interest in astronomy,

The very first step is to buy a star map,

which only costs a shilling or two,

and then go out and learn your way around the sky,

learn your constellations.

And this doesn't really take very long

and the stars become so very much more interesting

when you know which is which.

If one's only got a very limited amount of money

to spend on equipment,

and this certainly applies to most of us,

then there's a straightforward choice

between a very small telescope or a pair of binoculars.

And I'm going to give my own views here,

with the full knowledge that they're open to challenge.

I personally wouldn't pay a great deal of money

for a very small astronomical telescope,

because it's going to have a small field

and it's not going to have any real advantage over good binoculars.

And, personally, I wouldn't recommend

spending a great deal of money upon any astronomical telescope

with an aperture smaller than three inches for a refractor,

or six inches for a reflector.

Smaller telescopes than that can be got and they are quite nice.

But personally, I'd rather go in for binoculars.

And binoculars are going to show you a great deal.

They'll show you the craters of the moon,

they'll show you the four big moons of Jupiter,

they'll show you the phases of Venus

and all kinds of star fields, double stars and star clusters.

Binoculars come in various kinds.

This particular pair happens to be 8 x 30.

That means it has a magnification of eight times

and the object glasses are 30mm in diameter.

That gives you quite a nice broad field.

And if you go on and get a pair of, 20 x 70, or something like that,

which is admittedly going to cost more money,

then, really, it is a good idea

to fix up some kind of improvised mounting,

because the field is going to be small

and it's not going to be easy to hold them steady.

But again, this is a matter of personal preference.

It's this good advice that got so many of us started in astronomy.

Thank you, Patrick.

There is so much the amateur can do

and I believe astronomy is the best of all amateur hobbies.

Next month, back to Mars.

The probe Curiosity will have landed by then

and we are looking forward to seeing what it has to tell us.

So, until then, goodnight.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd