Astronomy Topics
My Background
An amateur astronomer for many years, I am an active member
of the British Astronomical Association (BAA) and operate an observatory
equipped with Celestron 11 and Celestron 14 telescopes. My main
interests are astronomical photometry and asteroids. As Assistant
Director of the BAA Asteroids and Remote Planets Section, I am keen
to encourage others interested in the topic. I also maintain an
Asteroid
News Page.
Below you will find a JPEG image (29K in size) of the unusual asteroid, 1566 Icarus
taken using a Starlight Express CCD camera and the Celestron 14 telescope
autoguided for 6 min using an ST-4 CCD. The image was taken starting
on 1996 June 13d 01h 19m 20s. The image subtends 5.8 arcmin by 8.6 arcmin. Icarus
measures only 3.5 km across and at the time of the observation
it was located 15,648,000 km from the Earth
and was visible as a V=13.2 magnitude object moving with an apparent motion
of 1230 arcsec/hr.
If you wish you may link to the BAA Home Page
or e-mail me here.
Below I have added a GIF image downloaded from the STSCi Palomar Sky
Survey to test out this web page.
Below I have added four charts showing the star identifications of some
favourable forthcoming asteroid occultations. Details are given in the
caption to each.
More to follow later.
rmiles@baa.u-net.com