Parker Technology accepts photographic assignments in many different specialist areas. One area in particular that Parker Technology specialises in is deep-sky astrophotography, and this work can be seen on the New Forest Observatory website.
Here is a recent image from the NFO – it is the North America and Pelican nebulae in Cygnus taken using a Takahashi Sky 90 refractor, and a Hyperstar III lens on a Celestron Nexstar C11 reflector.
All the very best images taken from the New Forest Observatory between November 2004 and February 2008 can be seen in the Springer publication “Star Vistas” with a publication date of March 2009. The Forewords to Star Vistas are written by Sir Arthur C Clarke, Sir Patrick Moore, and Dr. Brian May. With such eminent Foreword authors we are expecting sales of Star Vistas to be very brisk – to say the least.
Images taken after February 2008 will appear in a subsequent publication with the original title Star Vistas II. Below is a New Forest Observatory image recently processed by Noel Carboni and it is something of a milestone in our collaborative work. The image below comprises both full colour RGB data as well as Hydrogen-alpha and Hydrogen-Beta narrowband data. The image is also a 2-frame mosaic taken with a Takahashi Sky 90 refractor and an SXVF-M25C one-shot colour CCD camera. The total imaging time was in excess of 38-hours with a similar amount of time spent on the processing. So it takes around a combined 80-hours work involving 2-people at the top of their craft to produce images such as this 
So far (May) 2009 has been a terrible year weather-wise for astrophotography. By a miracle I had a clear night on February 28th 2009 (for 4 hours anyway) which allowed me to capture comet Lulin. Each side of this date was weeks of poor weather, so this was literally the only night I could have caught Lulin before she disappeared off into the depths of space once more.
On 18th December 2008 the Parker/Carboni image of “La Superba” was published on NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” [APOD] site
And on the 23rd December 2008 a second Parker/Carboni image was published on APOD, this time the Coat Hanger cluster!
The end of September 2009 and the beginning of October 2009 saw the capture of a couple of open clusters. The first open cluster is NGC457, the Owl or ET cluster in Cassiopeia. The second pair of open clusters are the famous Double Cluster (NGC884, NGC869) in the constellation Perseus.
If there is a Northern Hemisphere deep-sky object you would like imaged, or if you would like to purchase high-quality high-resolution deep-sky images, please contact Greg on:
We have just entered 2010 (the year we make contact according to the late great ACC) and this should also be the year of the mini-WASP array at the New Forest Observatory. Named after the multiple telescope imager WASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) array – the NFO mini-WASP array is also a multiple telescope (4 scopes) imaging array – but it is not for planet searches. The mini-WASP array is a case of parallel imaging (like parallel processing) basically getting as much data down in the shortest time possible. To this end I will have 4 x Sky 90 telescopes and 4 x one shot colour CCD cameras imaging at the same time. I could have all scopes looking at the same region of space, but I can also have the fields of view of each scope slightly overlapping to give a huge composite 6.5 x 4.25 degree field of view! The array is of course flexible enough to be able to image in either mode, depending on the target.
Here is a picture of the front view of the mini-WASP array, so far loaded with 2 x Sky 90 scopes and a Megrez 80 guide scope. The whole assembly sits on a Paramount ME which will drive the array across the sky and keep track of the stars while imaging. In front of the array is Brian May’s new book “A village lost and found” which arrived on the same day I took the picture of the mini-WASP.
So, as the year progresses, I will need to build another observatory and kit it out with power, de-humidifier and heater, all ready to take this new beast. The aim is to be ready to image by the beginning of winter 2010 – I will keep you informed of any progress on this front.
