Welcome!
My name is Frank "Rocketman" Uroda. The images on this site were taken by me from my custom-built observatory located in the Thumb area of Michigan. My equipment consists of a Celestron 11" SCT telescope mounted on a Losmandy G-11 mount. The G-11 mount is coupled with the German-made FS-2 "goto" computer. With this system the telescope can be moved to any object in the sky with great precision using my laptop and TheSky planetarium software.
Once the scope is pointed to the desired object, the image is taken using a highly specialized camera, the ST2000XM by SBIG. Many of these objects are so dim that it takes many hours of exposure to capture all of the detail. While the camera is taking the long exposure image, the telescope mount must move the telescope to track the object with extreme accuracy as the object moves across the sky (actually, it's the Earth that is turning).
The camera itself takes only black and white images. To produce the color images, a series of pictures is taken through special color filters and later combined with a computer. In many respects, this hobby is both science and art. Of all of the hobbies I've enjoyed in my life, this one is by far the most difficult. To me, it is also the most rewarding.
I hope you enjoy the images.
