CCD Astronomy

In this endeavor, I along with my partners Bin K and Jason York set about the goal of learning about and how to perform CCD Astronomy. We set about this task by learning how to operate several different telescopes and learn their particular operations of tracking objects, guiding, learning and correcting pointing errors. We learned about how to plan for when the best observations can be made for celestial objects. We were able to accomplish this by observing two to three times a week to compensate for any inclement whether that would interfere in observing. Our next goal we accomplished was to learned how to properly use CCD cameras and successfully interface these cameras to the Meade 16" Telescope. These cameras were the Santa Barbara CCD, Meade LPI, nad the Meade Deep Sky Imager. Once we were able to interface these cameras to the Meade Telescope, were learn how to capture images and learned modern astronomical data processing to get our final product images. These processes included how to properly combine, flat field and dark field captured images. Our final results were that we were able to get several well-processed color and monochrome photos of several celestial objects, including the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Orion's nebula. Our studies has also prepared us for continuing research in spectral analysis of star clusters that would allow us to determine ages of star clusters and individual stars