Advancing the Frontiers of Amateur Astronomy

Looks like the Discovery channel has been reading GLP!

Astronomer Mark Thompson explores how amateur astronomy has benefited from the unrelenting advance of technology.
My latest shoot for the BBC's The One Show took me to the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London.

During part of the film, we were in the Altazimuth Pavilion that was built in 1899 to plot the altitude and azimuth of celestial objects. More recently, it has been home to the Newbegin 6.25-inch refractor and Dallmeyer No.2 Photoheliograph, an instrument used for photographing the sun, but since 1949 they've only been used for special events.

A thought struck me while I was looking around that my own astronomical equipment offered a worthy alternative to this once-Royal setup. It seems that the unrelenting advance of technology has changed the face of amateur astronomy, but what gadget or piece of equipment has had the biggest impact?

When I started in astronomy I was bought a cheap secondhand telescope. It was small and had no tripod. To use it, I had to prop it against a ladder. Over the years, I bought bigger telescopes, and even tried -- moderately successfully -- to make one.


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[link to news.discovery.com]