Steve Broadbent's Astronomy Site

I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)
I am a member of the British Astronomical Association (BAA)
I am a member of Hampshire Astronomical Group (Chairman 2018-2023)

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My Interest

I have been interested in astronomy since a child many, many years ago! Early in my teens I sold my extensive train set for a 8" (200mm) F9.6 Newtonian reflector. Although the optics were superb, the permanent, garden mounted, rather Heath Robinson, wooden equatorial yoke mount made observing difficult. The top pillar of the mount was about 7ft 6in high! It had no drive so manual movement was continually needed. As the mount was permanently mounted in the back garden the open, wooden frame tube assembly had to be installed every time it was used, and polar alignment was at best "fairly close"!

However, it kept me enthralled enough to want to improve it. Eventually I acquired a stout cardboard tube and a Fullerscope MkIII german equatorial mount on a stout wooden tripod. Still no drive as I could not afford even the manual controls. Getting the tube home was an experience as well, it was 9in in diameter and about 7ft long, and my mother and I took it home to London via train and bus!

This setup worked very well until I left home for university, but not having the means of astrophotography at the time, observations were all visual and no records remain. This really marked the end of my early days of observational astronomy. The telescope was dismantled and the optics of the telescope stayed with me until, many years later, after several house moves, the main mirror unfortunately got broken. However I still read all I could around the advances in astronomy and always looked with longing at equipment adverts.

However, in 2009 I was offered a 10" (250mm) f4.45 Newtonian reflector, consisting of a good quality mirror and diagonal properly mounted in a 12" diameter fibreglass tube, all for free! The assembly was from a redundant scientific instrument and had no focuser or eyepieces and no form of mount. After extensive searching I found a mount, "goto" interface, focuser and eyepieces, all either on offer or at reduced prices from various suppliers. I subsequently found a Meade Deep Sky Imager II camera, also on offer, and bought it with some money I received from a long service award from work. The only problem I had was that I could not get hold of any tube rings to fit a 12" tube, so I got the biggest I could and put extenders in the hinges to make them close. However as their radius was slightly too small, they distorted the tube and made it slightly oval when tightened. I'm not sure how this affected the alignment as the scope moved around the sky, but I regularly checked the setup with a laser collimator and all seemed to be well aligned.

Later I managed to get set of 12" (304mm) tube rings from a company in Germany, when fitted they were still just a fraction too small but there is now very little tube distortion.

An up to date list of my current equipment is given in the equipment link on the home page.

I have a scientific background, graduating with a chemistry degree from London University. I started work as a research chemist and moved into computer interfacing and software development, publishing several papers on computational chemistry. I later moved into computing and IT support full time and retired as a Senior IT Manager in 2013.

My main interests now are astrophotography and astrospectroscopy.