The Art and Science of CCD Astronomy

D. Ratledge (ed.)

Springer, 1997 – ISBN 3-540-76103-9 – pp.xiv + 178 – £19.95 (paperback)

Reviewed by T.C. Platt : Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 107 (3), 150 (1997)

This is the latest title in Springer’s ‘Practical Astronomy’ series, edited by Patrick Moore, and consists of individual contributions from many experienced amateur astronomers. The book is welcome, as the number of practical guides to the use of a CCD camera is still strictly limited, and mostly based on American products. An important exception is Buil’s classic text, CCD Astronomy; and this is still the most comprehensive, although probably too theoretical for the majority of practical CCD users. The Art and Science of CCD Astronomy is probably the first publication to bring together so much ‘hands-on’ know-how from almost a dozen different expert users on both sides of the Atlantic, and this will make it a valuable reference for anyone wishing to get the best out of their camera.

David Ratledge is a well-known British CCD astronomer, based in Lancashire, and he has done a good job of writing Chapter 1, which is a clear and concise description of how these devices work, and how they can be used to take scientifically valuable images. He has kept to the essential facts, and does not deviate into unnecessary electronic details, so the newcomer to CCDs should have no trouble in following his account, although there is little for the reader who is interested in the development of CCD technology.

There are a further eleven chapters, each of which concerns the ‘hands-on’ CCD expertise of an individual author. All the names will be familiar to readers of the various astronomical publications, and all are expert CCD users. David Petherick, of Ontario, Canada, tells how he built one of the ‘Cookbook’ cameras, available as kits in the USA, and gives many useful tips on getting the best out of it. His chapter includes some very nice lunar mosaics. Another Canadian astronomer, Brian Colville, then takes up a rather novel CCD subject: solar imaging, for which light is rarely at a premium! He describes how he uses a Lynxx camera with full-aperture filters and a secondary filter wheel, to take highly detailed images of sunspots and their environs. From the USA, Gregory Terrance demonstrates how he takes high-resolution planetary images with a wide range of cameras, including a home-made one based on the Kodak KAF400 CCD. Many excellent frames of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn accompany this contribution. Tim Puckett, also in the USA, describes his ‘Comet Watch’ programme, with suggestions on how others might contribute.

Staying with comets, but moving to the UK, we now meet David Strange, a prolific contributor to all aspects of CCD imaging, telling us here how he captures details of the nuclear regions of a comet, right out to extensive mosaics of the tails, using a Starlight Xpress camera. Luc Vanhoeck, of Belgium, presents some truly magnificent deep-sky images, taken from one of the most light-polluted areas of Europe, with an ST8. These should encourage even the most city-bound observers to try for some ‘faint fuzzies’. Don’t have a telescope? Then John Sanford, of California, has the answer: wide-field CCD images with an ordinary 35-mm lens and SX camera. London-based Adrian Catterall also has nightmarish light pollution problems, and presents the reader with many tips on obtaining the best deep-sky pictures under these adverse conditions, with the editor continuing on this theme in Chapter 10.

Ask any CCD user for the best-known names in tricolour CCD work, and Nik Szymanek and Ian King are sure to be at the top of the list. Here they describe their technique in detail, and present many superb colour images. The concluding chapter is written by Reading-based astronomer George Sallit, who shows how the CCD can be used for the discovery of transient objects such as novae and asteroids. The book concludes with several appendices of useful information and a gallery of some of the best images provided by each contributor.

This publication is a useful contribution to the field of amateur CCD astronomy, and has helpful information for both the beginner and the experienced user. It would be of most value to CCD users who have had some success, but would like to optimise their technique with help from the experience of others. It a generally well produced and error-free book.