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How to Keep an Eye on Space Rocks

Space rocks include asteroids, comets and meteors. As an amateur astronomer, it is possible to search the skies in an effort to discover new space rocks and track previously discovered space rocks. Modern technology has given amateur astronomers highly accurate means to locate and track these objects. Such technology includes CCD (Charged Coupled Device) digital cameras with telescope mounts, computer-controlled motorized telescope tripods, and computer software for analysis of CCD images that allow visual tracking of objects in the night sky. All of these technologies can be combined for greatest tracking accuracy.

Things You'll Need

Modern computer-controlled telescope and mount
Tent (to cover telescope when not in use)
Astrophotography camera and mount kit (including mount and CCD digital camera)
Computer (running Windows operating system)
Photograph editing software capable of layering

Instructions

- 1
  Set up your telescope in a location that is safe and where it will remain undisturbed for a month at a time. Shelter your telescope "in place" when not in use in a tent or an enclosed area.
- 2
  Align your telescope to Polaris, known as the "North Star."
- 3
  Align the telescope further by using the "Drift Star Polar Alignment" technique. This final alignment will prevent stationary objects in the sky from "movement" in your captured images.
- 4
  Mount a digital CCD camera to the eyepiece lens of your telescope using the mounting system included with your astrophotography kit. Tighten down all connections firmly to prevent a possibility of accidental movement.
- 5
  Point the telescope toward the area of the night sky where you desire to monitor space rocks, meteors or comets. Once the location is set, never move, jar or bump the telescope.
- 6
  Take a 30-second image every night at the exact same time by activating the digital CCD camera. Longer exposures may cause objects to appear as streaks rather than bright points of light.
- 7
  At the end of every month, carefully download the month's images onto a computer for processing. Do so carefully without disturbing the position of the telescope or the camera.
- 8
  Process the month's photographs using photo-editing software installed on your computer. Use the "lasso" tool to drag your mouse pointer across a few inches of the black area of the photograph, while also holding down the left mouse button. All black areas will then show they are selected.
- 9
  Convert the selected black area of the photograph to transparency. Save the image using a different image name, such as "img01converted" using the PNG format since it preserves transparent layers.
- 10
  Create a new image and make the background black. The new image should be the same size as the modified images. If each of your modified images is 800 pixels wide by 600 pixels high (800x600) then make the new image with black background the same exact size.
- 11
  Open each of the modified images, one at a time. Right-click on the image. In the menu tab that pops up, select "Copy." Right-click in the new image with black background and then select "Paste Into" to paste the image into the new image. Do this with all of your transparent images, stacking each on top of one another.
- 12
  Analyze the movement of the comets, meteorites, or space rocks which will now appear in the image. Movement of such non-stationary objects will appear as straight dotted lines within the image while all other stationary objects will appear as single bright dots.
- 13
  Save the entire image of layers as a PNG file so you may compare it to the image you produce in the following month.

Astronomy