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Who am I?
(I am absolutely sure I am not the first one to ask!)
My name is Daniel Schildknecht and I live in Switzerland, an awful place for an observing astronomer, as our weather is mostly cloudy and there is a lot of rain. Nevertheless there are about 10 to 15 days, where weather conditions, my job and my family allow me to spend the night outside.
That's me!
Taken with my Cookbook-camera (Thanx to Richard Berry)
Three years ago I was lucky enough to move into a flat with some garden. So, despite the suburban environment (light pollution!) I have the opportunity to place my telescope directly in the backyard of our house. The view is both, beautiful and excellent for observing. Headed south there is a small mountain, which keeps me from observing too far southwards, but there is almost free sight toward East and West.
my view toward East
I began to suffer from the astronomy virus back in about 1972, 8 years old, when I saw pictures from (they said!) men on the moon, whereby one could hardly recognize anything... After that I was eager to get better pictures of foreign worlds. One day, there was a small star map on the backside of a Kellog's Corn Flakes box, which I used to find out, what stars there where out there.
Soon after this I bought my first Telescope, a Tasco with a 5cm-lens. I will never forget the first time, I realized, that Saturn r e a l l y has a ring around it!!
Later on I bought books about astrophysics, star atlases, finder charts, star maps, books about relativity and so on. And as so many observers I became eager to improve my observing abilities. Astronomy instruments were and are very expensive in Switzerland. So I decided to make them myself as far and as good as I could (you can be asolutely shure that I have two left hands!). So I bought a cheap tube and began to add a 8" mirror and a troublesome way of a lense-carrying sledge. All in all I spended just a few hundred $ and a lot of hours with the building of that telescope. Due the fact that my brother Titus (a carpenter) helped me with a wooden tripod, I was soon able to balance my scope in a polar aligned way.
Spending a hundred hours out in space (will say optically) I realized that the only way to walk through the stars in a way I could share my views with other people was to invent a kind of guidance. But worm gears were far beyond my possibilities. After a few tests I found a way to build a worm gear on my own with practically no skill requirements and for the price of one or two Big Macs.
The process of building such a worm gear is described in
"How to make an Ultra Cheap Worm Gear, "
which I still use nowadays and which enabled me to shoot pictures such as seen on these pages.
Later on I tried some photos with my Pentax K, which lead to confusion, disappointing nights, serveral colds and a lot of wasted films... Two years ago I read about the possibility of building a CCD-Camera on my own with the help of Richard Berry. As the costs for such a camera are very low, I decided to buy the book
"The CCD Camera Cookbook".
It took me about another 12 months to find the courage to start building the camera. As a pure novice I learned to deal with a solder iron and - first of all - to work with patience. After a few weeks I was proud owner of a home built CCD Camera. But be warned: Building a CCD Camera is one thing. Using and getting to know this camera another... Further details on my CCD Camera see "My CCD Camera".
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Email me at daniel.sch.spammenot@bluewin.ch
Please be back soon.
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