Astrophography

Webcam and CCD with small telescopes from suburban skies. Images of the Moon, Planets and Deep Sky objects, and information about the cameras and techniques used.

Planetary Art

Some art featuring a voyage of imagination to the different planets.

Eruptions on Io, the martian sky, mountains on Venus...

Solar System Exploration

Images processed from the original raw data of several planetary exploration missions.

"New" views from old data.

About me:

I'm a Portuguese amateur astronomer and I started in 1997 using a 2.4'' altazimutal refractor and a 4.5'' German equatorial reflector. I'm also a member of the Portuguese Amateur Astronomers Association - A.P.A.A.- where I learned about adapting webcams to do astrophotography. I think that these cameras are a very interesting way of entering into CCD imaging for a small price and also to get good results from modest telescopes. Now I'm using conventional CCD. Right now, my imaging setup is based on a Celestron 8'' SCT mounted on a Vixen SuperPolaris mount, a Starlight MX516 CCD with USB interface and a Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000.

In the recent years I've moved to being more active in image processing of historical images (things like the Luna 3 moon images, Pioneer 10 Jupiter images, etc.) and solar system exploration than in telescopic observations.

Also, I'm into space flight simulation, specially regarding things like texturing 3D models or recreating surface launch sites. For updates regarding my add-on projects for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator (mostly realistic texture repaints for historical space flight) please visit my blog at orbiterspaceport.blogspot.com .