For a full nights sleep

Affiliation(s): AAQ, IOTA

Session details: Saturday, 2012-04-07 01:30:00, TBA

Abstract

Occultations of stars by asteroids don’t tend to happen when it is convenient to the observer. This of course isn’t a problem for the vast majority of humanity who has sufficient sense to be tucked away in bed during the wee small hours. For the occultists however, a bed is a distant memory when waiting for that illusive event. This is a journey towards making a fully automated observatory capable of running unattended.

Biography

Jonathan Bradshaw is the outgoing President of the Astronomical Association of Queensland and sessional lecturer in Observational Astronomy at the Queensland University of Technology. Jonathan is passionate about video astronomy, using two Gstar-EX cameras aboard his remotely controlled 14” LX200. Having thrown himself into occultation timings, with particular emphasis on asteroidal occultations, Jonathan has become one of the most prolific (though not necessarily successful!) observers in Australia. In 2009, he received the South East Queensland Combined Societies’ Achievement Award for this work and holds the quite pointless world record for the faintest observation made of an asteroidal occultation.