Published: March 01, 2008 02:56 pm            

Worlds away: Searching the stars

CLAREMORE, Okla. — Over time, advances in technologies enhanced our ability to see ever deeper into the mystery of space revealing galaxies never imagined by stargazers of centuries past.

In that respect, Copernicus, Galileo, and DaVinci have nothing on rural Claremore resident Matt Taylor.

For nearly two years, Taylor has joined the ranks of those fascinated with the cosmos, indulging his love of the macrocosm as an amateur astrophotographer.

“In 2005, Meade Instruments came out with a camera that made it easier than ever to get into astrophotography as a hobby — the Meade deep sky imaging camera,” he said. “It made it possible for regular people such as myself to take (deep space) photos of their own.”

Originally from Tulsa, Taylor moved to Claremore from his home in California two years ago, after he retired from the southern California real estate market.

“One of the reasons we chose this area was because of how (relatively) little light pollution there is in the more rural areas,” he said. “That’s a real problem in the more highly populated areas. Where we’re at is far enough away from city lights that they don’t interfere with the clarity of my equipment . Weather permitting, most nights I have an exceptional view of space.”

Even so, Taylor’s hobby is hardly without cost — totaling nearly $40,000 for the telescope, mount, camera, APO refractor and other accessories that make it possible for him to pull the distant night sky into focus.

He said the investment is more than worth it.

“Until you become aware of what can be seen with your own eyes, you really don’t have a full understanding of the universe around us,” he said. “Most people look up at night and will see the moon and maybe stars on a clear night, but there’s so much more around us than just those — it’s just a matter of being able to see what’s up there.”

Although Taylor has seen and photographed numerous neighboring galaxies and other celestial bodies and events from his observatory, called “the Antiques Photons Observatory,” he said he’s barely “scratched the surface” of what he hopes to see.

“The Andromeda Galaxy is pretty interesting .... the Pillars of Creation ... the Crab Nebula ... the Orion Nebula .. but there’s so much going on all around us, all the time, there’s no way I’ll be able to see it all in my lifetime,” he said, “but I’m going to try.”

Some of Taylor’s photographs can be found at www.pbase.com/mataylor on his Yahoo group at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Meade-DSI-Advanced/, which he set up in support of his video tutorials on how to use the Meade DSI line of CCD cameras and their related software.

Several of Taylor’s photographs also have been published in “Sky & Telescope” magazine, on numerous astrophotography related Web sites, and several books on the topic of astrophotography.



Tom Fink, Claremore (Okla.) Progress

        

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