Astronomy

56 ASTRONOMY • DECEMBER 2018

new targets from the Southern
Hemisphere has been fascinating.
I’ve embraced the constant change and
growth in this field and try to keep cur-
rent with videos, books, online informa-
tion, and trial and error. My current
programs of choice for processing are
CCDStack, Photoshop, and, more recently,
PixInsight. For many years, I’ve used
CCDStack to do my image calibration. For
research purposes, the images are com-
plete at this point, but for me this is just
the beginning. Adding my own creative
take on the final product is what I love
the most, and I can spend tens of hours

working on one image to get it just right.

My goal is to keep the images as real as

possible, while adding my own artistic

inf luence along the way.

Coming full circle

One spring day last year, I received a

package in the mail from a class of fourth-

graders at a local elementary school. Each

student had picked an object from my

website (www.hansonastronomy.com)

and had written a poem and drawn a pic-

ture about the object. My heart melted.

These kids were looking at my pictures!

How many of them were curious and had

questions they wanted answered? Would

one of them grow up to be an amateur

astronomer, scientist, or astrophotogra-

pher? Would I play the “Doc” role to one

of these curious kids in the future? What

will their contributions reveal that they

never imagined? I recalled my time in

Ms. Z.’s space science class. Hopefully, this

is my way of knowing that my Astronomy

magazine loans have been forgiven.

Mark Hanson, who has been an amateur

astrophotographer for about 25 years, regularly

contributes to Astronomy and works as a

part-time installer for PlaneWave Instruments.

MARK HANSON, S.

MAZLIN, W. KELLER, R.

PARKER, T. TSE,

P. P

ROULX, D.

PLESKO; SSRO/

PRO

MP

T/CTIO

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