Ordinary Meeting: Using Gravity to Find Stars with Peter Osman

Guest Speaker: Peter Osman (ASNSW)

Title: Using Gravity to Find Stars

Abstract: In this talk, Peter will describe how to add a couple of stick-on gravity sensors to a telescope/equatorial mount so that an Android mobile phone can be used to point the telescope at a star given its declination and hour angle. All that's needed is a kitchen table, a couple of hand tools and two very small, readily available Arduino boards.
First presented at Sydney Observatory in 2019, then at NACAA in 2022.
Suitable for high school students and adults interested in astronomy and who know some trigonometry and elementary computer programming.

Biography: Peter spent most of his working life helping to make and fund aerospace and medical research instruments, and most recently assessing renewable energy systems. For the last six years he has also been spending his spare time assembling and using portable equatorial telescopes. Peter started his career at age 12 building shortwave radios from old radio valves, and simple telescopes from lenses begged from an optician, in the process completely repurposing his mother’s kitchen table.