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48 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, April 22, 2005 Today's News | Shop Our Valley | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery | Contact Us SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 21, 2005 North Medford High School senior Joe Seus and astronomy teacher Robert Black have been photographing the night sky with a powerful telescope from the school�s parking lot since last year. Photo illustration by Jim Craven Star light, star bright By ANITA BURKE Mail Tribune The fiery dance of distant galaxies seen on the computer screen doesn’t look like the typical view from North Medford High School’s parking lot. "The first thing students say when I show them these pictures is ‘You didn’t take those; You got them off the Web’," said North Medford astronomy teacher Robert Black. The dramatic photos of a swirling nebula in Orion, scattered star clusters and faraway galaxies really are the work of Black and senior Joe Seus, 18. And, yes, they were taken from the school’s parking lot. Last year Black landed a $6,000 grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, a Vancouver, Wash.-based trust supporting science and education in the Northwest, to buy equipment to photograph the night sky. Advertisement With the grant funds and $2,000 provided by the school’s astronomy program, he bought an 11-inch telescope, fully automated to find and track objects in space, a super-sensitive Starlight Xpress digital camera, a laptop computer and software to process the photos. "This is great for recruiting students for more project-based science," Black said. His first eager recruit was Seus, who had taken astronomy last year as a junior and wanted more. "It was my favorite class," he said. "I did well and it just clicked with me." Seus even bought his own four-inch telescope so he could survey the sky from his Hillcrest home. He had a hard time, however, sharing his enthusiasm for distant specks and blurs of light with friends and family. "I’ll see nebulas and be excited, but my parents can’t see what I’m so excited about," he said. "I wanted to get some good pictures to show people and get them interested." Seus’ goals matched Black’s, so when school started in the fall, they teamed up, with Seus making astrophotography his senior project. Dave Bloomsness, a member of The Southern Oregon Skywatchers club, assisted. They worked around busy school schedules and Seus’ participation in four student rock bands and three school bands. They had to plan around full-moon nights when light floods the sky and makes photographing stars impossible. Cloudy weather thwarted their plans four times in a row. Still, they’ve managed to lug the bulky, yet fragile telescope out to the school parking lot a handful of times. Setting up the gear takes about two hours, Black said. In their first outing in October, the complex and unfamiliar equipment produced unimpressive photos. The next month, though, things clicked. A star cluster that in the sky is "just a fuzzball" showed its individual stars, Seus said. The crescent moon offered up an expanse of craters. Through the year, Seus has honed his skills, experimenting with filters that add color to his final images. His photos now capture the interest of people who know little about astronomy. "A lot of people think it’s really cool," he said. Black said the images are good enough to be used in research. Eventually he wants students to take and analyze photographs to search for asteroids, comets and meteoroids. The students’ discoveries would be reported to government-sponsored programs that track such near-earth objects, watching out for space stuff that could strike Earth and cause significant damage. Reach reporter Anita Burke at 776-4485, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Free Music Downloads Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Distance Education Diamonds Online Poker Slippers Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Tatoo Tatoos Advertisement s