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Everething started with fabolous books offered for Christmas... When I was 14 yrs old, my parents accepted to buy me a telescope, a newton115/900. None of them was fan of Astronomy, it was just something too far and not very useful for day to day life... To complete my emerging passion, I attended a training organized by the French Association of Astronomy (A.F.A) and that was the beginning of a long, quasi uninterrupted passion, a kind of second life... With my 115, I experiment argentic photography and was desesperatly studing the wheather during the week-end nights, with not a lot of success... I designed a solar spectrograph, and took some nice shoots of the Sun spectrum, discovering rapidly that film color response was not exactly the same than the human eyes... and that line identification is only for Sherlock Holmes... |
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During school, I mostly stopped my astronomical experience, but a summer assignement, I conviced my professors that an Astronomical Observatory can be a nice place to pratice electronic and computer engineering . I joined for 3 months the Center for Geodesy and Astrometry (C.E.R.G.A) at Grasses, France. Most of my assignement was dedicated to the study of Earth-Solar relations, under the monitoring of JP.Rozelot, Solar Astronomer. As free assistant, I participated to the measurement of the Moon to Earth distance with the Laser Telescope and enjoyed a lot the strange atmosphere of domes, at nigth... |
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In 1989, a short article in the French Astronomical magazine "Ciel et Espace" indicated that a special training will be organized for amateurs at the so famous Pic du Midi Observatory. The subject will be CCD and Spectroscopy.
This, was the beginning of the most wonderful experience I never had... After several missions to the T60, the telescope dedicated to Amateurs by the Pic du Midi Observatory, I was able to lead by my-self spectroscopic missions, at a bi-annual rythm, spending part of my vacations now on this Stars Summit. I met here a lot of good friends, absolutly crazy about Astronomy, and most of all passionated by teaching, discovering, exploring new territories for amateurs. |
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In 1995, when the Observatory closed for a very important renovation period, I decided to trow away the Software we used to process Spectra and to challenge me with the design of a "window-like", user-friendly Spectroscopy Software. All my reference comes from the DOS-based software developed for the T60 by A.Kotz. But, processings more than 30 spectra when back from a mission was long and not that fun. So, I jumped into Software, and discovered why having methodology to do that is not a "nice to have"... Software is a job, and it is not mine !
When the Aude Association was created, I naturally joined and from time to time, I present T60 results and Spectroscopy Technic to the french amateur community. I built my own Audine Camera, acquired an ETX scope, and, as when I was young, I desesperatly study the wheather during the week-end nights, with not a lot of success... |
