Italy 1

Oliver Gallati (20)

City/Region: Torre d`Isola, Lombardia E-mail: oliverga@libreo.it Hobbies: Astronomy, astrophotragraphy and playing the guitar Career: Engineer School: Liceo Scientifico Niccolò Copernico

CCD Autoguider

Almost as important as the telescope itself are the range of auxiliary instruments that astronomers use to exploit the light received at the focal plane. The CCD (Charge-coupled device) uses a light sensitive material on a silicon chip to electronically detect photons. This allows for the rapid scanning of celestial objects. The powerful Hubble Space Telescope, for instance, has a CCD detector with 1,6000 x 1,600 pixel array. Oliver was motivated to build his own CCD Autoguider and he found out he could do it at 5% of the cost of professional devices