Model human Subclass male Identifier Oliver Pettenpaul Date of production 1971 Education university degree in computer science Profession software engineer in electronic production services and printed circuit board design Obsessions astronomy, astro-imaging
music (active&passive), GalaxySo, guitars
photography
mountainbiking
aquascapingLocation milky way, solar system, earth, 51:53:13n, 08:45:23e
My interest in astronomy and especially the solar system developed as a kid as soon as I could read all according books within reach. I enjoyed drawing star maps during clear nights or observing the moon with the famous "Yps telescope" (plastic lenses and cardboard tube out of a comic magazine). Somehow my interest fell asleep for many years until I spent a night under a wide skylight window recalling all my childhood memories. I was deeply impressed by the upcoming webcam imaging techniques and the stunning results obtained with very affordable equipment in the early 2000s and had to try this for myself. As soon as I had captured my first webcam mosaic of the moon I was totally hooked on astro-imaging. I enjoy observing deepsky objects visually but in terms of imaging my main interest is the solar system. Galaxies, nebulae and star clusters remain almost unchanged - at least for our lifetime beeing much less than a blink of an eye in the universal context. In contrast the views of our solar system are alive: The sun's photosphere changes constantly, filaments in the atmosphere rise and collaps within minutes, mars shows distinct seasons at the polar regions, the surface features the biggest volcanoes in the solar system with clouds hovering over their slopes, Saturn shows us constantly changing angles of the impressive ring system, white spot storms interrupt the delicate cloud bands, Jupiter's surface is constantly changing, giant cloud and storm features including the famous red spot always model a unique view that never will be the same again while the jovian moons are dancing around the biggest planet in our home system, Venus hides under a thick cloud layer, only ultraviolet imaging can reveal details in the otherwise uniform cloud carpet and finally the earth's moon never looks the same due to the changing angle of sunlight and libration although our satelite is virtually unchanged for a very long time teaching us so much about the early days in the solar system and the history of our home planet. And always remember: All the things we see in the solar system are made out of the same stardust than we are.
I hope you can enjoy your visit on my site, maybe you can find something usefull and share the same passion than I do to understand spending nights out in the cold and processing gigabytes of data afterwards
Best wishes,
Oliver