Welcome to Trottier's Cabin in the Sky Observatory Site!

Welcome to Trottier's Cabin in the Sky Observatory Site!
Obsessed with the photographic experience of the cosmos!
Scroll down for background info, and click buttons on right for more

The Cabin in the Sky Observatory is a life-long dream come true! It is located in the South Okanagan region of South-Central British Columbia, under very dark and dry skies, next to our dream rural vacation get-away, our Cabin in the Sky.

Construction of the observatory structure took place over the summer and fall of 2009, installation of the equipment took place February 22 2010, and commissioning and first-light on May 12/13 2010. My telescope is a PlaneWave CDK17, the mount is a Paramount ME, and my camera is an SBIG STL-4020M with a 5-position filter wheel (Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, and a Hydrogen-alpha narrow-band filter). The control systems are operated using TheSkyX, TPoint, and PrecisionPEC for the mount, Maxim DL for the camera and for some mount control (including auto-guiding and centering), and FocusMax for focuser control. I also currently own a Takahashi TOA-130 (a 130mm objective triplet refractor), which I intend to replace with an FSQ-106 to ride piggy-back on the CDK17. A LAN allows remote control of the observatory computer from the vacation house, good for long imaging sessions, especially on our cold winter nights! I now do image processing using PixInsight, which affords a processing environment of unprecedented sophistication and power. The CCDWare package provides me with another set of very useful software tools.

In addition to my hobby as an amateur astronomer, laid out on these pages, I teach Introduction to Astronomy at Simon Fraser University, where I also host Starry Nights @ SFU, a program of public "star parties" and other events held on the Burnaby campus, which are free and open to everyone, whether from SFU or the greater community. I am also spearheading development of a Teaching Observatory and Science Outreach Centre at SFU. In 2009 we hosted over 3,500 guests at a wide variety of astronomy events. A major effort was hosting over 2,150 grade-school age kids accompanied by over 300 teachers/parents/guardians, from more than 70 school and community groups, at daytime astronomy workshops. As part of this outreach program, we donated almost 100 starter telescopes to these workshop groups, and to individual families whose children attended a workshop, followed by four SFU star parties. These programs are continuing at a vigorous pace in 2010. For more information on SFU's astronomy outreach programs, please check the Starry Nights @ SFU website.

While there is quite a bit of overlap between my astronomical hobby time and my astronomical teaching and outreach work (including some early imaging that I did at home with the SFU equipment, to learn how, before plunging in and purchasing my own high-end gear), the site you are on now is devoted to my personal astronomy obsession.

Astronomy is far more than a hobby: it provides a deeply moving way to directly experience the cosmos, to personally connect to events that span the furthest realms of time and space. This spiritual sensibility (using that adjective in a decidely irreligious context) burned itself into me in my early teen years, my first period of deep immersion in astronomy. I worked my way up then to a Criterion 6" reflector and spent countless hours with it in all seasons (including the dead of winter!), star hopping in search of those deep-sky objects that could be glimpsed from heavily light-polluted city skies (one block from Montreal's Decarie expressway, no less).

Over the past few years, my passion for astronomy has been reignitied and fired by the breathtaking possibilities of a new era of astronomical photography. Stunning advances in modern telescope designs, large-capacity precision mounts, dedicated CCD cameras, and advanced software, provide the modern amateur astronomer with a vastly deeper and richer dimension to the experience of the cosmos than I ever dreamt was possible when I first caught the bug as a kid. The depth and range of these new experiences are seen in the "amateur" images that appear as regular features on Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), as well as in magazines like SkyNews (including its on-line Photo of the Week), Sky&Telescope, and Astronomy.

The most gifted astro-photographers possess subtle aesthetic and artistic sensibilities, a mastery of advanced technology, and considerable scientific knowledge, and use these talents to produce portfolios of dozens, even hundreds, of images, each of astounding depth, colour, insight, and inspiration. Some of those who have particularly inspired me include Robert Gendler and R Jay Gabany, whose web sites feature mesmerizing galleries. "Amateur" can only describe gifted individuals like these when used in the classical sense, for someone who achieves great skill simply for the love of a pursuit.

From the first moment that I experienced the cosmos photographically, with my first image (of the Orion Nebula), I was swept away by the possibilities. This has developed into an obsession. I constantly think ahead to and plan for my next photographic encounter with a cosmic treasure at my observatory. I crave the special quiet time for solitary contemplation, under deep skies strewn with stars, which comes when all the preparatory work is done and the telescope, camera, and control systems can do their work unattended for long periods. I work relentlessly to develop my image processing technique, and I study the photographs of others to seek aethestic and technical insight. And I'm striving to produce my own portfolio of cosmic imagery, aiming high to fulfill a dream that goes back my to first days as an amateur astronomer. Over the past four years, since I began this quest, I have learned alot, which in this context includes a very good understanding of the considerable distance I have to cover between where I am now, and where I want to be. But, after a very long hiatus, I'm back, in deep, and for the long haul.

Now that my observatory is up and running, please check my site for new content. Please click on the buttons on the right to checkout blogs of my experiences at the observatory (including recent astronomical imagery), a brief history of how this observatory came to be, including the fateful path by which my obsession led to a wondrous change in the life of my family, a brief photo-history of the construction of the observatory structure, and soon I hope a growing portfolio of deep-sky imagery.