Not in my back yard?

HOW FAR can you see from your back garden? Over the wall, maybe? Down the road? Look up, and you can see millions of light years. Carl O’Beirnes takes spectacular images of the universe that look like they’ve been taken by the Hubble space telescope, but are actually the view from his back garden in Balbriggan, Co Dublin.

O’Beirnes is one of many back-garden astronomers whose images, taken from back gardens across Ireland, produce breathtaking images of the universe.

Each month, Astronomy Ireland’s magazine prints a selection, with some showing how, with the right equipment and patience, the storms of Jupiter or the death throes of stars can be captured in striking detail.

O’Beirnes gives talks to schools and astronomy clubs across the country and also takes pictures of near Earth asteroids for the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts.

“It’s a dream job for me,” says O’Beirnes. “When you consider that you might be looking at something one billion kilometres away, it’s not a number you hear everyday, but you can bring it to only a few inches away.”

O’Beirnes’s telescope is made up of several lenses, each for different specialities – looking at planets, or for deep space. And he spends “99.9 per cent” of his time looking at images on a computer screen rather than through an eyepiece. Taking pictures means capturing light and images the human eye couldn’t. But it requires patience.

Taking several images, using long exposures and a webcam attached to the lens, and putting them together using computer software, means a picture of Jupiter might take five hours to be finished.

But the results are worth it. O’Beirnes’s local county council, Fingal, has even dampened the glare from nearby street lights to help him take perfect pictures.

Last month Astronomy Ireland launched a new programme for secondary schools in the Dublin area. The programme tours the cosmos, from the eight planets of the Solar System to the furthest reaches of space and time. They’re presented by Oisín Creaner, an astrophysics researcher at ITT Dublin, and students are encouraged to ask questions during and after the presentation. For further information see astronomy.ie