About Paul Beskeen

I live just outside the village of Bourn, near Cambridge in the UK, along with my wife Kristie and our two children, Riley and Webber. Most of the images that you can see on this website are taken from our back garden, though some are from northern Nevada in the USA where Kristie's parents live.

I'm a member of the team at eCosCentric, an embedded software company that focuses on the eCos open source real-time operating system. I was happy to learn that Vixen are using eCos as the operating system for their StarBook based Sphinx mounts.

Astrophotography Biography

Predisposition

As long as I can remember I have had been interested in the universe on our doorstep. One of my early memories is of being allowed to stay up and watch coverage of the first moon landing, which is a bit of a giveaway as to my age. Another memory from that time was hiding behind a chair whenever the evil Dalek's appeared on the BBC SciFi programme "Dr Who". Space was exciting and scary! Now and again I would get a bit of practical knowledge by way of Patrick Moore on the Sky at Night programme. Fast forward to the 21st century... Hmm, a new generation look due to stay up and see people walk on the moon again, my children get the chance to be scared silly watching a newly regenerated Dr Who, and the stalwart Patrick Moore's still going strong even as his trousers make a bid to reach his armpits. Le plus ca change... At least its all in colour this time!

First Steps

My interest in unearthly things was pretty much confined to an on/off diet of SF novels, and a healthy background interest in science until around 1999, when I bought a small 90mm Meade ETX telescope. A good little scope, its goto capability helped familiarize me with the night sky, but other than the major planets most celestial objects appeared faint and fuzzy. I upgraded to a Meade 12" LX200 reflector. A big improvement, the fuzzies were brighter and more distinct, but still in essence, well, fuzzy... At this point that I realized that to get closer to the views of the universe that the Hubble generation are so familar with, I would have to abandon my inadequate eyeballs and take up astrophotography.

TBD: text to be added on various stages of this obsession...

To Mars on a Webcam

DSLRs Arrive

DSLR Mods Rock!