Recently, I began working with the Dwarf 3 digital telescope, a compact but powerful instrument that has completely changed how we view the night sky. Under the clear skies on our campus, and even in less-than-ideal conditions, I’ve been amazed by what it can do and I can’t wait to get our students using it to capture their own images of the universe.
Unlocking the Night Sky
While in northern Italy, surrounded by light pollution from street lamps and nearby villages, I decided to test the telescope’s abilities. To the naked eye, I could barely see Antares and Enif, two of the brightest stars in the night sky. Yet through the telescope, their brilliance came through beautifully.
I then challenged myself to capture something I couldn’t even see: a globular cluster, a tightly bound group of ancient stars. By stacking nearly 100 faint images, the telescope revealed the cluster in stunning detail; something invisible without the technology
From Our Sun and Moon to Distant Galaxies
The telescope has also allowed me to capture our Sun, showing faint sunspots drifting across its surface, and the Moon, which revealed incredible detail even during the day.
But the real magic has come from exploring deep space:
The Andromeda Galaxy, our closest galactic neighbour, was captured over two nights with more than 300 exposures—taken from the roof of my car in Bexhill!
A stellar nursery, a vast gas cloud where new stars are born, emerged after stacking over 400 images. By adding colour processing, I could highlight the hydrogen gas and other elements inside the nebula—a reminder of how dynamic and alive the universe really is.
Inspiring My Students
This is only the start. My goal is to get students involved in every part of the process—from choosing their own celestial targets, to capturing the raw data, stacking their images, and producing their own astronomical photographs. It’s an incredible way to combine science, technology, and creativity, while inspiring curiosity about the universe.
The Dwarf 3 telescope excels at capturing the Sun, Moon, galaxies, and nebulae. Alongside this, our new observatory’s larger telescopes will allow us to focus on the planets in our own solar system. Together, they’ll provide students with unique opportunities to explore both nearby and distant worlds—experiences very few students get to have.
For me, it’s not just about teaching students to study the universe. It’s about inspiring them to reach for the stars—and with this project, they truly can.
– Gary, Computer Science Teacher and Astrophysicist
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