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Contact information
e-mail
dietmar.hager@maz.at
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website
www.stargazer-observatory.com
.
Locator
Map
http://www.frappr.com/apppublic
Level of accuracy: Linz, Austria
Biography
Born in 1969, I was raised in
the city of Linz, Austria. I attended medical school in Vienna, and
consumed my training to become an orthopaedic trauma surgeon mainly at the
trauma surgery department in the common hospital of Linz. I also bounced
around in several further departments all over Austria, Europe and even in
the U.S. to enrich my knowledge especially in hand surgery. My specialty
therefore is Hand and Microsurgery but I also cover regular trauma
surgery. In 2000 I co-founded the microsurgical research and training
centre (www.maz.at),
offering international microsurgery courses to attendants from all over
the world.
I discovered my passion for
astronomy when I was a child. My father brought me to the local astronomy
club (www.sternwarte.at)
when I was only 15 years old and encouraged me to join this club. The
astronomical virus infested me at once when I gazed through a telescope
for the very first time. This was a very ancient but most interesting and
beautiful 5” f/15 Zeiss refractor being attached to an old german eq-mount.
Ever since two things became quite clear for my life in a blink of an eye:
this infection implied an infaust prognosis and the wish to build my own
observatory when I`d be a “grown up” arose at the same moment…but it took
me a long time until this came true.
I started to hold
astronomical lectures in public at our club-observatory at the age of 16
years, enriching me with the privilege to work with people which I do love
and now suits my occupation as a doctor perfectly.
In May 2005 I carried out my
plans on creating my own observatory. It is a small 3m square building
with a 10 foot HomeDome (http://www.homedome.com/)
that contains my dream come true main-scope: a 9” f/9 TMB Apo. Since the
space inside the observatory is insufficient to hold a large refractor
like this, I needed to let this telescope be designed as a folded
refractor (Schaerrefractor). Matthias Wirth, Markus Ludes (http://www.apm-telescopes.de/)
and Wolfgang Ransburg (www.teleskop-service.de)
managed to build me this telescope. Handling this equipment for visual
and photografic purposes grants me great relaxation and recreation.
I am married to Christine and
we have 3 kids. My wife is also in Astronomy and she shares my enthusiasm
for this hobby. Christine is an artist, mainly working as a painter (http://christelhager.info/)
but also creating lamps, textile arts and comics.
Astronomy Tale
When I was holding a lecture at the
club-observatory one afternoon those many years ago, I encountered one of
the most terrific experiences in my life. I met Christine and from the
first moment I layed eyes on her face, I somehow foresaw the future and
something inside my innermost soul told me, one day I`d be married to her.
When I uncovered this experience to Chrisine many years later when we were
already married, she admit and regret, that she would never had thought of
a thing like that when she saw me for the first time.
Areas of interest
Deep-sky imaging: wide field images and high resolution also.
Planetary and lunar visual and photografic
observation.
Astrophotography publications
Image of the day in Anacortes
Astroforum (several times)
Image of the day in Astronomy magazine (several times)
Image of the month in Deepsky forum (several times)
Image of the month in Cloudy Nights Astroforum
NASA APOD
Image of the day in Adirondack VideoAstronomy
Best image of object in Cloudy nights Astroforum (several times)
Contest winner of best Mars image in Deepsky Astroforum
Image publication in german magazines: Astronomie Heute, Interstellarum.
Image publication in Sky and Telescope
Observing site
My “Stargazer private observatory” is located some 35 km north of Linz in
a very nice and dark area under 6m5 limiting magnitude skies at an
elevation of 740m above sea
level.
Astronomical Equipment
Telescopes
9” f/9 TMB APO
5” f/9 TMB APO
4” f/6,2 TMB APO
5”
Binoptic visual
scope
Astrophysics 3” 6.8 reducer/flattener
Mount
Mountegra (Gemini-product:
www.astronomy.hu)
a one arm fork mount – fully adaptable to its weight it is supposed to
carry, meaning that the horizonal (RA) arm can be moved within a certain
amount to balance
the scopes.
Boxdörfer Dynostar driver system (www.boxdoefer.de)
Cameras
Starlight Xpress SXV H16 and H36
Starlight Xpress M25C
Starlight Xpress guide-head
DMK21f04 fire wire camera for lunar and planetary work.
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Software
AstroArt 4 for image
acquisition, autoguiding, alignment and color conversion.
Maxim DL for preprocessing. Photoshop PS CS2, Registax 4 and PixInsight
for postprocessing.
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