Speaker: Gary Stouder
The speaker will discuss his interest in this hobby and his volunteer work at the Lowell Observatory. He will describe what is needed to get good quality images of near space and deep space objects along with the problems that satelites and light pollution bring.
Gary Stouder is a retired family practice physician and a Scientech Club member.
Program: Astrophotography
Speaker: Gary Stouder, MD (retired); Stouder Engineering L.L.C., president, and Scientech Club member
Introduction By: Rick Whitener
Attendance: NESC: 93; Zoom: 22
Guests: Dewey Consi, Jeff Church, Michael Fletchall, Bruce Fulling
Scribe: Dr Alan Dale Schmidt
Editor: Bill Elliott
Talk’s Zoom recording found at: https://www.scientechclubvideos.org/zoom/09282026.mp4
Gary Stouder provided a colorful and knowledgeable view of the interesting features of the universe captured with his own telescopes. He displayed spectacular, detailed, color images of Comet Neowise, Orion, moonset in Conifer, Death Valley in winter with the Milky Way using a tracker, Bryce Canyon mountains and the Milky Way, Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula, the supernova explosion Crab Nebula, and Wizard Nebula. Some images combine 50 stacked images with software processing for clarity.
Some images were from his Sedona, Arizona backyard where night skies are darker than here. The Lowell Observatory was only 22 miles from his house. He described his volunteer work at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, what is needed to get good quality images of near space and deep space objects, and the problems that satellite and light pollution bring. Ralph Nye rebuilt the 100-year-old refractory telescope of the Lowell Observatory and the Pluto scope.
In 2017 one of his personal telescopes was a 10” Dobsonian which was good for observation, but poor for photography. Gary toured the huge Arecibo Telescope in 2009, which unfortunately fell apart in 2020 and was not rebuilt. The Arecibo could see mountains on Venus.
A refracting telescope has an objective lense focusing the image to the eyepiece. A reflecting telescope has a primary mirror reflecting to the secondary mirror to the eyepiece. Telescope aiming has terms of altitude, azimuth, altazimuth, declination, right ascension, and equatorial. Telescopes include a mount, computer, auto focuser, camera, and tripod.
A light year is distance, 6 trillion miles. Our Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across, contains 100 billion stars, has a massive black hole at its center, and is 99.99% empty space. The matter around us that we are familiar with is 5%, 27% is dark matter we do not understand, and 68% is dark energy that we do not understand. An emission nebula evolves to a young star cluster, then to dispersing stars and planetary systems. A sun like star after 10 billion years can form a red giant 100 times larger lasting 500 million years, which can evolve to a planetary nebula 2 light years across 100 years to form lasts 20,000 years, which can form an earth size white dwarf lasting 100 billion years. A 10x solar mass blue star lasting 10 million years can evolve to a red supergiant lasting 10 thousand years, which can go to a supernova explosion with the core collapsing when fusion can no longer support it in .25 seconds, which can form a neutron star or black hole lasting trillions of years.
We are made of star stuff: 93% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen; 6% nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus; 1% K, S, Na, Cl, Mg; and 0.15% trace elements. Weirdness beyond our galaxy: we can only see 13 billion light years, space is expanding, what is dark matter, what is dark energy, and quantum physics.
The Scientech Foundation and Scientech will have a booth with information on our programs for Celebrate Science Indiana Saturday, October 10, 2026 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, 9:30 am to 5 pm. 50 fascinating exhibits and demonstrations including Eli Lilly Chemistry is a Blast. Bring yourself, children, and grandchildren. Free, $10 to park. Our October 12 speaker on water in the Netherlands, James Lowery, will be there speaking on Antarctica penguins.
Dr. Gary Strouder MD
