Feature story about Alex Cherney in Sydney Morning Herald

[gary]

Full Story and pictures here -
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/astronomy-now-has-a-new-star-on-the-horizon-20110622-1gfhk.html

[multiweb]

Good for you Alex! You're a legend! :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Top stuff Alex, congratulations.

[h0ughy]

what a honour and a buzz - well done Alex

[xstream]

Congratulations Alex. all inspiring mate! :cheers:

[renormalised]

Great stuff, Alex, Congrats:):):)

Well done:)

[TrevorW]

Good one Alex

[DavidU]

Total awesomeness Alex.:thumbsup:

[Paddy]

I was very excited to see this in today's Age (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/date-with-the-milky-way-led-to-stars-20110622-1gfij.html). Congratulations Alex and a thoroughly deserved honour of great prestige it is.

[lacad01]

:thumbsup: Nice one! :thumbsup:

[iceman]

Jealous much!??
You bet I am! :)

Awesome result Alex, well deserved too!

[Peter Ward]

Nice one Alex. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

What an inspiring story Alex

Fantastic stuff, we are all envious but in a good way :clap:

The excitment and anticipation is killing me...so what happened on the 10m scope???

When was the last time any of us met someone who had used the Worlds largest telescope :eyepop:

Like you won't be asked to give presentations all around the country now ;) :thumbsup:

Mike

[SkyViking]

Wow congratulations Alex! That's certainly a well deserved honour. I bet you'll have fun playing with that massive telescope. You must be very happy :D

[jjjnettie]

:D well done and congratulations!

[niko]

Congratulations Alex - really fantastic!!!

niko

[gary]

In correspondence with Alex earlier this month, he said he had spent many
nights in front of the computer looking at Sloan Digital Sky Survey images.
At the time, he said he had looked at more than 2,000 galaxies and compact clusters
that would fit in the 8' FoV of the 10.4m GranTeCan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Telescopio_Canarias) telescope. He was hoping
to find a suitable pair of interacting galaxies that had not previously been
studied with a large aperture scope or the HST.

It will be interesting to learn what target he eventually proposed and of course
we anxiously await the all important report that it was clear on the night.

Many of us will remember Lesa Moore's account of being granted time
on the Kecks atop Mauna Kea only to fly all the way to Hawaii, get to the
top of the mountain and it snowed.

Hopefully the weather in thne Canary Islands will be just like that featured on the sunniest of
La Palma postcards. :thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Amazing, as an amateur astroimager (heck any astronomer really??) he has won the ultimate prize.

Have to say though.. a wide field time lapse movie specialist getting time on a 10.4m with a 7' X 7' FOV deep sky imaging instrument is positively scandalous :mad2: :lol:

Can't wait to see his image, I have my fingers crossed he picks a galaxy that has a supernova occur in it during his precious hour of imaging :P

Mike

[alan meehan]

Congratulations Alex,well deserved

[ngcles]

Hi All,

Very, very well done Alex !


Best,

Les D

[renormalised]

Yep, that's more Fred's territory:):P

Just add a barlow or powermate and Fred would be in heaven:):P

[spacezebra]

Congrats Alex

So looking forward to catching up with you at Border Stargaze 2011.

Cheers Petra d.

[Octane]

Congratulations, my friend. You thoroughly deserved that win, with your beautiful imagery. :)

I hope you enjoy your time on the big kahuna!

H

[marc4darkskies]

Good on you Alex, Well deserved recognition. And I'm not jealous either ... not at all ... nope, not one teensy weensy little bit ... nothing ... didn't even give it a thought ... I'm a bigger man than that ... it's a curse you know ... :(

Cheers, Marcus

[gts055]

Congratulations Alex, wishing you great conditions for imaging, ( hope you can beat your remarkable images taken thru your 22" Kennedy mirror, Argo, Servocat powered SDM Dobsonian :) Mark

[gary]

Hi H,

Alex won a trip to La Palma, in the Canary Islands, rather than to Hawaii. :thumbsup:

I am not sure which would be the scarier of the two to be confronted with -
a big kahuna or a big canary?

[Octane]

Oh, I know. :)

H

[Bassnut]

OK, excellent , but Im missing something basic. Try as I may, I can find a video. Is this a "time lapse" as in stacked images, or an actual video.

The SMH implies a video "For the Starmus competition he shot at 25 frames a second over six nights from cliffs at Cape Schanck, Flinders and the Great Ocean Road, then edited the footage to 2 and a half minutes".

I cant find it?.

[gts055]

Hii Fred, try here at Alex's website to see the winning video : http://www.terrastro.com/blog/checking-in-from-starmus/, Mark

[Bassnut]

Most Excellent, thank you, very inspiring video.

[Kevnool]

Congrats Alex.
Well deserved.

Cheers Kev.

[gary]

Imagine the opportunity to meet this lineup at Starmus for starters. :thumbsup:

http://www.starmus.com/pages/en/tribute.php

Then there is the guest speaker's list!
http://www.starmus.com/pages/en/programme.php

[renormalised]

A giant Tweetie Bird....well he won't be bothered by Sylvester, in that case:):P

[alexch]

Hi All!

Just landed in Melbourne today. Thanks for the kind words and complements - they are much appreciated.

It has been a surreal and humbling experience to meet and talk with all the astronauts, cosmonauts and leading scientists.

The two nights at the observatory in La Palma were like a space flight for me. I spent an hour at the GTC telescope observing the targets (ARP84 and UGC9103 interacting galaxies) and then stayed for the whole night watching the astronomer at work and taking images around the telescope.

I'll do an update when I have digested it all and gone through the images.

Cheers,
Alex

[strongmanmike]

Sensational! Can't wait :thumbsup:

Mike

[gary]

Hi Alex,

Welcome back and it sounds amazing.

Hope some of the star parties here in Australia invite you as a guest presenter.
I for one would love to hear the whole story and I am certain many others
would as well. :thumbsup: