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My name is Dean Salman. I have created and maintain this Web site for others to enjoy and am always updating it. I have been a Web programmer for many years
and have used that technology to create this site and the others I have. My sites are built upon the Microsoft .NET and
SQL server to make the site user friendly and database driven.
I became interested in astronomy when I was given a 60mm refractor telescope for my 12th birthday in 1969. However, I was not seeing the
wonderful color displayed in the books I was reading. My friend told me I had to take photographs, so I started doing that in 1973,
and visual observing came to an end. However, I do enjoy looking through a telescope when working at Kitt Peak National Observatory
during the night time programs. I took my first photographs of the constellations with a simple film camera by taking 30 second
exposures at the Orange County Astronomers' former observing site located in the Santa Ana Mountains. Back then I used a Tasco 4 inch
reflector and installed a clock drive. In 1976, I started taking photographs through the telescope using an 8 inch F/7 and continued
film photography until 2001. I mainly did astrophotography with Hyper 2145 film for black & white and Kodak slide film for color.
My friend Rockett Crawford loaned me his SBIG ST-7E CCD Camera in 2001, and that was the day I got rid of all my film equipment and darkroom. Today,
I am still going strong with CCD Imaging after going through a few telescopes and cameras. Currently I own an Intes Micro 8 inch F/4 MakNewt (MN84) and
a QSI 583 WSG CCD with a Lodestar guider attached to the QSI off axis guider. I use AstroDon Series 2 LRGB filters for color and a hydrogen-alpha 3nm for narrowband.
In 2005, I learned about remote observatories from my friend Mike Sherick's site in New Mexico. That is when I wanted to switch to remote,
even if it was my backyard. So I sold my one Web domain, Galaxies.com for $12,000 and purchased an Astro Physics 1200 Goto system. Soon after that, I
had my backyard observatory remotely operated using CCD Commander. The next phase was to pick a dark remote site. In spring of 2011, I found
a site east of Tucson located at the San Pedro Valley Observatory in Benson, Arizona. During the first few months there, I learned quite a
bit more about remote observatories, and I configured the observatory to operate everything through the Internet.
Any of the CCD images or in the daytime digital library can be used in any publication.
Please let me know when you use one and give me credit this way:
Dean Salman – www.ccdimages.com
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