Derek Robson is an amateur astronomer; sleeps by day, rises after sunset. Stalked by creatures of the night, he dabbles with astrophotography. His first main telescope was an 8.75” Fullerscope Newtonian reflector using film, following advice from Ron Arbour. He has a Watec 902H2S meteor video camera which is part of the NEMETODE group. The camera collects and feeds live data to the UKMON Network for triangulation, orbit calculation, ground trail prediction and dark flight modelling. He monitors radio meteor activity using the GRAVES radar transmitter in France.
His main interests are general astrophotography but especially comets, meteors, asteroids; meteor and stellar spectroscopy. He has a recent interest in occultation of stars by asteroids.
In 2017, Derek was presented with a prize and certificate at the Royal Greenwich Observatory for a place in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2017 competition. He imaged the one mile wide potentially hazardous asteroid - Near Earth Object (164121) 2003 YT1 which came within 3 million miles of the Earth on 31st October 2016. The image is displayed in the Royal Greenwich Observatory and National Maritime Museum, London.
Local society membership: A long-standing member of the British Astronomical Association, a member of the East Midlands Stargazers, Sunderland Astronomical Society, Northolt Branch Observatory, NEMETODE, UKMON and the International Meteor Organisation.
