About Us

 

 The StarWorksTeam started as a mix of experience and passion of two Italian amateur astronomers that have been dedicating several years in deepsky imaging. Due to the strong light polluted environment where we live - the surroundings of Rome - we have been encouraged to develop and apply enhanced tecniques to sample and process our images.

We've also had the opportunity of using many different astrographic configurations that allow us to improve our competence on a wide range of applications, starting from highly innovative mechanical developments up to design and manufacturing of electronic and software control tools for the most varied devices.

 

 

Filippo Ciferri Personal Bio: 

 

My passion for astronomy started in 1975, when I was just 8 years old and I received my first telescope. It was a small achromatic refractor mounted on a manual equatorial mount. After I practiced for few years on this configuration, I became a proud owner of a 8 inches Schmidt Cassegrain, starting to taking my first deep sky images in the backyard of my house in Rome. Then, for several years, mainly due to the strong light pollution, I left out my telescope and dedicated to traditional photography. To follow my passion, I took a degree in Physics, and I currently work as IT Consultant. More recently, thanks to the development of CCD cameras, I was encouraged to get back to deepsky imaging, using several different optical and mechanical configurations.This way I was happily impressed by discovering that most of the common deepsky objects can be sampled with a satisfactory level of details, even in the presence of a very light polluted sky. I'm particularly interested in using the most innovative deconvolution algorithms to improve the processing of my images. My current equipment includes a Takahashi FRC-300 mounted on top of a Paramount ME using as main camera a Canon 50DH.

Personal webpage: http://www.flickr.com/photos/filippoastro

 

Andrea Tamanti Personal Bio:

I live in Italy, my house is located about 20 kilometers form the center of Rome and not too far from the seaside. Here I work, I live and I have my small observatory. I'm a sculptor with a great passion for astronomy, telescope making and mechanics. I had my first telescope in 1983 when I was 14 years old, a Tanzutsu 114/1000mm and a Nikon F2 camera; at this time I remember that I could see the Milky Way naked eye. With my equipment I took a lot of  planetary images: my first target was the Moon and Jupiter.  Then I replaced my telescope with a new one, a Vixen Newton 150/750mm starting my deep sky imaging adventure composed by lots of galaxies and nebulas images taken without any kind of goto or pc assistance, as finding an object with a 6x30 viewfinder was not easy, my assistant was The Sky Atlas 2000 and a red head lamp. Unfortunately the light pollution grew up year by year and taking deep sky images became impossible from my site using a traditional 36mm film. But the ccd era was on the edge.  In 2004 I decided to build my first telescope. The project took a long time before it came to reality. After many years of work, I finally had my selfbuilted telescope, a 300mm f/8 Ritchey-Chrétien. Altough in the meantime, I have built many more telescopes, I still own this telescope with lot of satisfactions, taking deepsky images that reach 21.5 limit magnitude, using a ST10XME ccd camera and AO7 adaptive optics unit under my strongly polluted sky. I'm currently using a STL11000 and a Canon 50DH for taking deepsky images.

Personal webpage: http://www.tamanti.it/astronomy.htm