Die Hard Astro: The Human Drive To Unravel The Universe...

Kevin Sweeney

Amateur Astrophysicist

Following in the footsteps of Margaret Huggins

Killybegs native Kevin Sweeney spent most of his youth looking up at one bright object in the night sky or another at a time when a telescope was nothing but an expensive luxury that would cost just as much as a new car at the time, leading to building his own Newtonian from any means necessary in the 70’s that got mistaken for a Rocket Launcher on the roof-rack of his car travelling through Lisnaskea in the middle of the night while the RUC chased him for miles before turning on the blue lights.

Moving to dunboyne in the 80’s, Kevin then built his own Observatory and was possibly the first amateur astronomer in Ireland to have a digital astronomy camera in the 90’s, but eventually you get bored of “taking pretty pictures” and you try your hand at some science: Hello Spectroscopy!

It's exhilirating, and it even got to the point that I'd do out on any clear night at all, and look at the moons (of Jupiter) and make notes of where they were. Again, I was getting into stuff, it was 'capturing' me!

Kevin Sweeney

Using his Observatory for Science

Pluto Transition

Kevin has captured many fantastic images and scientific data over the decades. One of this favourite things to do is track the movement of celestial objects and image their transit in the universe.

This simple animated gif is a week long transition of the outer most belt of our Solar System, and the demoted dwarf planet, Pluto, captured on Kevin's C11 and his digital astrocamera.

Kevin Studys Spectroscopy

Quasar 3C273 Red Shift

Because of his age and the Irish weather, Kevin tends to focus more on some scientific studies that can be done with his telescope and observatory. The above object doesn't look like much, but the white streak to the right, is actually a Quasar in space imaged on Kevin's rig.

Using some specific software, Kevin can measure something called the "Red Shift" of this Quasar in space and that tells us how far away an object is and in turn, how old it is because the red shift proves the universe is 'expanding'!