Garden Sheds and Industrial Buildings Amazing Milky Way images captured from garden shed

Amazing Milky Way images captured from garden shed

16:01:20 20th January 2010

A garden shed has been used to capture striking images of the Milky Way -much to the astonishment of astronomers around the world.

The Daily Mail reports that amateur star-gazer Peter Shah, from Wales, captured the images through a hole he previously cut in the shed's roof.

Using a modest eight-inch telescope linked to his home computer, the resulting images have been compared with those taken from the Ł2.5 billion Hubble telescope.

Mr Shah told the newspaper that his modest set-up proves "that a window to the universe is there for all of us - even with the smallest budgets".

The images were taken over a period of several months, as the skies in Britain often clouded over and clear conditions were vital, Mr Shah told the Mail.

The Hubble telescope was launched in 1990 by the space shuttle. From its position 353 miles above the Earth's surface, it has recorded over 700,000 images used to increase understanding of star birth and death, galaxy evolution, and has helped move black holes from theory to fact.

Robin Antill+

garden sheds in 1979.

31 years experience.

Coordination of gardening efforts may help save Britain's wildlife

People should coordinate their gardening efforts in a bid to protect Britain's vulnerable wildlife, according to scientists at the University of Leeds. Creating a network of interlinking habitats where birds, bees and mammals can flourish would go some way towards encouraging urban biodiversity, the study claims. Urban...read more

Pave a path from the garden shed to instantly update the backyard

Paving a path from the garden shed will help "catapult your garden into the 21st century", as one industry expert has claimed. Writing in the Telegraph, landscape architect Bunny Guinness reports that introducing paving to the garden immediately adds structure and the impression of extra space. Common paving materials...read more

Get the secateurs out of the garden shed and start winter pruning

January signals the time of year to dig the rusting secateurs out of the garden shed and start tackling the overgrown back yard. The Telegraph gardening writer Helen Yemm advises that for "compulsive short-back-and-sides" gardeners, who may feel the weather outside is still too bleak to make any substantial changes outdoors,...read more