Par Jeremy Nedelec
Published on
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The Universe is at the bottom of its garden. In a small wooden workshop. In Briellec, in It’s treacherous, Jean Pierre Bigorgne captures the infinitely large from its observatorynestled there, in a cul-de-sac in the Breton countryside. Vrrrrr...
With a button, the roof of the 12 m² rectangle is revealed to the sky. Bip, bip. “I’m going to tell him to go see Mercury…oh no, rather Saturn.” Bzzzz… The telescope 22 kg runs and goes to point the star with his big eye.
A telescope at Christmas
Jean-Pierre only started astronomy than 5, 6 years ago. A sort of Professor Sunflower with white hair, modest and laughing, he is a fine handyman. His life, he spent learning and passing on to the University of Reims, as a teacher of electronics, automation and industrial computing. “I have some leftovers,” says the motorhome owner who visited Brittany “from time to time” before falling in love with a house in Trézény 15 years ago.
At the age of 80, he is “happy as hell” there with his love, Geneviève. “I liked looking at the sky with my wife. And one Christmas she bought me a telescope“. At lunch, he never forgets to tell his better half what he saw.
The sky commands
At night, Jean-Pierre slips away. “When my wife goes to bed, I come here. Around 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m., until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. “. That is when “there is the sky”. Because “it is the sky which orders”. Here it is sheltered from bad light. But if it’s too hot or too humid, the sky will have to wait. Unless it’s Jean-Pierre. The best is when it freezes, without wind.
“There was a 10-minute thinning last night: I came to take my little photo”.
Pictures are to remember. To prove that he saw. Especially because Jean-Pierre’s eyesight is failing, and the eye doesn’t see like a camera. “With long breaks, we will see the colors. Ah, it’s a galaxy! »
He controls everything by computer, between the cables and the notes, sitting at the desk of his little command post where you quickly think you’re a ship’s boy on a spaceship. Jean-Pierre Bigorgne has invested in it 20 000 €. The Trézénien took a month to build it, but a year to master his equipment.
Auto Capture
His old job had nothing to do with the stars. But the former researcher learns quickly.
“For knowledge of the sky, now we have software and applications that help to find…”
And when it doesn’t work, “we look for why”. It was before launching no more stalled in photography.
Since then, we can say that he has tamed the ceiling of everyone. On the right of his office, a small box tinkered house connects telescope, camera and…mobile phone.
Equipped with a kind of mechanized finger, the gadget is designed to press the shutter button at regular intervals. “I set off, I go to see Geneviève, and I come back”. Yes yes : his phone takes pictures of the planets on its own!
“My favorite is Jupiter”
There are planetary observations. “Very brilliant, but a little fluctuating,” says the former teacher, with a quick phrasing, which oozes the pleasure of teaching others, you don’t get over it. “My favorite planet is Jupiter : it is easy to see, and there are the satellites. When you show it to someone, it’s extraordinary. And then Saturn and its rings. Wow! It’s so characteristic. »
And then there is also “the deep sky”. Objects other than those in our solar system. In there, the constellation d’Orion is enough to widen some eyes, with its contours reminiscent of an indigo blue phoenix.
It’s not the objects that are missing: Jean-Pierre has the essential catalogue Messiernamed following the 18th century astronomere century, which lists 110. “These are the biggest”. They are soberly called M 1, M 2, M 3… Thus, Jean-Pierre carefully classifies his photos in files of the same name.
“In the new catalogs, there are thousands of objects. So we always have something to photograph.
Retouching work
Like this star we call “ruby”, spent the past few days in the right field of vision. “She makes a bright yellow dot. I would have liked to see it, but I missed it. If in two or three days, I don’t have it, it will be necessary to wait a year to see it once more. »
After the capture, there is the “enormous” work of retouch. “A couple of hours” to refine his raw and heavy photos which require a hell of a memory from his faithful machine bought second-hand.
On arrival, the amateur astronomer is quite proud to show the image of Jupiter, captured as if playing tightrope walkers on the electric wire in front of his home. “A few years ago, we had a much clearer sky,” laments Jean-Pierre, but this gigantic playground remains fascinating.
The sky is divided
And because the sky is big enough, we share it. Christian Riou, of Penvénan, who died in March 2022, “taught everything” to Jean-Pierre. Now, he feeds this passion with his friends who also have an observatory: there is Michel, from Rospez. AT LanvellecDidier has just poured the slab.
Astronomy enthusiasts recently came from Rennes in a motorhome.
“We spent three hours looking at the stars. Happiness. If you are interested, you make an appointment, and we observe the stars. »
Since January, the Briellec observatory, unique Breton observatory identified by the French Association of Astronomyhas its own site internet. Certainly more and more people will know how to place Trézény on a map in the future (and Pluto twice only once): those who have their feet on Earth, those really in the Moon. And who knows, Venus people elsewhere?
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