Tom Clark

"Star Parties of the USA"

Wednesday, Feb 6th @ 12PM

During the fourteen years that Tom Clark was the editor and publisher of Amateur Astronomy Magazine, he was able to cover dozens of major star parties all over the United States. Tom's presentation will take you on a photographic tour of all the major star parties.

Tom retired from Tectron Machine Corporation in 1997, Tectron Telescopes in 1999, and Amateur Astronomy Magazine in 2007. Tom has been the manufacturing the Tectron Colimation Tools since the early 80s, and has designed and built  hundreds of large amateur telescopes during that time.

Tom and his wife Jeannie moved to Chiefland, Florida, ten years ago, where they enjoy observing under dark skies. Their current telescope is a 42" Go-To Dobsonian, mounted in its own dome, right on the edge of the Chiefland club observing field.

Tippy D'Auria

"Deep Space Observing"

Thursday, Feb 7th @ 2PM

Tippy D'Auria is the founder of the Winter Star Party which is sponsored by the Southern Cross Astronomical Society, and he has been the Chairman of that star party for thirteen of its twenty-four years. In January 2001, Tippy received recognition for his contributions to amateur astronomy, as he was honored by the International Astronomical Union, when an asteroid was given the name "11378 DAuria."  That same year, Tippy led an expedition to the volcanoes of Costa Rica, to film a National Geographic documentary called "Volcano Hunters". Tippy joined an elite group of some of the world's best planetary astronomers in 2001 on a mission to record a predicted flash on the Mars in a region called Edom. He is a noted astrophotographer who uses cold camera photography for his work and has taught Creative Photography at the college level. Tippy is a writer and an international lecturer as well as an avid volcano hunter.  He has contributed to the section on darkroom techniques for the book Introduction to Observing and Photographing the Solar System as well as co-authoring with Vic Menard, the definite book on telescope collimation, titled Perspectives on Collimation - Principles and Procedures.

Tippy's Astronomical Vitae

Sheldon Faworski

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

"Building a Small Astrograph for CCD Imaging. Now the rest of the Story.....Larger & Faster!"

Thursday, Feb 7th @ 1PM

Sheldon Faworski has been an amateur telescope maker since 1954; approximately around the same time he started receiving S&T. Sheldon started doing astro photography in the mid-70's.

From 1977 till now, Sheldon has worked in either sales and or product development (mainly telescopes and telescope accessories) for:

American Science Center (Chicago)
Edmund Scientific
Celestron
Meade Instruments
LOMO America
LOMO (St.Petersburg, Russia)
Galileo

For more information, visit Sheldon's web site at
http://www.masil-astro-imaging.com/home.html

R. Scott Ireland

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

"Earth From Above"

Thursday, Feb 7th @ 3PM

R. Scott Ireland Abbreviated Biographical Information - Astronomy/Volcanology
October, 2007

R. Scott Ireland has been photographing nature and the heavens for over twenty-five years. His photographs have been published internationally in many books, textbooks, periodicals and calendars, and have appeared in various museum and gallery exhibits.

Scott's publication credits include Nature's Best, Nature Photographer, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, NASA/JPL, University College, London, The Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, Audubon Field Guides, Peterson Field Guides, The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior and Adobe Systems, Inc. He was a part of the National Geographic film team for a documentary entitled "Volcano Hunters".

Adobe Systems, Inc. recently published a Customer Success Story on Scott and will use his images as part of a special Adobe 25th Anniversary promotion. Scott is the author of the recently published book Photoshop Astronomy, and is a frequent lecturer on image processing topics.

For more information, visit Scott's web site at http://www.rsiphotos.com/

Talk Description:

R. SCOTT IRELAND, SCAS renowned astro-imager, author, lecturer and vulcanologist will present EARTH FROM ABOVE, a collage of fantastic views from space, his photos of volcanoes erupting in Guatemala last July, and the latest Mars images by Dr. Don Parker, preceding the planet's close encounter with Earth in December.

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

Taimur (Tim) Khan, P.E. – Vice President, Southern Cross Astronomical Society / Winter Star Party Director

Mr. Khan was born and raised in South Florida and has had a passion for astronomy since first being introduce to a telescope in his mid teens. His educational background includes a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Miami. He is a licensed Structural Engineer in the State of Florida and is an active member in the following professional organizations: Structural Engineering Certification Board, Florida Structural Engineer’s Association, Structural Engineer Institute, American Society of Civil Engineers and American Concrete Institute. Mr. Khan is currently vice president of a family owned engineering firm in Miami, Florida, where he has specialized in structural engineering ranging from large high-rise construction and large scale custom homes, commercial projects, Schools, and tract homes. Mr. Khan carries his astronomy knowledge into his professional career by advocating proper lighting techniques to his clients. In addition, Mr. Khan has designed and constructed a hurricane resistant roll off roof observatory to resist both hurricanes and tornadic winds.

During his stay at University of Miami in the mid 90’s, Mr. Khan became President of the University of Miami Astronomy Club as well as an active member of the Southern Cross Astronomical Society.  Mr. Khan has been serving as an officer and board member of Southern Cross for several years, and has been appointed director of the prestigious annual Winter Star Party, held annually in the Florida Keys during February.

Currently, Mr. Khan enjoys heading out to dark skies to observe and photograph the night sky. He has been an active astro-photographer since the mid 1990’s, shooting with both film and CCD cameras.

Dave Knowlton

"Celestial Navigation "

Demonstration of a celestial daytime shot after presentation

Tuesday, Feb 5th @ 11PM

My experience in astronomy started at age 9 and has continued since. Although my major in college was business admin my minor was astronomy. After graduation, a graduate assistantship was given to me by the astronomy department which I accepted at the University of South Florida under Dr. Von Eichorn. Birth of a daughter ended my college experience and full time work followed. I served as President of the St Petersburg Astronomy Club for two years. Also, served as the Chairman of the Pinellas County (Florida) Science Center for five years plus taught courses there in Physics, astronomy and other science courses.

Dave is the owner of the dobsonian "Bat Scope" and has attended twenty Winter Star Parties over the years.

Mike Lockwood

"Construction and use of 32" and 24" telescopes for research, and other big scope news"

Tuesday, Feb 5th @ 1PM

Mike Lockwood is an electrical engineer, amateur telescope maker, and optician currently living in Champaign, Illinois, about 2.5 hours south of Chicago, and home of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). During the day Mike works as a research engineer at UIUC, and by night he makes optics and telescopes.

Mike was born and raised in northern Michigan where the skies were dark and the northern lights danced, and that started a life-long interest in astronomy. After a move to the Cincinnati area in 1990, he joined the Cincinnati Astronomical Society and built his first three telescopes before graduating high school in 1993. He attended the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and graduated in 1997 with a degree in Computer Engineering. While there he was a member of the astronomy club and president for his last two years. In 1999 he earned a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from UIUC with a specialization in digital signal processing. Mike has been a member of the Astronomical Society at the University of Illinois since 1997. He joined the Champaign-Urbana Astronomical Society in 2003, and served as president from 2006-2008.

Mike has had two articles published in Sky and Telescope Magazine, he's given numerous talks at star parties and a university, and he has done mirror testing at a few events. Since completing his first telescope mirror in early 2003 (an 8" F/3.9) he has made over 70 mirrors, and has built or been involved with building approximately 40 telescopes. Mike now refigures mirrors and makes custom optics. In early 2007 he was chosen to grind, polish, and figure a 1.1-meter (43.4") F/4 cast cellular Pyrex mirror for what will likely be the largest portable amateur telescope in the world when it is completed in 2008. He hopes that even larger projects are on the horizon.

Talk Description:

Title: 'Construction and use of 32" and 24" telescopes for research, and other big scope news'

Ever wondered what amateurs do to contribute to science? I did too, until I met an unusually dedicated amateur astronomer named Bob Holmes. Soon I was making a 32" and a 24" mirror for him, and I got to see exactly what he does. I was impressed.

Borrowing some of Bob's own slides, this talk discusses his 32" and 24" research telescopes, which are used for near-earth-object (NEO) observations and discoveries, supernova hunting, and other observing. The 32" telescope construction, optical fabrication, first light and debugging are discussed in detail along with quite a few photographs. These telescopes are compared to professional telescopes doing similar work, with surprising results.

As time permits, I'll also present an update of my work on other large telescopes, such as the 1.1-meter that I am scheduled to start work on in the fall/winter of 2007, and some thoughts on the future of large amateur instruments in general.

Brian Lula

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

"To Infinity and Beyond"

Wednesday, Feb 6th @ 3PM

Brian Lula has been involved in amateur telescope making and observatory building for over 35 years always striving to build better performing equipment and then over the last 10 years ever better CCD images. Brian is an expert astro-imager whose images have been featured in Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, CBS News, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and numbers of international astronomy magazines and books. His deep sky images have also been selected a number of times as NASA's Astrophoto of the Day.

Brian's love of amateur telescope making was instumental in his professional career. For the last 12 years he has been the president of Physik Instrumente a company deeply involved in the nanopositioning requirements of advanced professional telescopes and is a Board Member and Secretary/Treasurer of the International Society of Optical Engineers ( SPIE). Brian says his job is like working at the Home Depot for telescope makers!

Talk Description:

"Can we take our hobby too far? Come and find out as Brian explores this question and many others with insight and humor in a way that will appeal to all levels of experience in this wonderful pastime. Brian's talk will interweave his experiences with telescope making and observatory design concentrating on the remote imaging setup he built in New Mexico. Peppered in the talk will be slides showing the progress of equipment, observatory design choices and CCD images taken along the journey. Many hard lessons were learned along the way and Brian will share his mistakes as well as the unexpected victories. Brian will also comment briefly on current and future aesthetic imaging trends.

Jim Moronski

"The CCD Imaging System"

(Co-Presenter with Gregory Terrance)

Thursday, Feb 7th @ 12PM

Jim Moronski is one of the founding members of Finger Lakes Instrumentation. He start designing CCD cameras as a hobby 1992. The first astronomical pictures taken were that of the black scars left on Jupiter after the impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. He graduated from Binghamton University with an MSEE in 1995. He remains active at the University as both a doctorate student and an adjunct lecturer for Power Electronics and Computer Networking. His professional career consisted of power supply design and embedded systems design. He joined FLI full time in 2005 as their software/digital hardware designer. He currently lives in the Binghamton, NY area where he recently opened FLI's second office.

For more information, visit the Finger Lakes web site at

http://www.fli-cam.com/

Donald C. Parker, M.D.

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

Don Parker, a retired physician from Coral Gables, Florida has had a life-long interest in astronomy and, since 1953, has built a number of telescopes ranging in diameter from three to sixteen inches. Over the years Dr. Parker came to specialize in Solar System research and planetary photography. He has taken over 20,000 photographs and electronic images of Mars and Jupiter, as support for professional astronomers at NASA, JPL, and various observatories.
As a Mars Recorder for the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, Dr. Parker has  done extensive research on the climate and meteorology of the planet Mars. He has authored or co-authored over 150 papers on the Solar System and on planetary photography. These have been pub­lished in both amateur and profession­al journals, such as Science, Nature, Icarus, the Astronomical Journal, and the Journal of Geophysical Research. Parker’s photographs and electronic images of the planets have appeared in numerous books and magazines throughout the world, including Encyclopedia Britannica’s 1996 Science and the Future. He is co-author of the book, Introduction to Observing and Photographing the Solar System.
He is a member of many professional and amateur astronomical organizations, including Miami’s Southern Cross Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the British Astronomical Association. He is past director of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers.
           
In recognition of his contributions to planetary astronomy, Dr. Parker was honored by the International Astronomical Union in 1994, when an asteroid was given the name “5392 Parker”. In 2004 he was awarded the Oriental Astronomical Association’s Gold Medal for his work on Mars.

Damian Peach

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

"Planetary Imaging"

Tuesday, Feb 5th @ 3PM

Damian Peach has been interested in Astronomy from a very young age. Today, he is known worldwide through the astronomical community for his spectacular images of the Planets. He was appointed Assistant Coordinator of the ALPO Jupiter section (1998) an Assistant Director of the BAA Jupiter section (1999), and Assistant director of the BAA Saturn Section (1999.) His images frequently grace the pages of magazines, books and papers, both amatuer and proffesional, and has appeared numerous times on BBC televsion in the UK promoting astronomy and astrophotography. He was awarded the Association of  Lunar and Planetary Observers Walter Haas award in 2004, and the British Astronomical  Assocation's Merlin Medal in 2006 both presented for outstanding contributions to Planetary  Astronomy. His images appeared on the cover of the the Nov 2006 edition of the Icarus  Planetary science journal.

Visit Damian's web page at http://www.damianpeach.com/index2.htm

Greg Piepol

"Update on the Sun: Observing and Imaging"

Tuesday, Feb 5th @ 2PM

Over the years, Greg Piepol had plenty of opportunities to view the night sky. It wasn’t until he looked through a hydrogen-alpha filter at the sun that he found his calling: observing and imaging the solar chromosphere. Now, Greg is tuned into the daily activities of the sun and is always searching for new ways of enhancing the view of our ever changing star.

Greg’s favorite part of the hobby is outreach. He consistently shares the sun and his expertise of the various types of solar equipment inspiring school children and fellow enthusiast alike.  “Observing our star provides one of the most memorable experiences in amateur astronomy. A person’s first look at the sun through a properly equipped telescope is not quickly forgotten and can be compared to the first time they saw Saturn in a telescope. It’s that good!”

Greg’s images have been featured in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), Spaceweather.com and MSNBC websites. Publications include Sky and Telescope, Astronomy and Nature magazines to name a few. They continue to be used in technical and teaching resources worldwide.

Greg received the Astronomical League’s first ever “Webmaster of the Year” award in 2003. His website http://www.sungazer.net was awarded the Griffith Observatory Star Award for its promotion of astronomical awareness. Sungazer.net offers hydrogen-alpha, calcium K, 3D and zoom-able solar images and includes solar resources and historic solar advertisements.

Born in Chicago and raised in Alabama, Greg retired from The US Air Force after 20 of honorable service. Trained as an aircraft electronics technician, he spent 11 years of his career with the Air Force One fleet at Andrews AFB. He is a NASA/JPL Solar System Advisor and Meade 4M Solar Advisor. He and his wife Susan, and their three children reside in Rockville, Md.

Chris Stephan

"The AAVSO and Variable Star Observing"

Tuesday, Feb 5th @ 12PM

Chris Stephan of The Robert Clyde Observatory in Sebring, Florida, has been a variable star observer for the AAVSO since 1973. He has made over  33,000 visual variable star estimates.  Chris has been a speaker on variable stars at various astronomy events. He has received the distinguished AAVSO Director’s Award in 2004 and had observations published in various international astronomy journals.

Chris is also a member of the American Meteor Society and has led or participated in several lunar grazing occultation expedition teams for IOTA.

Chris has been a middle school science teacher with Highlands County Schools for 21 years. He is currently teaching at Avon Park Middle School in Avon Park, Florida. Chris has been married for 22 years and has a son in college.

For more information, visit Chris's AAVSO Member Page

 

Bob Summerfield

"Physics of the Rainbow"

Wednesday, Feb 6th @ 1PM

Better known to most as "The T-shirt Guy," "The Meteorite Guy," "Crazy Bob," or "Everyone's Favorite Pain In The A**," Bob Summerfield is the Founder and Director of Astronomy To Go, a Philadelphia-based, nonprofit educational outreach organization, formally begun in 1990. A life long amateur who's passion for Astronomy began with his first lessons in Space Science in 3rd grade, he has been teaching an adult school class at Cheltenham High School for 27 years, starting before he was a graduate. Bob has worked with Astronomy Clubs, schools, camps, scout troops, museums, and all sorts of civic organizations across the country. The goal is to encourage people to look up, and get to better understand our neighbors and happenings in the Universe, near and far. While most Star Party attendees think of Astronomy To Go's Vendor Booth as a unique Astronomical Gift Shoppe (not to mention a fun place to visit) most don't realize that it's just the fundraising side that supports their real mission of educational and public outreach. Working together with his wife, Lisa, Bob presents hundreds of programs each year for thousands of students of all ages. Their programs range from lectures and slide shows to hands on presentations, planetarium shows, and outdoor observing sessions, night and day. They are also the owners/caretakers of The Yard Scope (36"/f 5) and invite everyone to stop by for some time at the eyepiece.

Bob has appeared on numerous TV programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Discovery Channel and NASA-TV, as well as many radio programs, and in print media, from newspapers nationwide to Sky & Telescope magazine. He has become a regular outreach presenter at the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences annual conference. Bob and Lisa were honored by the International Astronomical Union in 1997 when an Asteroid was named "7344 Summerfield" in recognition of their educational efforts. They were also honored to receive The Omega Centauri Award at the 2002 Texas Star Party for "bringing Astronomy to the public."

For WSP '08, Bob will present a college level program entitled "The Physics of Reflection and Refraction of White Light in a Drop of Water." The same talk, when given to Amateur Astronomers is called, "My Most Personal Observation." For 4th graders, it is simply called, "Rainbows." In keeping with Bob's tradition of looking at things a bit differently, this in-depth but entertaining, non-technical talk (no math) will shower you with beautiful photos while opening your eyes to the science behind (almost) everyone's favorite Atmospheric. Did YOU know that no two people have ever witnessed the same rainbow, except in a photograph? Bob will cover it all, from the importance of the size of a raindrop to the "treasure" waiting at the end of a rainbow. Be warned: This program WILL include a pop quiz, a midterm, and a final, but cheating is allowed and, in fact, sometimes encouraged.
Also, on Tuesday at noon, weather permitting, location to be announced, Bob will hold his annual demonstration, "How to clean a 36" mirror (or smaller)."

You can visit Bob's web site at http://www.astronomytogo.com/

Gregory Terrance

"The CCD Imaging System"

(Co-Presenter with Jim Moronski)

Thursday, Feb 7th @ 12PM

Gregory Terrance is one of the founding members of Finger Lakes Instrumentation and has been an avid lunar / planetary observer since first receiving a small refractor at the age of ten. After using film to photograph the planets with for many years, he switched over to CCD imaging in 1992. Not long afterwards he attended a class on how to build a CCD camera at a local college and shortly afterwards joined a group of dedicated enthusiast to start FLI. In the past he has written a dozen articles for Astronomy Magazine and imaged from a dark site in Lima NY. These days he enjoys viewing solar system objects from his home in Rush NY.

For more information, visit the Finger Lakes web site at

http://www.fli-cam.com/

Sean Walker

(Imaging Panel Instructor )

Exploring alternative image-processing techniques is Sean Walker's forte. After earning a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Sean merged his artistic talents and love of astronomy by teaching himself astrophotography and digital image processing. Capturing good data is only a small fraction of the work in producing beautiful images; the rest is making the image rise to the level of art. Sean joined the Sky and Telescope Magazine staff in 2000 and currently serves as an assistant editor specializing in the magazine*s astrophotography coverage.

For more information, visit the Sky and Telescope web site at
http://skytonight.com/