About Me
Like
many of you, I first became interested in this hobby in my early teen years
when my parents bought me a 60mm Tasco refractor. Of course, it was of
terrible quality and the mount wobbled severely, but I spent a lot of time
in the cold Edmonton winters (think -30°C) observing through it.
I remember seeing the disk of Jupiter, the disk of Saturn (but no rings...
they were edge-on that year), and the Orion Nebula. I also tried and
failed to see Halley's comet with it. However, I soon became
frustrated with its shortcomings, and the Tasco fell into disuse and was
eventually tossed.
I was re-introduced to this wonderful hobby at
Christmas 2001, when my wife bought me a
Meade DS2114ATS telescope, a 4.5" short-tube
Newtonian reflector. Now, this scope was also of fairly low quality, but
compared with the old Tasco it was a vast improvement. At least the mount
didn't wobble, and the extra aperture allowed me to see quite a lot; I was
actually quite productive with it. With this scope, I saw my first cloud
bands on Jupiter, the rings of Saturn for the first time, my first open cluster
(Double Cluster), my first galaxy (Andromeda Galaxy), my first globular cluster
(M13), my first double star (Almach), and my first comet (2002 Ikeya-Zhang).
In all, I logged about 70 objects with it in 6 months, which ain't bad.
Unfortunately, I had a look at Jupiter and Saturn
through someone's 8" Orion Dobsonian, after which I was utterly disappointed
with the comparatively horrible views I was getting from the Meade, so in July
2002 I upgraded to a 12.5" Discovery PDHQ, an astonishingly good telescope by
any measure. (Unfortunately, the maker appears to have gone out of
business.) With this telescope, I have completed my Messier list, and am
well on my way to completing my Herschel 400 list. It is still my main
visual telescope.
In 2004 I caught the astrophotography bug. Anticipating this, and also
to satisfy my need for a more portable instrument, I purchased a
Takahashi Sky 90, a 3.5" apochromatic doublet
refractor, which is a really good wide-field performer despite its diminutive
size, and an acceptable planetary scope as well. Aside from being a very
portable travel scope, it's also a killer imaging scope. Almost all the
images you'll find at this site were taken using this scope. I currently
mount this scope on a
Takahashi EM-200 equatorial mount.
After a few furtive attempts at astrophotography with a webcam, I purchased a
Canon Digital Rebel and used this as an astro-camera for two years. Many
of the images on this site were taken through this DSLR. However, in 2006
I decided to upgrade to a dedicated astro-camera, and purchased an
SBIG
STL-4020M. I chose the monochrome version so that I could do some
narrowband imaging through an H-alpha filter, which helps a lot in my
light-polluted backyard.
I do not call myself an amateur astronomer. An
astronomer, even an amateur one, does real science, and it would be rather
pretentious of me to apply the term to myself. I am a stargazer and a sky
tourist, who probably has more in common with a birdwatcher than an astronomer.
I
currently live in Redmond, Washington (near Seattle), where I work for a large
and well-known software company. I am a Canadian citizen, and grew up in
the city of Edmonton, Alberta. I also attended university there, receiving
my B.Sc. from the University of Alberta.
I am married, and my wife Kristina and I have two boys, Nathaniel and
Jonathan.