astronomy, telescopes, instrumentation

max reason

introduction

I became interested in astronomy and telescopes when I was 8 years old.  Since then I've spent much of my personal and professional life pursuing those interests.  I spent thousands of hours observing the night sky with my eyes, photographic film, CCDs, photometers, spectrographs, etc.  I've designed, built and operated many kinds of optics, telescopes and other astronomical and scientific instrumentation.  During this process, I developed many complementary skills and experience, including:

expertise

		astronomy
		observation
		photometry
		spectroscopy
		interferometry
		optics design
		optics testing
		optics fabrication
		telescope design
		telescope operation
		telescope automation
		mechanical design
		mechanical fabrication
		metal/glass machining
		instrumentation design
		instrumentation fabrication
		instrumentation automation
		image sensors/cryogenics
		data/image acquisition
		data/image compression
		data/image processing/analysis/reduction
		still and video photography
		emulsion and CCD astronomical photography
		emulsion and CCD emulsion pre-treatment / hypersensitization
		monochrome/color photographic processing

The above list only mentions skills directly related to astronomy and telescopes.  The rest of my web-site summarizes my other areas of expertise, many of which support the above list.  For example, I needed my electronics design, computer design, and computer programming skills to automate telescopes and instrumentation and perform data/image processing.

I added a few images to this page.  The selection is poor, but unfortunately these are all the photos immediately available to me here and now - most are still in California and Tucson.  You can click on any of these small images to see a larger version.

The left-hand image is my 8" f/5.6 prototype simak astrographic telescope, the first ever built.  The right-hand image is a 12" f/5 simak I designed for astroworks corporation, which they manufactured and sold for several years.  I invented this optical configuration for high-resolution, medium-format, medium-scale deep-sky photography.  The simak produces diffraction limited images over a 3+ degree diameter flat focal plane from ~3650Å to 10140Å.  See these 10" f/6.3 Simak specifications for a great design to build, including optics and baffle layout, aberration graphs, wavefront-interference images, and spot-diagram images.

This is the optical layout of a simak astrographic telescope optical system, displayed by one of my optical design programs.  Parallel light enters from left to right, passes through a meniscus lens, then reflects off the primary mirror, then reflects off the secondary mirror, then passes through a thin field-corrector lens near the film plane.  All optical surfaces are spherical, which greatly simplifies fabrication and testing.  Sample light-rays are drawn green, lens surfaces are drawn cyan, mirror surfaces are drawn yellow, vertical red lines are the ends of baffle tubes, and the flat focal surface is drawn grey at the far right.  A wide variety of simaks have been designed and built, from a 2" f/2 spectrograph camera to 8", 12", 20" f/6 photo-visual astrographs.

This is a drawing of a simidt astrographic telescope optical system, displayed by one of my optical design programs.  I invented this optical configuration for high-resolution, medium-format, medium-scale deep-sky photography.  Parallel light enters from left to right, passes through a BK7 schmidt-plate, then reflects off the spherical primary mirror, then reflects off the hyperbolic secondary mirror, then passes through spherical SF11 and BK7 lenses a few inches in front of the flat film plane.  Sample light-rays are drawn green, lens surfaces are drawn cyan, mirror surfaces are drawn yellow, the vertical red lines are the ends of baffle tubes, and the flat focal plane is drawn grey at the far right.  Simidt optics produce near diffraction limited images over the entire 3+ degree flat field.  The field corrector lens is far enough from the film plane for 35mm SLR cameras with flip-up mirrors on 5" aperture instruments, and 6x7cm SLR cameras with flip-up mirrors on 8" or 9" instruments.  Several simidt astrographic telescopes and telephotos have been built, including twin 24" f/6 instruments that produce diffraction limited images over an 8" diameter field.

This is a drawing of a hexagon astrographic lens optical system, displayed by one of my optical design programs.  I invented the hexagon optical configuration for high-resolution, large-format, medium-scale deep-sky photography.  Parallel light enters from left to right, passes through FCD-10N, ZK-N7, SF-11, BK-7 lenses on its way to the flat film plane.  Sample light-rays are drawn green, lens surfaces are drawn cyan, and the flat focal plane is drawn grey at the far right.  Hexagon optics produce diffraction limited images over the 8+ degree field diameter.

This is a drawing of my good glass apochromat optical system, displayed by one of my optical design programs.  Parallel light enters from left to right, passes through BaLK-N3, SF18, SF11 lenses, and comes to a focus far off the right end of the drawing.  Sample light-rays are drawn green, lens surfaces are drawn cyan, and the focal surface is far to the right.   I named this optical configuration the "good glass apochromat" because all three lenses are made of relatively cheap, easy-to-work glasses that are not particularly prone to stain or damage by water or weak acids.  Other apochromats have one or more elements made from expensive and/or water/acid sensitive glass.  At least one 8" f/12 good glass apochromat was constructed, and probably many more.  An apochromat is a lens that is corrected for three colors, or in other words, brings three wavelenghts to a common focus.

This is a drawing of my super-apochromat optical system, displayed by one of my optical design programs.  Parallel light enters from left to right, passes through FN-11, C96-36, BaK-5 lenses, and comes to a focus far off the right end of the drawing.  Sample light-rays are drawn green, lens surfaces are drawn cyan, and the focal surface is far to the right.  I named this optical configuration the "super-apochromat" because it is corrected for five colors instead of three like conventional apochromats.  An apochromat is a lens that is corrected for three colors, or in other words, brings three wavelenghts to a common focus.

A negative photograph of the veil nebula complex in Cygnus taken with a simak telescope, showing the entire 3+ degree diameter field.  I took most of my monochrome simak photos on the very high-resolution hypersensitized 2415 film because well guided simak photos in good seeing conditions record 15u to 20u images across the entire field.  I took most of my color simak photos on hypersensitized Fujichrome 50 and Fujichrome 100 film for similar reasons.   I developed Fujichrome slide film as a negative, however, because color rendition and dynamic range were superior, and because my goal was usually to create large display transparencies on translucent Kodak Duratrans, which produces a negative of the original.

A negative photograph of the north american nebula complex in Cygnus taken with a simak telescope, showing the entire 3+ degree field.  Ditto the above comments.

Photographs of the whirlpool galaxy taken with an f/6 simak telescope showing the full 3+ degree field, then blowups of smaller parts of the field.  Click each images to see it larger.

A photograph of the lagoon / trifid nebulae complex in Sagittarius taken with a simak telescope, showing the entire 3+ degree field.  The second image zeros in on the lagoon nebula.

The CAT console with all displays and legends illuminated for illustration purposes only.  The CAT is a "computer aided telescope" accessory I developed in 1986 for small portable and observatory telescopes.  The CAT tracks and displays telescope position, contains my detailed CNGC database of 7840 deep-sky objects and 351 stars, identifies objects in the field of view, automatically selects objects based upon observer specifications, guides telescope to objects quickly & accurately, etc.  I also developed a similar CCT device that slews, positions, centers and guides the telescope.  Both devices interface to external computers to support unlimited expansion of capabilities and special purpose remote control.

The CAT attached to a Meade 10" f/6.3 schmidt-cassegrain telescope.

The CAT attached to a Celestron 8" f/10 schmidt-cassegrain telescope.

A light-hearted ad for the CAT in March 1987 Sky and Telescope magazine.

Near the right end of the photo is the observatory where I lived, worked and observed for 7 years.   The vertical tower of the windmill power generator is barely visible slightly to the left of the observatory.  The solar panels and backup power generator hut are not visible.

The 36" aperture f/10 cassegrain telescope at the mira observatory on chews ridge - see image above.  The primary research instruments are liquid nitrogen cooled solid-state spectrographs, partially visible extending below the cassegrain focus.

A photograph of Tucson taken fifteen years ago.  My former home is the foreground house ringed by red lights.  The road in the upper left going south into the city is Swan.

A photograph from the back yard of my home in Tucson taken fifteen years ago.  This one photograph contains star-trails, clouds, sunset, lightning, saguaro cactus, city-lights, the streak of a passing plane.

astronomy

I have spent thousand of hours operating telescopes under the night sky.  Most of this time was spent taking data for various astronomy research projects, or installing/testing/optimizing instruments, or experimenting with data-acquisition/processing/analysis techniques.

The following table lists some of my projects.  I have taken data for other projects too, but in those cases I was simply taking data for astronomer-researchers, not participating in scientific analysis or inference from the data in any significant way.

telescopes

I am a telescope expert.  I have spent thousands of hours operating dozens of different telescopes, from portable telescopes to 1-meter research telescopes at professional observatories.  Furthermore, I have designed, built, automated and tested a wide variety of telescopes, optics, and related instrumentation, which gives me a thorough theoretical and practical understanding of every aspect of telescopes, optics, instrumentation, automation.  See the mechanics, optics, instrumentation, robotics sections below for details.  This section only describes my experience operating telescopes.

mechanics

I am good at general mechanical design, but I can design telescopes and telescope instrumentation particularly well because I understand the issues very well, and because I have been thinking about and experimenting with telescope and instrumentation design for decades.  For several years I had my own precision machine shop, and I even made a few patterns and poured my own aluminum castings.  I especially enjoyed machining glass-like materials (BK7, quartz, zerodur, etc) because I can make far more accurate and durable parts with these materials than with any metal.  I have significant experience designing astronomical instrumentation and understand the special problems involved (operate in wide temperature ranges, operate in variable/moving physical orientations, etc).  I understand the consequences of mechanical errors and instabilities on astronomical instrumentation because I understand issues like telescope resolution, instrument / sensor resolution, temperature expansion effects, and the relationships between angular and linear errors throughout the telescope and its instrumentation.

optics

I am an expert in astronomical, telescope, photographic and spectrographic optics.

photography

. . . later . . .

instrumentation

. . . later . . .

programming

. . . later . . .

computers

. . . later . . .

robotics

. . . later . . .

electronics

. . . later . . .

copyright 1988-2001 - all rights reserved - patents pending