After retiring from an international management position I finally had the time to engage in amateur astronomy, a childhood dream. My early background in Physics helped to overcome the first theoretical and practical hurdles when I started off with a Celestron Nexstar 5 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a set of 16x70 Fujinon binoculars. In the meantime more instrumentation has been added. Since we decided to live 6 months each year in Europe and 6 months in South Africa at the Cape I had no limitation in latitude to view astronomical objects.
After several years of sky watching and visual observation I finally decided to extend pure observation by entering the world of digital astro-photography with a Nikon Coolpix camera and then with a Canon EOS 20D DSLR. Also my camera park has grown in the meantime, since the appetite comes often with the eating.
During this time I got caught by the phantastic possibilty of observing through the camera the overwhelming beauty of extended objects like nebulae, star clusters and galaxies in color. The wonderful astro-photographs of Rob Gendler, Steve Cannistra and Stefan Seip, to name only a few, triggered me to also try to image the aesthetics of these deep sky objects and plug them from the night sky onto computer displays.
I am still learning about the challenging technology and art of astrophotography, but every time I see a colored image coming up after digitally developing a series of frames I feel all the excitement and anxiousness of discovery which drive me then for more.
Website
http:// astro-cabinet.com
Job
Physicist
Hobbies
Golf,Hiking
