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Contact information.
website
http://www.astrophoto.com
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Biography
I
was born in Washington DC in 1945. My parents were American citizens
living in Turkey, so most of my childhood summers were spent there. The
rest of that time I attended school in the U.S> at Miami Country Day
School and then South Kent Parochial School. From there I went on to
University of Miami to study pharmacology but found that wasn’t for me. My
interest in photography and surfing lead him to move to California to
attend Brooks Institute where I graduated with a BA. I was later drafted
and spent a year in Vietnam as a combat photographer. After returning I
started a small photo lab in Ventura, CA which became very successful with
over 20 employees. I became interested in astronomy in 1986 during
Halley's Comet.
I have been active in astronomy
since 1986 and have been doing astrophotography since 1987. I am self
taught through books and trial and error. When I was getting started I was
fortunate to have Kim Zussman and Marty Germano in my astronomy club who
helped me out. My wife Daphne and I have always
worked together as a team. We have both worked as photo lab technicians
with combined experience of
over 30 years.
While living in southern California I owned a large custom/commercial
photo lab for many years but have sold it now so that we can concentrate
on astrophotography full time. In 1992 I formed Astro Photo; a small lab
specifically for astrophotographers. I am able to offer the techniques I
used in processing my own work to others who do not have the time to do it
themselves. My specialty is making large prints for display.
My imaging spans three chapters. The first
chapter involved purely photo mechanical enhancement techniques such as
physically stacking negatives. The second chapter involved digitizing film
and utilizing many digital enhancement techniques. The third chapter is
the utilization of a CCD camera to acquire 16 bit digital data directly
from the sky.
One
of my greatest honors was receiving the Clyde W. Tombaugh Award at the
2001 RTMC for technical innovations in astronomy. I have met great people
and established long-term friendships through astronomy. The years we
traveled to Mount Pinos were great. We fondly remember times when we would
arrive at the parking lot during the week and no one was there and we felt
really alone and all of a sudden we would see a car pulling up and it
would be Mike Stecker ready to provide company. Now we work from our
backyard observatory in Foresthill and all the
camaraderie
and sharing of information is online or at the star parties and
conferences across the country.
Astrophotography publications
editor's note
Tony
and Daphne's work has been published is so many magazines and books that
they stopped keeping track of them. Tony believes you are only as good as
your last photograph and continually strives for the
best that is possible.
Observing site
Home observatory at Foresthill,
California, USA
Astronomical Equipment
I have used many telescopes
throughout my photographic years which have included a Celestron 14" SCT
mounted on a 12 Schaefer mount, 4", 5", 6", and 7" Astro-Physics
refractors, and a 12.5" f/7 Newtonian on the 12" Schaefer mount, a William
Optics 4" refractor mounted on a MI250 mount and a Stellarvue 6" f/7.9
refractor on a AP1200 GOTO mount. Currently, I am using a 14.5" f/8 RCOS
Classical Cassegrain on an Astro-Physics 1200 GTO Mount with the SBIG
STL-11k imaging camera. Extreme wide-field imaging is done using a Canon
20DA.
.
Telescope
14.5" f/8 RCOS Scott Classical
Cassegrain
Mount
Astro-Physics 1200
GTO
Cameras
SBIG STL-11k
Canon 20DA
Photo Gallery
.
Tony at home with his 14.5-inch f/8 RCOS Scott
Classical Cassegrain
telescope, Astro-Physics 1200
GTO mount and SBIG STL-11k CCD camera
Tony (center) at his last astro-trip
to Mt. Pinos, California in 2000.
From left to right: Michael Stecker, Martin Germano, James Foster, Tony
Hallas, Bob Fera,
Janice Fera and Butch Trombley
Tony at the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference
Tony Hallas, Janice Fera and Bill Williams at 2015 Advanced
Imaging Conference |
