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Contact information
website
http://www.heavensgloryobservatory.com
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Locator Map
http://www.frappr.com/apppublic
Level of accuracy: Auburn-Worcester, MA
Biography
I am President of PI (Physik
Instrumente) USA. PI is the world's leading manufacture of
piezoceramic based micro and nanopositioning equipment used in research
and industrial applications including: adaptive optic positioners for
astronomical telescopes (UKIRT, Keck, NASA IRTF, ESO, Subaru, SALT, etc.),
semiconductor fabricating equipment, telecomunication fibre optics, mask
alignment and autofocusing mechanisms and high resolution microscopy. Prior to PI, I was a director with Newport
Corporation, a manufacturer of optical components, motion systems and
motorized micropositioners. Formerly, I was on the Board of
Directors of LEOMA, the Laser and Electro-Optic Manufacturers Association
of America. Currently, I sit on the editorial advisory board of
Photonics Spectra (the leading publication of the worldwide photonics
industry), am Chairman of the Finance Advisory Committee for the SPIE
(International Society of Optical Engineers) and a member of the
Corporate Associates Committee of the OSA (Optical Society of America).
I was born in
Toronto Canada, but now live in
Worcester,
Massachusetts USA where I
serve as a leader in our local Christian church.
I am married with 3 daughters and am
a member of the Springfield Telescope Makers (home of Stellafane) and the
Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston.
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Astronomy
has been a passion of mine since my Dad took me outside one evening in
1960 to watch the ECHO 1 satellite glide over our house in Toronto. I was
5 at the time and remember going to the library weekly from that point on
to read books on astronomy, telescopes, space exploration and machines. We
were quite poor therefore getting a telescope was out of the question even
though I waited anxiously every Christmas for one. When I was ten I
chanced upon a broken and discarded cardboard telescope that someone had
thrown in their garbage can. What a treasure! I tinkered around with the
objective and a couple of lenses I had removed from "box" cameras that I
had bought at a local Salvation Army store. Once I seemed to have a pretty
good working combination I turned my first scope on the moon.
Unbelievable!!!!!!! To this day few sights have been as awe inspiring.
The passion
continued and through high school every project in my mechanical drafting
and machine shop classes involved making some part for my telescopes. In
mechanical engineering at university every design and fabrication project
conveniently centered around the current telescope project I was working
on at that time. Needless to say school was never a drag. I drove my
teachers and professors crazy because I was always racing to finish the
standard curriculum to get on with my telescope parts.....and save myself
considerable money! I learned to be a master of "scrounge" which
makes me look at everything and wonder how to use it for making telescope
parts. This desire to save money and build has taught me a lot about the
technology of high precision having made just about every mistake one can
make in designing and building performance scopes for high resolution
imaging.....and there are still areas to work on in my current designs.
In 1985, Sky
and Telescope published an article on a 12.5" Cass Newt that I built, but
from 1985 through 1993 I was on a telescope making sabbatical, being very
busy with family, church, career responsibilities and house moves. However
that didn’t stop my interest. Just pumped it up! Over the last 15 years
though I have worked on a number of new scopes, facilities and scope
accessories and am happy to share the excitement and joy this hobby
provides.
Heaven’s
Glory Observatories grew out of the practical need to house my telescopes
but also to honor and worship God for his Creation and love for us. The
writings from Psalm 19:1 on the "Pink" Clubhouse” at Stellafane have real
meaning to me.
As most
astroimagers are painfully aware, there are a lot of working hours between
sundown and sunup. I can’t recount the number of times I saw the sun rise
as I built telescope equipment and accessories or finished up an image
series. And yes......my wife is an angel and without her patience and
understanding this work could never have been accomplished…and imagine
that…. one of our daughters is taking biomedical imaging at university!
Astronomy Tale
I was 11 and
my parents took the family to a drive in theatre in northwest Toronto. I
was bored with the movie and looked out the back window of the car to
count constellations. All of a sudden I saw a streak and then a blinding
flash with some trailing “sparks” that lit up the whole sky and ground as
if it was the middle of day . People jumped out of their cars, some crying
in fear it was a nuclear attack. I was jumping with excitement because I
knew it was a meteor but my Dad told me to shut up. Turned out to be a
meteor ( the Kincardine high airburst) and an awesome one at that. From
that point on “looking up” took on new meaning.
Areas of interest
Telescope
making from optics, mounts, OTA’s, CCD cameras, filter wheels, focusers
etc. High resolution deep sky CCD imaging with a particular interest in
galactic nebula.
Astrophotography Publications
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For
details see the following:
http://www.heavensgloryobservatory.com/publications_credits.htm
Magazines
Smithsonian, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy,
various international magazines,
photonics trade magazines
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Internet
APOD
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TV/radio/ Newspapers
CBS News, local radio stations & newspapers
Observing sites
Local site
My main imaging site is in central Massachusetts under 4.9 limiting
magnitude skies at an elevation of 800 ft. Worcester, a city of 200,000 is
approx. 10 miles away, Boston is 50 miles and there are a number of 10,000
plus population towns within 8 miles.
This is the light pollution map for Heaven’s Glory Observatory I:
http://www.heavensgloryobservatory.com/webpageMiscellaneous/HGO%20LP%20Map.jpg
Remote
Dark Site
A new site called Heaven’s Glory Observatory II is under construction
about a ½ mile away from New Mexico Skies under magnitude 7 skies at an
elevation of 7300 feet.
See this link for more details:
http://www.heavensgloryobservatory.com/observatory.htm
Astronomical Equipment
Telescopes/Mounts
20” Ritchey-Chrétien telescope
homebuilt 12.5” f/4/15 Newtonian/Classical Cassegrain
8” TEC Maksutov
All on personally built imaging mounts
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CCD cameras
SBIG STL 6303E, FLI IMG 6303E, FLI IMG1001E
Software
Maxim DL/CCD, Photoshop, AIP, Registar
Brian’s
new homebuilt wide field short f/ratio imaging scope with homebuilt mount
set up for first light at the 2005 Winter Star Party.
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