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Contact information
website
http://www.spotastro.com
.
Locator
Map
http://www.frappr.com/apppublic
Level of accuracy: approximately
50 miles west of Nashville, Tennessee
Biography
I
am a practicing corporate and securities attorney and the managing partner
of the Nashville law firm Harwell Howard Hyne Gabbert and Manner PC (www.h3gm.com).
I was born in Tennessee, studied organic chemistry at Vanderbilt
University, and attended law school at University of
Memphis and Yale Law School. Early in my
legal career I worked with the United States Department of Justice in
Washington, D.C., and in the United States
Attorneys’ Office in Alexandria, Virginia. I have been with my
current law firm since 1981. I serve as the President of a local
astronomy club, the Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society, and am on the
Board of Directors of the Vanderbilt University Dyer Observatory.
My interest
in astronomy started at age 11 when my father showed me the moon in a
surveyor’s transit. Initially, I did little observing, but enjoyed reading
about cosmology in the local college library. While in law school, with
the help of my father I built a small roll-off roof observatory equipped
with a homemade 10" F5.6 Newtonian. After graduation, I acquired a 4"
Maksutov, which was my sole telescopic companion for the next 25 years,
accompanying me on three total solar eclipse trips. I recently moved a bit
west of Nashville to a relatively dark area, and built a larger roll-off
roof observatory, and for the past 2 years I have been setting up
equipment and learning how to acquire and process astronomical images. In
addition to optical astronomy, I have an interest in radio astronomy, and
will receive in late 2006 the MIT Haystack Observatory Small Radio
Telescope (SRT).
Areas of interest
I like the science of astronomy, computers,
wires, optics and gear in general, so the modern hobby of astronomical
imaging has a lot to interest me. I initially intended to image deep sky
objects exclusively, but the recent 2005 apparition of Mars lead me to try
planetary imaging. It is different in many respects from deep sky imaging,
but a lot of fun. I look forward to learning about radio astronomy in the
near future.
Observing site
I observe under magnitude 6.5
skies at my home observatory, 87° 34’ West, 35° 53’ North, elevation 225
meters, 50 miles west of Nashville, Tennessee. For more information and
photos of the Spot Observatory please see:
http://www.spotastro.com/Observatory.html
Astronomical Equipment
Telescopes
16”
RCOS Ritchey-Chrétien
10” TEC MC250/20 with a Lumenera Lu075M
6” Astro-Physics 155EDF refractor
.
Mounts
Paramount ME
(for the 16" RCOS)
.
Astro-Physics 1200GTO
(for the 10" TEC and AP 155EDF)
.
Cameras
SBIG
STL6303E
SBIG ST10XE.
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