2004 Speakers
(alphabetical listing)
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Larry Arnold
is an Adobe Photoshop expert and part-owner of
Cuztom, Inc.
a digital imaging company which has operated
in Southern California for over 25 years,
serving the imaging needs of advertising, commercial,
design, and corporate clients.
Larry is a member of the Orange County Astronomers,
and an avid amateur telescope maker and observer.
Larry's telescope, which always seems to be
undergoing even more design improvement, has won awards at
the Riverside Telescope Makers' Conference.
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Dr. Don Pettit has been
part of NASA's space program since April 1996.
From Nov. 23, 2002 to May 3, 2003, he
spent 5-1/2 months aboard the International Space Station
as Science Officer of Expedition-6. During the stay
the crew worked with numerous U.S. and Russian
science experiments. Dr. Pettit and the mission
commander performed 2 EVAs (spacewalks) to continue
the external outfitting of the orbital outpost. The
Expedition-6 crew launched on STS-113 Space Shuttle
Endeavour and returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-1.
Prior to coming to NASA, Dr. Pettit worked as
a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Los Alamos, New Mexico from 1984-1996. Projects
included reduced gravity fluid flow and materials
processing experiments on board the NASA KC-135
airplane, atmospheric spectroscopy measurements on
noctolucent clouds seeded from sounding rocket
payloads, volcano fumarole gas sampling on active
volcanos, and problems in detonation physics applied
to weapon systems. He was a member of the Synthesis
Group, slated with assembling the technology to
return to the moon and explore Mars (1990), and the
Space Station Freedom Redesign Team (1993).
Dr. Pettit is also an amateur astrophotographer
(of the standard terrestrial variety) who owns
a Questar scope.
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Greg Pyros
is an accomplished CCD astro imager, having had his
images published both locally and in Sky and
Telescope magazine. He is a member of the Orange
County Astronomers (OCA), and has a pad and permanent
pier at their California desert site near Anza, where
he does most of his imaging. He is a charter member
of the OCA AstroImaging Special Interest Group.
Greg is also the founder of
AstroVideos,
which creates astronomically related videos.
AstroVideos produces both custom videos for
astronomical companies and their own training videos.
When not imaging, Greg is the owner/operator of
Pyros Pictures, a 3D computer
graphics studio which creates special effects for
feature films and broadcast TV, in addition to
producing commercials and corporate videos for
clients such as Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, Disney,
and Meade Instruments.
Web page:
http://www.GregPyros.com
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Robert Reeves began
experimenting with lunar photography in the 1950's.
He achieved high-resolution lunar images in 1961 and
soon expanded his astrophotography to include
wide-field deep-sky work with 35-mm cameras. After
completing military service, he continued solar
system photography with an 8-inch SCT. In 1977, he
acquired an 8-inch f/1.5 Schmidt camera and began
specializing in high resolution wide-field
astrophotography.
Robert has authored a book and co-authored two others
on space exploration and has contributed photographs
and over 100 articles to seven astronomical
magazines. His latest work is Wide-Field
Astrophotography, published by Willmann-Bell.
Web page:
http://www.robertreeves.com/
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Loke Kun Tan
is widely acknowledged as one of the leading
astroimagers, having worked extensively in
both film and CCD imaging. His works have been
widely published in astronomy magazines as well
as used as prime examples of fine imaging by
manufacturers of astronomical equipment.
Web page:
http://www.starryscapes.com/
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Mike Unsold
became interested in astronomy back in the 1960s when
he started exploring the solar system with a 60mm
Swift refractor. This early experience created a life
long interest in science and imaging.
His professional career started in the late 1970s and
includes many years of teaching mathematics at Kent
State University and software development. Currently
he is the owner of MLUnsold Digital Imaging and
author of ImagesPlus, the "gold standard" for image
processing of digital camera astro images.
Web page:
http://www.mlunsold.com/
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Wei-Hao Wang
is currently a graduate student in the Institute for
Astronomy at University of Hawaii's Manoa Campus in
Honolulu. His research focuses on deep imaging of
distant galaxies using various large telescopes on
Mauna Kea.
Wei-Hao started his amateur astronomy life in 1990
and soon became an active photographer and writer in
Taiwan. In the 90's, he published several of his
images in Japanese magazines and articles about
imaging techniques in Taiwanese journals. He stopped
taking pictures for 5 years since 1998 as he switched
his interest to astronomical research. After coming
to Mauna Kea and being deeply attracted by the sky,
Wei-Hao resumed his astrophotography and specializes
in ultrawidefield film imaging of deep-sky scenes.
Web page:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~wang/
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Ron Wodaski
is the author of The New CCD Astronomy, a
book covering the practical aspects of CCD imaging.
Ron has written more than a dozen books on various
computer and science topics since the early 1990s,
and he is the founder of New Astronomy Press. Ron
recently opened Blackbird Observatory, a remote
observatory that can be completely controlled via the
internet. Ron currently is writing a new book on CCD
Image Processing for astro imagers, due out late in
2004.
Web page:
http://www.newastro.com
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