Towards the end of 2000, I completed a PhD. in surface physics at Murdoch University in Perth Western Australia. My research project was to investigate the adsorption of aurocyanide onto carbon, a process used in the gold mining industry to obtain gold from gold-bearing ore. As part of this project, I used a scanning tunneling microscope to image gold atoms on the carbon surface. This was certainly a case of going from one extreme to the other:- atoms by day...... and galaxies by night!!!!
In 2001 I moved to the USA to take up a 2-year position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Carleton College in Minnesota, USA. Again a case of one extreme to another! From the hot sun and golden beaches of Perth, to the snow and icy winters of the mid-western USA. After that contract ended, I had a 1-year position at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.
I am now at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland. The campus observatory houses a 10" LX200 in a roll-off roof building and a 16" LX200 in an Ash dome. Unfortunatey, being less than 40km from Washington DC, the light pollution is horrendously bad, with the naked eye limiting magnitude being around 4! :-(
My main research interests are in photometry of asteroids and comets, and I am concentrating most of my time at present of asteroid light curves. I also enjoy deep sky observing, for which I currently have a 10" dobsonian, and astrophotography, for which I use a Jagers 5" f/5 refractor mounted on a Losmandy GM8 with a Meade 3" f/15 refractor and SBIG ST-4 for guiding. Unfortunately the astrophotography has had to take a back seat for a while due to the very bad light pollution around the university campus.
 Astronomy pages |
 Asteroid Photometry |
 Honours Project |
 PhD Project |