SmartStars

I’m an astronomer by profession. I have a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the U. of Chicago and have spent my career mostly in the informal side of astronomy education: first at the Adler Planetarium in my hometown Chicago, then helping create the new Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City, then working for NASA education, and more recently consulting on planetariums and astronomy education programs world wide. My most recent project was the new Shanghai Astronomy Museum in China, which is by far the largest of its type in the world. When the COVID crisis started I received one of the first eVscopes. I live on the west side of Chicago where the light pollution is pretty bad. But, with my eVscope I've been out well over a hundred times in my back alley and have observed among other things the entire Messier catalog, Pluto, the JWST, Starlink satellites and even a Quasar 6 billion light years away. I've been to star parties where I've seen the power of these scopes in delivering great experiences for attendees even when other scopes couldn't. At the end of 2022 I receive one of the first Vesperas and was blown away by being able to capture all of the Andromeda galaxy in one session from a nearby park while dodging loose dogs and kids chasing them at night. The latter might be pursuing balls here on Earth, but my eyes are trained to the skies and I'm seeing deep space even in light polluted skies. I get excited helping other see for themselves the way Galileo did showing people his first telescopes. (Oh, BTW.... now that I've mentioned him, I do have a nice book I wrote with my wife -- the real writer in the family. It's available on Amazon. It's called "Dear Galileo, Letters from a Contemporary Astronomer to his Hero." It works on Kindle, but the print version is the best because of all the color images -- some of which were shot with my eVscope. I'm very proud of the book.)