Other Stuff

In addition to astrophysics, I'm also interested in astronomy instrumentation and astrophotography! 

Because many prominent observatories are operated remotely and/or by a dedicated observing staff (and they often produce large, minable data archives), it's quite possible for a modern astrophysicist to to complete their PhD and perform many years of research without ever operating a telescope on their own. However, I've been lucky to have access to some personal observing experience.

When I was young, I wanted to be a scientist. This desire was somewhat nebulous, because all of natural science was of interest to me, from chemistry and geology to physics and astronomy. I found astronomy, however, to be the most fascinating and captivating of my imagination. My dad would occasionally take me stargazing or let me flip through his books on space, and while I enjoyed these activities in the moment, I ultimately found them dissatisfying. I wanted more – more information, closer views, deeper understanding.

When I got older, I eventually decided to invest in some good-quality (though modest) personal telescope hardware and take up backyard observing and astrophotography for fun. I'm still not great at it, but I'm learning (examples below). At this point I have a few scopes, including a 60mm refractor and a 5" Maksutov-Cassegrain, both on computerized alt-az tripod mounts, as well as an old (circa 1970s) 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain on a motorized equatorial tripod mount, along with various eyepieces, adapters, and color and spectroscopic grating filters. At some point, I'd like to get a simple 6"-8" Dobsonian for its relative ease of setup. My camera is a Canon EOS Rebel T5 DSLR, and for image stacking/processing I tend to just use simple programs like GIMP or Photoshop.

I also have some direct research-level observing experience. During my undergrad studies I volunteered at the Jack C. Davis Observatory in Carson City, NV and learned how to operate their 14"-16" research-grade telescopes. During my grad studies, I spent a year working as the UNR operations liaison for the Great Basin Observatory, a remotely operated, 0.7m optical telescope located in the Great Basin National Park. My duties included operating the telescope and its instruments manually, monitoring and troubleshooting automated operations, and helping observers with planning and performing their observations and retrieving and processing their data products.

Going forward, it would be neat to be involved with development and/or operation of instrumentation at a large observatory. I'm particularly interested in spectroscopy and radio astronomy.

I also like tinkering with PC hardware and software, and I have some experience coding/scripting with, e.g., Python, MATLAB, HTML, and C++. Aside from my modern PCs, I have a modest collection of "retro" (circa 1990s) desktop and laptop PC hardware running various versions of MS-DOS and Windows. In addition to returning to my favorite games/programs from back-in-the-day on various hardware component combinations, I particularly enjoy finding new favorites amongst the many titles and components I didn't have time, money, or capability to try when they were new.