Hello, I’m Greg Parker a Professor of Photonics at the University of Southampton, UK.  and the CEO of Parker Technology, my Consultancy company.  I have 15 years industrial experience, including 3 years setting up my own University spin out company Mesophotonics Ltd., and 20 years teaching and carrying out photonics research at the University of Southampton. 

I am a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Chartered Physicist and a Chartered Engineer.  I have published over 120 refereed journal articles, more than a dozen Patents, and a textbook on Introductory Semiconductor Device Physics.  An  Astronomy “How to” book was published by Springer in November 2007, and a coffee-table book of deep-sky images is also due to be published by Springer in early 2009.

I can clearly remember the night of Thursday 2nd May 2002 as if it were yesterday.  It was the first night that I properly aligned my brand new 11″ Celestron GPS scope (purchased from David Hinds, U.K.) so that I could automatically go to all the objects I’d read about for many years - but never seen before.  I wrote about the experience in a “Lateral Thoughts” article in the September 2002 issue of Physics World (IOP Publications) titled, somewhat sadly, “The most amazing two and a half hours of my life (so far)”.

Amazingly, since that time more amazing things have happened - I got a CCD camera and started deep-sky imaging.  Never in my wildest dreams as an 12 year old fascinated by astronomy did I guess that I would be able to take deep-sky images from my own back garden in my lifetime!”

On clear Moonless evenings you’ll find me in the New Forest Observatory imaging deep-sky objects.

If you have want to contact me about imaging Deep-Sky objects or anything related to the New Forest Observatory please email me at greg@newforestobservatory.com.

The Beginning

Life was fairly uneventful for me until I hit age 12 and my parents decided they wanted to take a look at New Zealand. I’d always been interested in astronomy (I think I got my first refractor for Christmas aged around eight) - but the trip to New Zealand really got the astronomy moving.  Living in Takapuna on the East coast of the North Island I regularly spent the whole evening fishing from the lava rocks that had been thrown up by the volcano Rangitoto some three miles out in the bay [no, I didn't attend much school].  Looking up into that completely dark night sky was a pretty awe inspiring experience, plus there was the added fun of all the stars I’d never seen before from the U.K.

Unfortunately the dream came to an end and my parents and I returned to the U.K.  All, however, was not finished astronomy-wise.  We ended up living in a village called Walkhampton within Dartmoor National Park.  When the skies were clear, they were also completely free of light pollution - this was observer’s heaven!  The view through an ordinary pair of 10 x 50 binoculars was unbelievable, and one night, camping out in the middle of Dartmoor one summer evening, I took a peek out of the tent at about 2.00 a.m.  I have never seen such a perfect night sky (even in New Zealand!) before, or since.

Working 

Fun comes to an end at some point though, and you have to go out to work.  I took an H.N.C.¹ whilst working for the Culham Labs in Oxford, and received Distinctions in Applied Physics and Pure mathematics from Oxford Polytechnic [now Oxford Brookes University].  This set me up to take a degree in Physics, Maths and Astronomy at Sussex University [1975 - 1978] where I managed to scrape a First.  This also put me off anything to do with Astronomy for about 5 years!” 

I then went to work at Philips Research Labs, Redhill, Surrey and at the same time took a PhD at Surrey University which was awarded in 1982.   I spent a total of 15 years in Industry [including 3 years in my University spin out company Mesophotonics Ltd.] and this is my 21st year [2008] at the University of Southampton where I am a Professor of Photonics.  Somehow I also found the time to create and sell two other companies.

Purchasing the Celestron Nexstar 

At the beginning of 2002 I found myself in a situation I had never encountered before, I had some spare cash to buy myself a good quality telescope and plumped for the Celestron Nexstar 11″ GPS with Hyperstar attachment.  I used this for visual work only [the Hyperstar remained untouched in its box] for two years, carrying the kit in and out of doors on any clear night.  In November 2004 I bought my first CCD, a Starlight Xpress SXV-H9C which was a perfect match for the Hyperstar lens.  All my initial images were taken with the fantastic Hyperstar working at an amazing f#1.85.

During 2005 I was invited to join the Our Dark Skies forum [U.S.A.] by Bud Guinn who I had met on the Starlight Xpress Yahoo forum.  On the ODS forum I came across an image processing expert called Noel Carboni - and the rest as they say is history

The Takahashi Sky 90

From September 2006 I have been imaging with a Takahashi Sky 90 refractor at f#4.6 and a large format Starlight Xpress SXVF-M25C one-shot colour camera.  The little Tak gives an amazing flat field across a massive 3.33 x 2.22 degrees field of view (FOV).  Also, star shapes are good across the whole FOV [ something that wasn't possible with the ultra-fast Hyperstar] - the only downside of the Tak is that it is 6 times slower than the Hyperstar system.  However, the field of view with the SXVF-M25C is actually 10 times greater than the Hyperstar/H9C combination - so overall I’m actually winning.

The Future and the mini-WASP array

I will stick with the Sky 90/M25C combination until I complete my next major project - the New Forest Observatory mini-WASP array.  But don’t hold your breath over this one - it’s going to take some time (and a lot of cash).  The mini-WASP will use multiple refractors and CCD cameras [just like the super-WASP arrays] and it will need to go on a professional mount - almost certainly the Paramount ME [and have you seen the price of those!!].  Well that’s the dream anyway.  Keep looking at this site to see the progress on the mini-WASP array - currently a local precision engineering shop is making the rigid framework to hold the refractors.  I have posted a picture of the framework on the site.

1. Higher National Certificate