Observer and imager from light-polluted Outer London. Telescope and observatory enthusiast. My main current interest is imaging the Moon and planets in high-resolution, but I also dabble in solar, cometary and asteroid work, and take deep-sky images as well.

My main telescopes are a Celestron C-14, a C-11 fitted with a Hyperstar imaging system, and a 245mm Newtonian. I use several smaller telescopes as well, including a Lunt LS60 double-stacked H alpha telescope, and a 100mm refractor that I do much public outreach work with, taking it in a trolley around London on buses and tube trains. The other telescopes are housed in three observatory sheds I have constructed.

I wrote a book entitled Setting-up a Small Observatory, in Patrick Moore's Practical Astronomy Series (Springer). I often contribute also to Astronomy Now magazine. I give talks, mostly around practical amateur astronomy, but also sometimes on historical and cosmological subjects.

I am currently (2018) on the Board of Trustees and Council of the BAA. In June 2018 Council appointed me the first Director of the new Equipment & Techniques Section of the BAA (a successor to earlier sections concerned with telescope-making and the like). I am also on the committees of the Jupiter and Mercury & Venus Sections and Chair of the Sir Patrick Moore Prize committee. I am also a Vice-President of, and Publicity Officer for, the West of London Astronomical Society.

Local society membership: West of London Astronomical Society (WOLAS)