BFSP 2017 Speakers
Keynote: Dr. Fred Espenak – world renowned eclipse expert
Fred Espenak’s career as a NASA astrophysicist at Goddard Space Flight Center spans more than 30 years. His primary research involves the infrared spectroscopy of planetary atmospheres although he is better known as NASA’s eclipse expert Mr. Eclipse. He is currently a scientist emeritus at Goddard and he maintains NASA’s official eclipse web site (eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov) as well as his personal web site on eclipse photography (www.mreclipse.com). Fred has published numerous books and articles of eclipse predictions including the NASA Eclipse Bulletins series, and he is the co-author of the popular book Totality: Eclipses of the Sun. His magnum opus, the Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses, includes a map of every solar eclipse occurring between 2000 BC and AD 3000.
Since retiring, Espenak has begun a new series of eclipse publications through his company Astropixels Publishing. Among the most recent titles are Thousand Year Canon of Solar Eclipses, Eclipse Bulletin: Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 August 21, and Road Atlas for the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017. He also runs three web sites: 1) MrEclipse.com (all about eclipse photography), 2) EclipseWise.com (eclipse predictions for thousands of years), and 3) Astropiixels.com (astrophotography from Bifrost Astronomical Observatory).
Espenak’s interest in eclipses was first sparked after witnessing a total solar eclipse in 1970. Since then, he has participated in 34 eclipse expeditions around the world including Antarctica. Fred’s eclipse photographs have appeared in both national and international publications, and he has lectured extensively on the Sun, eclipses and photography. In 2003, the International Astronomical Union honored him for his work on eclipses by naming an asteroid Espenak. Fred now lives in rural Arizona, where he spends most clear nights losing sleep and photographing the stars (www.astropixels.com).
Edited/Excerpted from www.mreclipse.com
Edward Emerson Barnard was a professor of astronomy at the University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory. He is considered by some to be the last great Victorian classical visual observer, living at the dawn of the age of the “New Astronomy” – astrophysics. But Barnard was also one of the first pioneers of wide-field photography, studying the structure of the Milky-Way. We’re going to look back on his life and accomplishments, including his ‘Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky-Way’, and also review several of my observations of his dark nebula.
Larry McHenry has been active in amateur astronomy for over 40 years, and is a member of the Kiski Astronomers from Southwestern Pennsylvania, in the Pittsburgh area. His favorite astronomical activities include solar observing, video astronomy, and studying the mythology of the night sky. Larry is currently working on a project to video-observe all 2400 Herschel Objects. You can learn more about his interests, including his video-survey of the Constellations, and his home observatory, online at his webportal: http://www.stellar-journeys.org/