Welcome to my blog! My name is Dave and I’m in the medical field, so most call me Dr Dave or just Doc. I also have an undergraduate degree in Astronomy and it is definitely my passion. I remember when my younger brother did a science report on comet Kohoutek back in 1973 and after reading some of the reference materials he was using I was hooked. I got my first telescope a couple of years later and the rest is history.
My astronomy activites include astroimaging, spectroscopy, visual observing and public outreach through our local astronomy club. I have equipment at SkyPi remote observatory in Pie Town, NM where I do most of my imaging. This is a beautiful pristine Bortle 1 spot about 40 minutes west of the National Radio Observatory Very Large Array. I also have a small roll-off in my backyard I use for spectroscopy and narrow band imaging. My wife and I travel to various dark sites with our RV and I am able to do visual observing and portable imaging there.
My family and I moved to the “Land of Enchantment” from the dismal Northeast US in 2013 . I would always go the NEAF (Northeast Astronomy Forum) show in New York every year since about the early 2000’s and see the “New Mexico Skies” booth and think to my self “wow, imagine being able to do astronomy from there!” Well I finally did arrive there and built a remote observatory across the street from New Mexico Skies. It was fantastic for about 6 years until groups of ranchers moved into the area and installed a ton of security lights. The sky conditions declined as well. So I sold the observatory and moved my equipment northwest to Pie Town where the seeing is a full arc sec and a half better! This blog is really just a vehicle to share the many astronomy related activities I am involved in, and perhaps a few people will get hooked like I did on some aspect of it or perhaps learn something they didn’t know before. Thanks everyone for reading!
Dr Dave
daveandtelescope 