Greg Parker
Greg Parker is Professor of Photonics at the University of Southampton, Hampshire, U.K. He uses light in optical circuits the same way that electronics engineers use electrons in conventional electronic circuits. Greg loves light and everything to do with light including optical instruments, photography (high-speed with specialist home-built flashguns, as well as ultra-low-speed deep-sky imaging), lasers, LEDs, photonic crystals, lenses, prisms, spectrometers, and diffraction gratings – all are of equal interest.
Greg’s fascination with photography is probably genetic, passed down by his father, who for some unknown reason decided he would carry out plate (!) photography during World War 1 in the deserts of Egypt and Afghanistan. By the way, he did this all from horseback, as he was in the Lancers. He brought back many fascinating pictures of the North West frontier, and was even in Luxor when Carter discovered Tutankhamen’s tomb. With this sort of excitement in the Parker household it is perhaps not too suprising that the oldest boy (Greg’s brother) spent his working life as a forensic photographer with Scotland Yard, and the youngest boy (Greg) took to high-speed and deep-space photography – the genes were just too strong.
Greg has published a textbook on semiconductor device physics, and a book on how to take deep-space images (Springer) called “Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images”. In addition he has published over 120 scientific papers, a number of book chapters, and has over a dozen Patents to his name. Finally, he has created four successful companies.
However, when all is said and done, his one true love is astrophotography, and if the night is clear he will be out in his New Forest Observatory capturing ancient photons from the night skies.
You can email Greg with any comments/questions regarding astronomical imaging at:
Greg Parker, Ph.D., C.Phys., C.Eng., F.Inst.P., Brockenhurst, U.K. 2008
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