Nik Szymanek

Nik Szymanek is a lifelong amateur astronomer based in Essex, England. He is a keen astronomical photographer and regularly travels to La Palma where, apart from taking CCD images and widefield night sky photographs, he liaises with the regular staff to produce public relations pictures and a DVD video for the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. Recent work has included processing of images taken with the three ING telescopes, some of which have appeared in prestigious magazines such as Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, Ciel et Espace, Astronomy Now and The Sky at Night magazine. A Public Understanding of Science grant from the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) led to a visit to the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii, in 2004 for public relations photography and astrophotography. He is also a regular user of the 2 metre robotic Faulkes Telescope on Hawaii (and Siding Spring, Australia) and is helping to develop new imaging and processing methods for use by students with the Faulkes Telescope.Back in the UK, Nik is a regular supplier of high-quality images to many magazine and book publishers and has appeared on the BBC’s “The Sky at Night” and “Final Frontier” astronomy programmes and also the BBC’s “All Night Star Party”. Other interests include lecturing to astronomical, photographic and science societies as well as schools and non-astronomy-related institutions. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Astrophysics Research and is responsible for teaching undergraduate students instrumentation and telescope imaging techniques. students with the Faulkes Telescope. In July 2004 Nik traveled to Berkeley, California to receive the prestigious Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Amateur Achievement Award for 2004, in joint recognition of his image processing expertise and public outreach. Recent projects include the publication of an astronomical picture book, Infinity Rising, designed to help people starting out in photographing the night sky.