Tamas Ladanyi

Tamas Ladanyi lives with his family in a small Hungarian town, Veszprem. Born in 1972, his first experience in astronomy was to see the return of Comet Halley in 1985. In his adolescent years, fascinated by wonders of the night sky, he began observing some double stars with the help of his school teacher. Now an avid amateur astronomer, Tamas is specialized in observing and meausring double stars. He edited the double stars column of Meteor magazine, published by the Hungarian Astronomical Association. He possesses diploma in geography, tourism management, and economics.Tamas is a self-educated photographer. Always keen to visit astronomy-viable places, Tamas has visited numerous corners of the world - from Iceland, through the Himalayas, to Patagonia.In his house garden Tamas has set up a roll-off roof observatory. He mainly concentrates on double stars measurements. In fact by CCD camera he discovered two new double stars which were cataloged by the US Naval Observatory under his name (LAD1,LAD2). His other area of interest is to study the origin of star names which are included in the sagas of his country; he also tries to collect photo ideas around the same topic. On the same subject, he led an exhibition and edited the constellation map of Hungarian folklore.In 2000, Tamas started exploring different fields of digital astrophotography. His interest grew in landscape astrophotography. For TWAN-style imaging, Lake Balaton and Bakony mountains are his favorite spots. He works for several appreciated mediums; his photographs have been published on well-known websites such as NASA and National Geographic. He leads an astrophotography column at the Hungarian edition of National Geographic. In 2012 he released a timelapse DVD that presents amazing night views of Hungary accompanied by folk melodies. The Hungarian Scientific Academy Piszkéstető Observatory honored his work by naming a recently discovered asteroid Ladanyi (181298).