Flying

I’ve been a commercial pilot and flight instructor since 1988, although I only fly recreationally now, and even then not as much as I would like. Flying is incredibly expensive now (I guess it has always been) and general aviation seems to be dying which is a terrible shame.

Astronomy

I’ve been interested in astronomy since I was a child, and have completed diploma level courses in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Western Sydney. I tried my hand at astrophotography in the mid 1990’s before digital cameras were a thing using my Celestron C8 SCT and a Canon AE-1 SLR with very fast film. Results weren’t great so I gave up. My telescope sat in the garage for a couple of decades until I rediscovered my interest during the pandemic of 2020. Since then I have fully embraced digital astrophotography and have a number of rigs. I’m building an observatory on my farm where I hope to dedicate more time towards it, and try and do a bit of proper science as well!

Electronics

I studied Electrical Engineering at university so have always been interested in microelectronics. (I found power engineering boring!) On a customer visit to Canberra sometime around 2008, one of the system administrators introduced me to the Arduino. He was a model train buff and used them to control the switching of tracks. I was interested in building my own drone (not the copter type drones everyone has these days, I was interested in fixed wing as I flew RC aeroplanes at the time) and this seemed like the ideal computer for a simple autopilot. From there I discovered microcontrollers (PIC and ARM) and then Raspberry Pi and the various clones. It was the first time I had written assembly code since the days of my Commodore 64 in the early ’80s! I now use Raspberry Pis to control some of my astronomy gear. Still need to build that drone autopilot though!

Miscellaneous

Like any good nerd there is also a handful of other interests including rocketry, painting etc – too many interests and not much time to indulge in them unfortunately!