Many moons ago while still in middle-school, Christopher started his exploration of all things astronomical. Armed with only a cardboard ‘star-finder’, the book ‘365 Starry Nights’ and a fantastically awful, red Tasco refractor on a table-top tripod, he managed to locate the moon, a couple of planets, Halley’s comet, some stars and the occasional UFO or two. It’s difficult to say since objects rarely remained in the field of view for longer than a fleeting glimpse. He was hooked.
A few years later and after much reading, research, telescope ad-ogling, saving and some help from his parents, he acquired his first real telescope — a Celestron C8 with wedge and tripod. With this setup, he completed his Messier list and started working on the first Herschel 400. College came, life took over, and astronomy went to the back-burner for almost 30 years.
Since Christopher’s return to astronomy, he stays busy working on the AL lists and trying to see and learn everything he possibly can.
With a career in IT spanning over 20 years, Christopher has seen more computer software and hardware than can reasonably be counted or remembered. In that time, he’s also tried, used, deleted, and broken (“but only occasionally and I still blame the hardware!”) plenty of astronomical related software on multiple platforms. He still uses many applications, tries everything he can get his hands on, and rarely breaks anything now. No, really!
Christopher resides in the San Antonio area and can often be found at the Houston Astronomical Society’s dark site in Columbus, TX — half way between San Antonio and Houston, where he helps maintain the observatory and site PCs,
electrical, and security.
Always willing to help when possible, you can reach him through his website at http://www.oberphoto.com
Chris is also TSP’s AstroLearn Workshop project coordinator!
Christopher will be an instructor for: