Alex Pratt

My interest in astronomy was sparked by the early spaceflights in the 1960s, and being presented with books such as The Observer’s Book of Astronomy (Moore), A New Way to See the Stars (Rey) and Starlight Nights (Peltier). Over the years I have enjoyed observing and photographing the Sun, Moon, meteors, comets, planets, stars and galaxies, from the days of developing and printing Ilford and Kodak negatives in a darkened kitchen through to using CCDs, webcams and DSLRs. I have seen a number of total solar eclipses from fascinating locations around the world, My main interest is video astronomy, applying video techniques to record transient phenomena, conducted from my observatory, IAU code Z92. My programme includes recording meteors, asteroidal and lunar occultations, performing video astrometry of asteroids, Near Earth Objects and comets, and some variable star photometry. I am a member of IOTA-ES, attending most of their annual ESOP meetings since 1997 and since 2010 I've been a member of the Editorial team of the Journal for Occultation Astronomy. I proofread its contents and help to rephrase articles by authors whose first language isn't English. I am co-administrator of the UKoccultations discussion group, initiated and led by Tim Haymes, BAA Occultations Coordinator. I have observed meteors for many years, am a member of the IMO and am Assistant Director of the BAA Meteor Section. I co-founded NEMETODE, a network of video meteor cameras in the British Isles and I co-manage the NEMETODE discussion group.

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