About Me

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I've been an amateur astronomer for more than 50 years.

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I'm also an ex-editor of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's, Toronto Center newsletter 'Scope.  Trained in meteorology I spent several years in Canada's extreme high-arctic launching weather balloons and studying the atmosphere to 35,000 meters in height.  I later worked for the National Research Council's Space Research Facility launching scientific balloons to the edge of space, some of them exceeding 100 meters in diameter.  I was also part of the Launch Team of Canada's scientific sounding-rocket program participating in 35 sub-orbital launches.  These programs studied the edges of the atmosphere, the near-Earth space environment and aurora to 1,200km altitude.  As a personal experiment, I bounced radio-waves off of meteor ion-trails as they burned up in the atmosphere to measure their speed, mass and numbers.

 

Now retired I still pursue astronomy by imaging the skies using a CMOS camera-equipped 20cm SCT telescope including a quasar whose 12 billion light-year distance approaches the end of the universe and the beginning of time.

 

I still marvel at the universe and continue to ponder..., Are We Alone?

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Ken Pilon