The 'A' List - The Ultimate Astrophotography Challenge

Stefan Hughes has been observing the night sky since he was 12 years old, when he got his first telescope a small 3.5" Reflector, which was in his own words 'pretty useless'. He then got his first serious telescope three years later - a 6" (15cm) equatorially mounted Newtonian Reflector, which he used to look mainly at the moon and planets. He was so taken with Astronomy that he decided to make it his career, though ironically becoming a theoretical astronomer specializing in the field of Celestial Mechanics, being a student of Desmond King-Hele and the late Andre Deprit. In 1978 he was awarded a PhD for his thesis on the motion of Artificial Earth Satellites, which was published as a series of papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. After spells as a Research Fellow and University Lecturer he moved into the world of Computers when work became scarce in Astronomy, as a software designer and later project manager. During this time he drifted out of Astronomy, concentrating on his career and raising a family. He also had a further career change and spent five year training to become a Genealogist and Architectural Historian; which he practiced professionally for a number of years. In 2001 he moved to the island of Cyprus with his wife, and is now semi-retired devoting the majority of his time to his rekindled enthusiasm for Astronomy and in particular to Deep Sky Astrophotography, and of course the 'Art de Ciel' website. He is currently writing two books one on the history of astrophotography called ‘Catchers of the Light’ and the second a biography with the photographic historian Dr. Marcel Safier on the Victorian Photographer Frederick Scott Archer entitled ‘To the Sons of the Sun’.