David M HearnDave Hearn has been involved and interested in amateur astronomy all his life, ever since his uncle gave him a small plastic refractor telescope for his eighth birthday. In the early 80s, when he moved with his family from western Pennsylvania to eas central Florida, Dave became involved in organized astronomy, first with the Brevard Astronomical Society, where he served as Vice President, and finally the Central Florida Astronomical Society, where he served several offices, most notably the President position for three years in the early 90s. Dave was also a fixture at the Winter Star Party in the Florida Keys for over 15 years. In the early 90s Dave founded his software company, Procyon Systems, and created several pieces of astronomy software, most notably "Observer" for Macintosh, which had over 500 users. Dave has been busy as a telescope designer and builder, creating 13 reflecting telescopes over the years, with apertures from 4.5" through 18." The most recent is the KPO Reflector, which is driven by a fully robotic telescope mount. The telescope is controlled by a commercial multi-microprocessor drive system designed and built by Procyon Systems, originally delivered to NASA and other educational institutions. The telescope system also uses custom software that optically locks on a guide star during imaging. Astrophotography has also been one of Dave's obsessions over the years, early on using film and standing on ladders for hours pressing buttons to keep a guide star aligned! Later on as he entered the digital era, the use of image processing, stacking, and other tricks has produced many beautiful images of deep sky objects. Dave has continually been engaged in astronomy outreach and evangelism, early on with the astronomical societies and more recently at KPO, holding public and private observing sessions at the observatory for the general public, youth and church groups. Recent activities in astronomy outreach have been online, maintaining the observatory's responsive WordPress website, and keeping a continued presence on Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Flickr, Vimeo, and other online venues. Read More Read Less