My name is Dr. James Smith and I am a retired Professor of Biology. My wife Susan and I moved from Orange County, California where I taught Human Anatomy and General Biology for non-majors for 35 years at California State University at Fullerton. In 2000, we built our home and my astronomical observatory (GFSH: Gray Fox Star Harbor) in a rural portion of Surprise, Arizona. Included here are several pages that contain images relating to the observatory and astronomical images taken therein.

My retirement diversions include a variety of amusements in addition to advanced amateur astronomy.  I occupy some of my time making wooden toy trucks in my woodshop. Several years ago I took a woodturning course in Provo, Utah and have since become “hooked” on turning bowls and boxes on my small lathe. You can see some of my stuff on my Etsy shop “Woodnstuf”.
 

More recently, Susan and I have rekindled our interest in photography and we each have Nikon D90's DSLR cameras that we thoroughly enjoy. Susan has been photographing the wildlife (Remy, her pet packrat) around our house while I have been developing an interest in photographing star trails and making time lapse movies with them. Along with the cameras and the photography came the requirement to learn Photoshop which has been a "not-too-easy" task but very useful in many ways.

Susan works at the Northwest Regional Library in Surprise. In 2004, I started an evening astronomy lecture series called “Project Starry Nights” that I present on an irregular basis at the library. These programs cover a number of astronomy topics and are aimed at presenting scientific information in an easy-to-understand and entertaining fashion. See the “Project Starry Nights page” for the current schedule.

I am a member of the West Valley Astronomers Club (President 2011--) and have started a short subjects program called “Dr. Smith’s Back Yard Astronomy”. The “Back Yard Astronomy” page will have short viewing projects aimed at helping you see naked-eye or easy binocular objects in our evening sky. I will try to give you sufficient details to help you find these intriguing objects and motivate you to go out in your back yard and look for them; an astronomical “scavenger hunt” of sorts. I also manage the Club's Star Party activities (see the "Star Party page" for details).

Finally, there is a page of links that may further stimulate your interest in amateur astronomy. You can always find information with a Google search of a topic and oftentimes Wikipedia will provide an expansive coverage.  

GRAY FOX STAR HARBOR

Gray Fox Star Harbor was built in 2000 on the side of the mountain above our home. It houses a Celestron C14 OTA (white tube) mounted on a Software Bisque GT 1100 Paramount on a 12' x 12' observation deck under a 10' Ash Dome; scope and dome slew together. The scope has an Optec TCF Focuser and my deep space CCD camera is a Santa Barbara Instrument ST 9E. The dome, telescope, and camera are controlled by Software Bisque Sky and CCD Soft software. For imaging the Moon and Planets I mount an Adirondack PlanetCam. 

You may wonder how I came up with the name for my observatory. One afternoon, after the workers that were building the house had left for the day, I climbed up the hill to have a look at the cement block pier that was being made. We had just poured the foundations for the observatory and the retaining wall behind it; the floor would be poured the next day.

When I got to the top of the path there was a female gray fox sleeping at the foot of the pier. She woke, got up, stretched and walked off slowly looking back at me over her shoulder. I had been thinking of using “star harbor” in the name and it all came together at that moment. I am fond of gray foxes and had one as a pet when I was a kid. This little lady took up residence in our house while it was being built and left only after the doors and windows were put on. She and her kin lived around the house until a year or so ago and we used to see them on a regular basis.

Contact me: james@gfstarharbor.net

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