Mark Hanson
Mark Hanson has been an amateur astrophotography for approximately 25 years. He started out with a local group in Wisconsin, and soon realized the need to move to darker skies. They soon moved their equipment to Animas, NM, where they ran their equipment remotely. While keeping ties with groups in Animas at Dark Sky New Mexico, he recently joined a group in California at SRO. While Mark does not possess any type of astronomy degree, his “pretty pictures” have been seen in the Albuquerque museum, Astronomy Magazine, APOD, and at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, where he was presented the first place award in the robotic telescope category through Astronomy Photographer of the Year in 2014. His interests also include the setting up and ongoing maintenance of observatories and equipment of all sizes.
Mark is also involved with a small team of amateurs astronomers that search for minor galaxy merger remnants with an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists, lead by Dr. David Martínez-Delgado of the Max-Planck Institute for astronomy. A small team of amateurs take very deep images to reveal these stellar tidal streams. These are the debris of smaller dwarf galaxies left during the process of being absorbed by larger galaxies. The amateur team is lead by R. Jay GaBany who oversees the pilot survey. One of the papers can be seen here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.04446
His website is currently being updated but his images can be seen at: http://www.desertastro.com/. Mark would like to give credit to “Doc” G. for all of his support, mentorship and knowledge over the years.
Mark is the owner of Algae Free, LLC, an aquarium products manufacturing business. When he is not working, imaging or processing he enjoys golfing.
He lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife.