Rob Gendler is a physician living in Connecticut with his wife and two children.  His interest in astronomy dates back to his childhood in New York where he made frequent visits to the famous Hayden Planetarium where he was inspired by astrophotographs produced by the large observatories of those days.  After moving to Connecticut from New York, Rob took an introductory course in astronomy at a local college and purchased a pair of binoculars.  He spent the next year and a half learning the night sky.  From binoculars he graduated to a 10" dobsonian and spent another year observing deep space objects.  His desire to take astrophotographs like those he saw as a child remained a goal he had yet to accomplish.   
 
This changed in 1996 when Rob started with astroimaging using a 10" Schmidt Cassegrain and an SBIG CCD camera.  Since then he has used apochromatic refractors and Ritchey-Chretien cassegrain telescopes in his driveway in Connecticut, and more recently at a remote observatory at New Mexico Skies.
 
"Early in my imaging days I was inspired by the great professional astrophotographer David Malin and by the early black and white images taken with the 200" at Mt Palomar. I was also greatly impressed with the aesthetic images being produced by amateurs with more modest equipment. Images taken by Bill McLaughlin, Al Kelly, Adrian Catterall, Stan Moore and others demonstrated to me that the CCD along with digital enhancement techniques could be used to produce images rivaling film in aesthetic quality but with superior resolution and contrast. The CCD is indeed a versatile and powerful imaging instrument. My imaging style evolved in part from studying both film and CCD images taken by many of the great imagers practicing today. What I try to achieve is a balance of smoothness and richness in color, coupled with the best resolution and contrast I can acquire using my equipment."
 
Rob has accomplished what he set out to do and much more. He has pioneered the use of mosaics, hydrogen alpha color composites and mixed focal length composites in amateur CCD imaging and has published six original articles and tutorials on these and other subjects. Along the way his images have been selected as NASA's Astrophoto of the Day (APOD) 49 times, to date. His 2002 mosaic of M31 was selected as one of the greatest astronomical images of the last 30 years by Astronomy Magazine in September, 2003. It is a mosaic assembled from 40 separate frames taken with an ST-10XE camera.  His image of IC405 was selected by the Royal Mail (United Kingdom) to appear on their commemorative stamp honoring the 50th anniversary of Patrick Moore's "Sky at Night" program.  In October, 2006, Rob published "A Year in the Life of the Universe," now in print in multiple languages, including English, Polish, Greek and Spanish.  Rob has been selected to receive the "Hubble Prize" at the 2007 Advanced Imaging Conference held annually in San Jose California.  He will be one of six astronomers featured in Timothy Ferris' PBS special "Seeing in the Dark" to be aired in the Fall of 2007.  He won the "Best nebula" and Best Star Cluster" divisions in Sky and Telescope's "Beautiful Universe" photo contest, and his images have been published in over 400 magazines and books including over 40 book and magazine covers.  His more recent (2005) mosaic image of M31 taken with an STL-11000M camera will be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest image of a spiral galaxy every made (edging out the Hubble image of M101, see http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=19148).  This mosaic image contains 21,904 x 14,454 pixels resulting in more than a gigabyte of data. 
 
Even though Rob is a busy physician, astrophotographer and author, he still finds the time to contribute regularly to the SBIG User's group, often giving advice to beginners and sharing his latest images and techniques.  May of his images include essays and information about the objects in his images, and he maintains an Astronomy Primer for Beginners at his web site.  In all respects, Rob represents the best of amateur astronomy.  SBIG is proud to present our Award for Excellence in Astronomical Imaging to Rob.  We are as honored as much to have him in our Hall of Fame.
 
Below is a small sampling of some of Rob Gendler's work.  Click on an image to enlarge.  For details of these images, and to see more of Rob's work,
please visit his web site at http://www.robgendlerastropics.com
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rob's later driveway observing
station with a 12.5" RC and ST-10

Rob's latest 20" RC and STL-11000M in New Mexico
operated remotely from his home in Connecticut

 

Congratulations and Thanks to Rob!

 
 

Revised: July 02, 2007 05:25:30 PM.
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