Daniel Verschatse was born and raised in Flanders (Belgium).   His fascination with astronomy began at an early age.  As a boy of 10 he was already curious about objects in the night sky.  Initially he satisfied his curiosity by reading books but eventually he began building his own telescopes, first with simple lenses and then grinding his own mirrors. 

"As a student in the sixties, I worked nights, week-ends and during summer recess to finance my first "real" telescope:  a 102 mm (4") Polarex - Unitron achromatic refractor with a 75 mm (3") guidescope on a motor driven equatorial mount.  This dearly remembered instrument gave me my first quality views of the moon and planets.  It also enabled first excursions into astrophotography.  The imaging bug got me !  Together with a friend we were out every one of the rare clear nights, trying to record the objects on 35mm film.  It was a long learning process eventually rewarded with the publication in Sky & Telescope of our Mercury solar transit picture in 1968."

After graduating as a radio frequency engineer, Daniel left his native Belgium to start a technical-commercial career that took him to a number of countries and left little room for his astronomical pastime.  The interest never waned though and in the early nineties his old love for quality refractors and astrophotography was revived by the appearance of the new generation Astro-Physics telescopes: fast f-ratio, virtually color-free imaging instruments. 

In 1999, his job brought him to Chile where he finally took advantage of the opportunity to make a childhood dream come true:  His own observatory under good skies!  It saw first light in November 2001.  After a rewarding re-start with film astrophotography, Daniel quickly became a believer in CCD imaging technology.  Since then, all of his astrophotos have been made with CCD cameras, earlier with an SBIG ST-10XE and CFW8A and then with an STL-11000M .  His images have been taken through an Astro-Physics AP155, an Intes MN106 10" Mak-Newt, and most recently with an RCOS 14.5" Ritchey-Chretien with dual f/9 and f/15 ion-milled optics.

Daniel's images have been published in various media.  Several have been seen as NASA's APOD, and dozens of his images have appeared in various magazines including Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Now (UK), Astronomie (France), Practical Astronomer (UK), Revista de la Agrupacion de Astronomia de Santander (España), El Observador (Puerto Rico), and in the official calendar of the Vatican Observatory, 2007.  In addition, his images have been used is several books including "A Year in the Life of the Universe" by Robert Gendler,  "Nebulae and How to Observe Them" by Steven R. Coe, "A Southern-Sky Messier Catalog" by Astronomy magazine, "Night Sky" by Kevin Tildsley , "UNIVERSE - The Definitive Visual Guide" by Martin Rees, "BEAUTIFUL UNIVERSE"  by Sky & Telescope (2005 and 2006 Editions).  If this were not enough, nearly three dozen of his images were used in one publication alone:  "ATLAS of the STARS" by ASTRONOMY Magazine, Special Issue  - April 2006.  Daniel has also made personal appearances on the BBC and his images have been used several times in Sir Patrick Moore's "Night Sky" television program in the UK.

Daniel is also a familiar face each year at the Advanced Imaging Conference in San Jose, CA, where he will be a features speaker in 2007.  SBIG is proud to welcome Daniel Verschatse to the Hall of Fame and pleased to present him with our Award for Excellence in Astronomical Imaging.

Below is a small sampling of some of Daniel's work.  Click on an image to enlarge.  For details of these images, and to see more of Daniel's work,
please visit his web site at  http://www.astrosurf.com/antilhue/
 
 
 
 
 
 
Daniel's original roll-off roof observatory in Chilie.  Warm room on the left facing
the AP155 scope with SBIG ST-10XE camera on an AP mount.
 
Daniel added a clamshell dome to house a 14.5" RCOS Ritchie-Chretien
telescope near the original rool-off roof building.

 

Thanks and Congratulations to Daniel!

Revised: July 09, 2007 02:21:27 PM.
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