Kate Otto, Program Chair

AAAP’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at 8:00 p.m. in Peyton Hall. Member Rex Parker , PhD. (Indiana University, 1985, Biochemistry) will present “Galaxies, Comets, and Pixels from the High Desert” in which he will talk about his recent astrophotography visit to Arizona.

Rex is an avid amateur astronomer, astrophotographer and former director of AAAP, which he joined in 1993.

As member of the Hopewell Township Environmental Commission he helped write the township’s Outdoor Lighting Ordinance to help prevent light pollution near the AAAP observatory.

Professionally, Rex has been engaged in pharmaceutical research and cell & molecular biology for over 25 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb, currently as Senior Research Fellow in Cardiovascular Biology at the BMS Hopewell site. He has over 40 journal publications and led the discovery of the diabetes drug Saxaglitpin/Onglyza at BMS. His work includes biotechnology applications of optoelectronics and image processing, which fits perfectly with his long-standing interests in astronomy, astrophotography, and astrobiology. The observatory that he built in his backyard is equipped with a Paramount-MX, Celestron C11 and Takahashi-FS-128 telescopes and an SBIG-ST10XME camera. He enjoys CCD imaging deep sky objects & planets.