2016 schedule

Col Bembrick became interested in astronomy while still at high school, but spent most of his career exploring the geology of NSW. For about 6 years he wangled a job with the University of NSW, looking after their new Automated Patrol Telescope at Siding Spring. Shortly after that he retired to a farm near Bathurst and built an observatory in the paddock. From there he continues to undertake CCD photometry of asteroids and (when he has time) variable stars. Col is working with the VSS team to investigate eclipsing binary systems which are very poorly studied in the southern hemisphere.

Mark Blackford is an amateur astronomer currently living in Sydney. A visual observer since about 1970, he has in recent years been heavily involved in DSLR photometry with Variable Stars South and the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Mark was part of a team that wrote the original AAVSO DSLR Observing Manual and was solely responsible for revising and extending the manual to its current version. He has presented three online courses on DSLR Photometry for the AAVSO.