(cont)

and I remember it really encouraged me. Still today the Boston Astronomers are equally encouraging for new members.”

Within six months he had joined as a committee member and a year later delivered his first hour-long lecture to the society and before long was speaking to fellow groups from across Lincolnshire including Lincoln and Cleethorpes’ 40 or so members. As his interest grew, Paul attended national meetings and quickly built up both a number of contacts and a huge number of requests for lectures, becoming a member of the Federation of Astronomical Phenomena and cutting down his ‘day job’ hours by half to accommodate his workload of around 100 lectures in 2000.

Paul’s knowledge of the Messier objects led to the BBC’s recently launched The Sky At Night magazine to approach Paul to write an article on the subject in 2006. Thereafter, Paul began to write reviews for the publication and, in September 2006, was asked to become the magazine’s Reviews Editor, a position he still holds today.

In 2005, Paul was invited to join a group of astronomers as a guest astronomer on flights organised by Omega Holidays to show the public the Northern Lights from 36,000ft.

The other astronomers included veteran Northern Lights astronomer Nigel Bradbury, the BBC’s Chris Lintott and most recently the BBC Sky at night magazine’s Peter Lawrence. The group are able to show the Northern Lights phenomena from a unique perspective, and are able to view the Aurora Borealis without light pollution from the towns and villages below.

Paul is delivering a lecture during a similar trip later this month and has also ventured to Turkey as part of a team of six astronomers to observe the Solar Eclipse, and is hoping to conduct a similar study in China during 2009.

Back in the county, Paul also publishes Night Scenes, an A5 book containing sky charts showing the location of star configurations and other astronomical phenomena and their bearing in the Lincolnshire & UK night sky. Using the guide, Paul says that anybody can study the sky regardless of equipment, experience or expertise.