Christian Luginbuhl
Christian B. Luginbuhl is an astronomer at the
United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station,
where he has worked on a variety of photometric
and astrometric projects since beginning work there
as a summer student in 1981. His early papers were
involved with star-forming regions and young stars,
but recent work has focussed on transient phenomena
such as gamma-ray bursters and optical transients.
In the last five years he has also published increasingly
in the area of outdoor lighting and light pollution
control.
Chris came to an interst in astronomy late in high
school, when he attended a special short ("interim")
class on astronomy. Prior to this he had had a lifelong
interst in science in general and the various kinds
of biology in particular. He attended Northern Arizona
University, majoring at first in physics, but soon
he added a second major in botany and minors in
mathematics and chemistry, unable to give up his
early interests entirely to the stars.
In fact, Chris would have loved to be an exobiologist,
but one that actually walked other planets and learned
about real alien living things, rather than the
data-starved and hypothetical field available to
earthlings today. So, astronomy seemed the next-best,
but he still spends considerable time and effort
in biology and natural history.
The vision of a dark star-filled universe overhead
inspired and inspires him still, continuing to drive
his interest in astronomy and the preservation of
dark skies. There is nothing more refreshing to
the mind and soul, after typing obscure commands
to glowing computer screens and evaluating the quality
of images gathered from silicon detectors and displayed
with electrons and phosphors, than to step out under
the dark Northern Arizona night, to see the unfathomably
distant stars and feel the gentle pine-forest breeze.
Chris has spent thousands of hours under the night
sky, peering through amateur-sized telescopes at
the myriad wonders available under a dark sky. As
a result of this extensive observation of the deep
sky, and together with Brian Skiff (now at Lowell
Observatory), he published the first comprehensive
descriptive manual of deep sky objects as viewed
in small amateur telescopes, following in the footsteps
of E. J. Hartung and his Astronomical Objects for
Southern Telescopes. This book, "Observing Handbook
and Catalogue of Deep-Sky Objects" (Cambridge University
Press, 1990) emphasizes careful and exacting visual
descriptive notes of clusters, nebulae and galaxies,
and has become a standard for the field.
Today, outside his direct astronomical work, Chris
is involved heavily in light-pollution and development
issues, seeking to preserve the highest quality
dark skies through careful and considered use of
outdoor lighting. And not just for astronomers.
He is a founding member of the Flagstaff
Dark Skies Coalition, a section of the International
Dark-Sky Association, and is also involved in science
education, serving on the Board of Directors of
the Flagstaff Festival of Science. As part of this
annual Flagstaff Festival of Science, Chris initiated
and continues to run an asteroid-naming contest, where children
and adult citizens of Arizona suggest names for
numbered asteroids discovered by collaborator and
Observing Handbook co-author Brian Skiff at Lowell
Observatory.
He has given and continues to give many presentations
to planning and zoning commissions, city councils
and other groups about the values of dark skies
and details of lighting codes designed to protect
them. He was a principle author of the innovative
1989 Coconino County and Flagstaff outdoor lighting
ordinances, and continues to consult with many communities
in Arizona and across the country on lighting issues
and lighting codes. He is the principal author of
the International Dark-Sky Association Outdoor Lighting
Code Handbook.
He is finally writing a geneological history and
family tree about the descendants of his immigrant
Swiss Luginbuhl ancestors, and has sought to re-establish
connections with the wide-spread descendants of
this family thoughout the world. His interests continue
to be too wide and diverse - cabinetry, lichenology,
botany, geology, paleontology, atmospheric optics
and astronomy. With his wife Carol Vireday and two
sons Benjamin and Adrian, he lives outside Flagstaff
where the night skies are star-filled and the sounds
of birds and the breeze through pine boughs predominate
over highways, barks and trains. He remains passionate
about the value of knowledge gained through scientific
process, about natural skies and landscapes, about
living gently on the Earth, and about his family.
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