David Nicholls' RSAA Pages

These are my RSAA pages, with the usual collection of bits and pieces.

A bit of biography

I started out on a course towards a career in astronomy many years ago when I was 9, when I first looked at Betelgeuse through a homemade telescope made from spectacle lenses and a cardboard tube. The next big leap forward came when I was 13 and was given a Unitron 60mm refractor for Christmas. A lovely little telescope, which, though now much travelled and a bit battered, I still have.

After my BSc (Hons) in physics, instead of astronomy, I decided to head off into upper atmosphere physics. That resulted in an MSc, but after a bit more faffing around, in the mid 1970s, a career in physics looked like a rather bleak prospect. So the life of a bureaucrat was the default option...

Now, half a career later, I'm back where I probably should have been all the time, studying astronomy.

Having cut my teeth reducing some old 74" echelle eta Carina spectra for Peter McGregor, and thereby being introduced to the dark art of IRAF, I'm working with Mike Dopita and Helmut Jerjen as my thesis supervisors, on a project titled "Gas-rich Dwarf Galaxies: Evolution and Chemistry in the Local Universe". (See publications page for details.)