Posted: December 15, 2021

In 1977, Dave was graduated Magna Cum Laude with degrees in Physics and Mathematics from Bowling Green State University. He was awarded the honor of top senior in Physics and top senior in Mathematics. He then spent 3 years at Caltech studying Astronomy and Astrophysics as a graduate student. During this time he developed a high-energy X-ray detector for a space-based X-ray telescope.

In 2012, Dave joined PlaneWave Instruments as partner and CTO, where he is actively engaged in the design of new telescopes, mounts, and software. He was the original optical designer of PlaneWave’s CDK line of telescopes, and part of the team responsible for the very successful CDK700 alt-az telescope that utilizes direct drive motor technology.

Dave has written many freeware programs for the amateur astronomy and telescope making community including TraceXP, a simple optical simulation program; FigureXP, a popular Foucault analysis program; FringeXP, a program for the analysis of interferograms; PointXP, a high accuracy telescope mount modelling application, and PlateSolve3, an all-sky plate solver. He worked closely with the Celestron engineers in the development of the StarSense technology and he has designed several new telescope systems including the Celestron RASA and several new wide-field catadioptric Cassegrain astrographs. His current interests lie in the software reduction of Speckle Interferometry images of double stars, the design of high-etendue optical systems, and the continuing pursuit of the perfect telescope.