About Dennis Roscoe, Ph.D.

Dr. Dennis Roscoe holds a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Neurophysiology from the University of Arizona, School of Medicine. He has been a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio and a Professor of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin Madison, College of Medicine. Dr. Roscoe has combined his engineering and medical background to design and develop medical devices and has been the founder and president of two medical device companies. For the last 12 years, he has also developed a passion for astrophotography and currently owns and operates his own personal observatory. He specializes in the imaging of deep space objects such as nebulae and in May 2014 his images were published in TIME.com. He is currently a guest lecturer at Carroll University teaching astrophotography and provides astronomy programs for the New Berlin Park and Recreation Department. Dr. Roscoe is also a NASA Solar System Ambassador. He resides in his country home just northwest of Genesee Depot, Wisconsin. Dr. Roscoe has explored many aspects of the cosmos, but has a particular love for nebulae. Nebulae are not only remnants of dead or exploded stars, but the birth place and nursery for new stars. They are a cosmic recycling plant to which we can trace the origins of the atoms which make up our very existence. As Carl Sagan so appropriately stated; “We are all star stuff”. Our own Sun was once formed in a nebula not all that different from the ones that Dr. Roscoe photographs. Everytime I photograph a nebula I am reminded how insignificant we really are in the big picture of the universe. Through a deeper understanding of the cosmos, we can one day dispel all of our superstitions and find our true place in the universe.

About the Images

The the majority of the Gallery images were formed by an astrophotography technique known as Narrow Imaging with the use of the Hubble color palette. Typically, 25 15 min exposures, called sub- frames, are taken for each of three different narrow band filters. These filters pass ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen wavelengths to form the red, green and blue components of the color image. In total, it takes about 18 hours of imaging time to form a final color image. The sub-frame images were taken through a 130mm refractor telescope with a 26 mega pixel astronomical camera. Pre and post processing was done with PixInsight. For solar and planetary processing, SharpCap and AstroSurface are used for collection and processing.