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Who We Are

Karl  Krasley – HASB founder

Karl's background in astronomy goes back to 1968 at age 10, when his received his first telescope. Since then, he has become one of the most respected observers of the night sky.

In 1987 Karl founded the Chesmont Astronomical Society (CAS) in which he was president until April 2006. He also helped in the founding of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Lighting Council (POLC) in 1995, which helps educate on good outdoor lighting practices, and the problem of light pollution.

Karl has given public presentations on observational astronomy and light pollution from Cherry Springs state park in northwest Pennsylvania to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He also has been interviewed for many articles in media outlets as in all local newspapers, magazines like Audubon, Nature, and Better Homes and Gardens, as well as radio station KYW 1060 in Philadelphia, and public radio.

Frank Colosimo – HASB astrophotographer

Frank's astronomy roots go back to the 1960s, when he purchased a small refractor.  In the 70s he moved up to a six inch reflector.  His interest in astrophotography began with a Sony digital camera in 2004. The first images were taken with an 11 inch Celestron telescope and included the Venus transit of the Sun, as well as solar and lunar images. Shortly after, using planetary cameras from Meade and Celestron, he was able to get images of Jupiter and Saturn, and high resolution shots of the surface of the moon.

In 2005 with the acquisition of an SBIG (Santa Barbara Instrument Group) CCD camera designed for deep space astrophotography he was able to refine techniques for capturing deep space objects such as star clusters, distant galaxies, and colorful emission and reflection nebulae.

In 2007 Frank began taking images from Schuylkill County, PA a rural area with dark skies. He built a permanent observatory shed with a roll-off roof and astrophotography became much more productive. Equipment upgrades followed and now Frank uses a 14 inch Meade ACF scope for smaller distant objects and a wide field TeleVue NP-101 refractor for larger objects.

Frank is a member of Chesmont Astronomical Society and the Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers.

Contact:  info@haveastellarbirthday.com