Guest: Damian Peach. Topics: Amateur astronomy & imagine, viewing techniques, atmospheric issues & more. Please direct all comments and questions regarding Space Show programs/guest(s) to the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments and questions should be relevant to the specific Space Show program. Written Transcripts of Space Show programs are a violation of our copyright and are not permitted without prior written consent, even if for your own use. We do not permit the commercial use of Space Show programs or any part thereof, nor do we permit editing, YouTube clips, or clips placed on other private channels & websites. Space Show programs can be quoted, but the quote must be cited or referenced using the proper citation format. Contact The Space Show for further information. In addition, please remember that your Amazon purchases can help support The Space Show/OGLF. See www.onegiantleapfoundation.org/amazon.htm. For those listening to archives using live365.com and rating the programs, please email me as to why you assign a specific rating to the show. This will help me bring better programming to the audience. We welcomed Damian Peach, well known amateur astronomer from the UK to the show. Visit his website for more information and to see his work, www.damianpeach.com. During the first segment of our 90 minute program, Damian talked about his early interest in space and the definition for an amateur astronomer. We learned most are self taught as was the case with Damian, that the field was not as math intensive as a professional astronomy career and that amateur astronomers significantly contribute to the field of astronomy and work well in harmony with professional astronomers. During this segment, listeners had many questions for our guest including asking if he had sponsors, the cost of amateur equipment, his typical viewing schedule on the South Coast of the UK where he lives and his other location, Barbados. In fact several questions came in about viewing conditions in Barbados and the effect of weather and humidity on his viewing in that location. Damian likes to photograph Jupiter and Saturn and the bigger outer planets. Don't miss the why behind this. As you will hear and you can see on his website, he has also done lots of excellent imaging of the Moon. I asked him about his interest in going to Mars, human spaceflight, and more, all of which he said he was interested in. Other first segment topics included wanting to know more about his techniques, amateur spectroscopy, and amateur peer review. Regarding his interest in Jupiter, he talked at length about the always changing Jupiter weather that he liked to document in his Jupiter photography. In the second segment, he talked about the upcoming JUNO Mission to Jupiter & the need for amateur astronomers to take images and submit them to the JUNO team. Other topics in this session included cubesats, amateur astronomy groups in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere, plus Pluto and New Horizons. Listeners asked about amateur solar and deep space astronomy, cosmic rays, and more. Science fiction came up as did the movie Interstellar. Later, Ben sent in a note while looking at Damian's Mars images on his website and asked about color enhancing and photo touchups. Imaging Mercury and Venus came up in the discussion as did light pollution, viewing & searching for comets & NEOs. Near the end of the program, we talked about Ceres and the Dawn Mission from the amateur perspective. Near the end, I asked Damian his first choice mission were he the space mission guru. I bet you will be surprised by what he said. Dr. Dewar asked about making space access available with space based telescopes through nuclear propulsion given the cost of launch would be so much cheaper. Don't miss Damian's response. Marshall called at the end to talk about technology advancement & more. Please post your comments/questions on TSS blog above. You can reach Damian Peach through his website or me.