Gary Palmer

Gary Palmer was born in Culver City, California just outside Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Studios. For Gary, photography was up front and center from the start. Growing up he enjoyed filming with the family’s 8 mm camera and on Sunday nights he would operate the projector. In high school he continued to hone his craft as the yearbook photographer.

It comes as no surprise that in 1973 he took off for the foot lights and began his career in motion pictures at Paramount Pictures. Gary has enjoyed his 32 year career as a Lighting Designer and Cinematographer working on projects that have taken him around the world.

On occasion he would film at the Griffith Park Observatory and remembers the large pendulum suspended in the observatory entry way. It took 26 years before the pendulum would swing in the direction setting the stage for Gary to reach for the stars.

It was January 1999 when Gary was asked to photograph the visual effects to the film “Mission to Mars”. He remembers immediately picking up Sky & Telescope and Astronomy magazines. Within a week he was perusing the night sky with an 8” goto scope looking back in time at our wondrous universe.

Gary is fascinated by light, especially the light blanketing our Earth from our closest star. He keeps a journal of the sights through his telescope and realized his children would benefit by adding a picture of our dynamic sun to his journal so, “Solving the Solar Imaging Puzzle” was born. Fueled by inspiration from Jack Newton and imaging through filters hand crafted by Coronado, Gary was on course capturing images of our magnificent sun.

Fast forward to the present and Gary has lectured on numerous occasions sharing “Discovering the excitement in H-alpha & Calcium K” & “Solving the Solar Imaging Puzzle”. He enjoys sharing his passion with fellow enthusiast and has more lecture dates set on the horizon.

You can find his images at Coronado’s image gallery, spaceweather.com, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy, & SOHO “pick of the week gallery” and of course his own site www.solarminimum.com.

Gary continues to add pieces to his imaging puzzle as there is much to learn in this wonderful world of astronomy!