John Figoski

John Figoski has been an optical designer for 31 years designing and building telescopes and space instruments for NASA and the Government.  He received a Master’s Degree in Optics from the University of Arizona, Optical Sciences Center.  He has worked at Perkin-Elmer on the Hubble Telescope, Hughes Santa Barbara Research Center on the NASA MODIS instrument for earth observations, and for the past twelve years at Ball Aerospace.  He has pioneered design and test methods for large aperture, off-axis, high-resolution optical systems.  At Ball Aerospace he has been the optics lead for the 60 cm diameter QuickBird I, QuickBird II, and WorldView I telescopes and is currently investigating new designs for 1.0 and 2.0 meter diameter telescope systems.

As an amateur astronomer he has built a 6-inch F/4 and 12-inch F/5 Newtonian telescope as well as a 4-inch Cassegrain.  After a mid-life hiatus from serious observing, and being thoroughly intimidated by the digital age, he currently enjoys re-discovering all the faint fuzzy things visible in the dark skies of Colorado and Wyoming.