Urban Astro: Exploring the Night Sky from the City

WITH JIM TOMCIK

Jim (JD) Tomcik is a traveler, award winning documentary photographer and writer. “I think I’ve always been a traveler,” he says. “I found my love for travel during my college years when I took a summer internship in the Netherlands and traveled solo around Europe during work holidays.” During his 32-year engineering career he gravitated to roles requiring travel, interpersonal skills and deep technical expertise. By day conducting business, he photographed street life and cities by night. After retiring in 2011, he continued documenting life in the world’s cities, mostly Asia and Europe. When COVID-19 struck in 2020, he pulled out an old telescope to learn the night sky. It wasn’t long before he attached cameras to the scope and began a journey to photograph Deep Space Objects barely visible (or invisible) to the unaided eye. Jim holds BS, MS, and Ph. D in Electrical Engineering, focusing on Digital Signal and Image Processing from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, and a CPP (Certified Professional Photographer) from the Professional Photographers of America.