User:Geichhorn2000

Günther Eichhorn, Astronomer. I retired in 2015. I used to work for an international publishing company, Springer Science & Business Media, the largest publisher of scientific and technical books and the second largest publisher of scientific and technical journals, as Director for Abstracting and Indexing. See my list of publications, my Curriculum Vitae. My hobbies are aerobatic flying and traveling to exotic destinations. I have trip reports of many countries online on my personal website.

I grew up in Germany as part of the Baby Boomer generation. In 1984 I emigrated to the USA. I have lived in Florida, Arizona, and Massachusetts.

Research
I have been out of research for many years now. I used to work on topics like:


 * Interplanetary Dust Detectors (both ground based via Zodiacal Light and space based via impact detectors (HEOS and Helios, LDEF) and scattered light (HOPE on the GIOTTO probe encountering P/Halley).


 * Age determinations of lunar samples with a laser probe. This was way back in the late 70's when lunar samples were still fairly new. With this method we could determine ages of single mineral grains in lunar breccias, moon rocks that are conglomerations of different older rocks, created during impacts of meteorites on the moon.


 * Space based Gamma Ray Detectors (flew one from Antarctica on a stratospheric balloon in 1988 to observe Supernova SN1987A).


 * Real-Time Data Acquisition Systems (eg. a high speed Speckle Camera at Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, and an automated telescope to observe P/Halley during the GIOTTO encounter from the ground, as well as various laboratory systems).


 * Rocket experiment to observe the Zodiacal Light close to the Sun during a solar eclipse in 1992 from Nayarit in Mexico.


 * Astrophysics Data System (ADS). I was Project Scientist for the ADS from 1992 - 2007. During this time I wrote the search software and user interface software for the literature search system in the ADS myself. This software system was in use till 2019. The ADS was the first web based scientific literature search system. During my time as Project Scientist essentially the complete astronomical literature back to the early 1800s was included. Most of the literature was scanned and made available freely to everybody with embargo periods for new articles of 3 years or less.

Honors and Awards

 * The Special Libraries Association awarded me the 2001 Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics Division Award for my role "in the genesis and growth of the Astrophysics Data System, the development of which represents an unparalleled shift in the propagation of the literature of astronomy. ... Under your leadership, the ADS ... has become an indispensable aid to astronomical research." (Excerpt from Physics Today, Volume 54, issue 8, page 61.


 * For my contribution to astronomy I was awarded the 2008 Award for Services in Astronomy from the Royal Astronomical Society.


 * In 2015, asteroid 69287 was named after me in recognition for my services to astronomy.

Hobbies

 * Flying in aerobatics competitions. I own a Pitts Special S-2A, a two seat aerobatics biplane. II stopped flying and am selling my airplane. In 1999 I flew in Unlimited and received the Unlimited Stars Achievement Award. I have all 10 Achievement Awards, all flown in the Pitts S-2A. I have won quite a few contests (Overall Arizona State Champion in 1991, New England Champion, Intermediate, in 1993, third place in the International Aerobatics Championships and Championships of the Americas in Fond du Lac, WI, 1998, an FAI sanctioned international contest, Northeast Aerobatic Champion in Unlimited for 1999). I practice as much as the weather allows, so on the weekends I usually can be found at the airport at Deer Valley, AZ (DVT). I try to go to as many competitions as possible, but sometimes work interferes   :-)


 * Web site maintenance I maintain several web sites for different organizations. I am involved in the aviation website at Landings. I also maintain a soaring website and an aerobatics website. The Soaring Turnpoint website is also mirrored in New Zealand and South Carolina, USA Other sites that I maintain include our local IAC Chapter 35. My aviation website was the first aviation server to go on the WWW in 1994. I still have some soaring pictures and soaring contest results from these early years online.


 * Scuba Diving: Unfortunately Arizona is not really the best part of the country to do that. I used to live in Florida which was much better suited for that kind of activity. That's where I learned to scuba dive. Since then I have experienced some spectacular dives in Florida, Hawaii, Mauritius, the Galapagos Islands, and Australia.


 * Music: Country and Western Music is my favorite music. I also have come to like Irish music. One of my favorite bars, The Burren in Somerville, MA, has live Irish session music on several days of the week.


 * Lifestyle: I am a crossdresser, meaning I like to wear womens clothes. I don't try to look like a woman (I have a beard after all), I just like to wear skirts.


 * Traveling: In 1997 I started traveling to interesting destinations all over the world on a regular basis (at least once per year). I have put some of my pictures on-line for various countries. I almost invariably get asked which country I would like to visit again, and which country I liked best. The answer to the first question is none. There are so many countries that I haven't seen, that I don't have time to go back to any of them. I may visit some larger countries again to see parts that I haven't seen (India and Russia come to mind). The answer to the second question is that I can't answer that simply. Every country is different, has different things that are interesting. You can't compare seeing tigers in India with seeing Inca ruins in Perú, with seeing stone-age monuments in Ireland, with scuba diving in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, with seeing a cheetah mother with four cubs eating a reed buck in Tanzania. Altogether I think I had the most comfortable feeling in Việt Nam, already on the way from the airport to the hotel I felt that I liked that country. Certainly the food in Việt Nam was the best I had anywhere in the world, till I visited Georgia. The food in Georgia is completely different from Việt Nam, but also just as excellent.

Here are links to my travel pages: