In 1954, when he was eight years old, Ed received an astronomy book written by Dr Patrick Moore, which had lots of fine photographs of deep sky objects, including a spectacular one of the great galaxy in Andromeda, M31.

He spent a lot of time on his back with a pair of binoculars searching for this object and was quite relieved when he found it after a 38 year search, in November 1992….Ed is a dedicated observer!

He is a marketing executive with an international pharmaceutical company and spends most of his time planning and co-ordinating the marketing activities of his company’s drugs. When the going gets tough, (almost always) he can get free aspirin for his headaches.

Ed has had to cut back on his observing as he does not have an operational telescope at the moment. He is, however, restoring a 3-inch Unitron refractor, which at the present rate of progress should be ready sometime in the next century, or soon after.

Apart from astronomy, Ed spends many evenings listening to the world with a short-wave communications receiver. He relaxes by flying flight simulations on his computer.

Ed is the immediate past-Chairman of the ASSA Johannesburg Centre.