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Fiona Vincent


I was brought up in Edinburgh, and I studied astronomy at the University of St.Andrews, as an undergraduate and a postgraduate, finally getting my PhD in 1980.

I have done a variety of jobs, including a spell with the BBC World Service in London.  From 1982 to 1994 I held the post of City Astronomer in Dundee, looking after the Mills Observatory - Britain’s only full-time public observatory. For some years I was editor of the Scottish Astronomers’ Group newsletter SAGMag.

My chief astronomical interest is in asteroids and other small solar-system objects. I used to be mainly involved in accurate position measurements; lately I have also being measuring their changing brightnesses, to produce light-curves.

I am an honorary member of staff at St.Andrews University, in the School of Physics and Astronomy. From 1996 to 2003 I was an active member of the team taking the St.Andrews mobile planetarium on trips to schools, during which time I presented nearly 200 shows. I still provide simple information on what’s in the sky.

In February 1998, I gave a short series of lectures on Positional Astronomy for second-year students at St.Andrews.   Notes for these lectures are available for users within the University.

I am employed part-time by the Open University. I started off by tutoring Astronomy & Planetary Science; more recently I have been tutoring Science in Context, and in 2010 I started working with their new third-level course on Astrophysics . In my "spare" time I also study various Open University courses, ranging from the History of Mathematics to Women’s Studies.

For the past couple of years I have been leading an exercise class, mainly for older women; I trained as a teacher with Medau Movement. We work with music, and it's a lot of fun.

I live in St.Andrews with Roger Stapleton, and two cats called (among other things) Smokey and Ben. I gave up driving a car some years ago;   I get around on foot, by bicycle, or using public transport.  Other non-astronomical interests include:  amateur radio,  hand-spinning and needlework,  gardening,  and certain areas of science fiction/fantasy (I share my name with a starship).

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Page last modified 2010 January 22nd.

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