About Me
My name is Jack Fitzmier, and I live in Verona, Wisconsin, just outside Madison. In 2018 I retired and moved to Verona from Decatur, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. In Georgia I served as the Executive Director of the American Academy of Religion, the world’s largest scholarly society dedicated to the academic study of religion. In other lives I served as a faculty member and Associate Dean at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Claremont School of Theology. And then there is my avocation …
I became interested in astronomy in part because I so enjoyed the television series The Universe. In 2011 I attended my first astronomy event, a meeting of Charlie Elliott Astronomy, which is a chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club. From that point on, I was hooked. My brother-in-law lent me a telescope to get me started and then I purchased my own. I am fond of equipment manufactured by Explore Scientific and Celestron and ZWO. I use an ES 102 mm triplet refractor and an ES 152 mm “Comet Hunter” Mak-Newt on a Celestron AVX mount. I also am happy with my set of ES 82 degree eyepieces. In 2023 I built a new, lighter rig for astrophotography that includes a ZWO AM5 mount, a Astro-Tech 72mm refractor, and a ZWO ASI Air. At the start of 2024, I began experimenting with a “smart telescope” — a ZWO SeeStar. Seems like I am always working on several observing programs sponsored by the Astronomical League, some with my telescopes, my Fujinon 16 x 70 binoculars, and others using remote scopes in Australia, Chile, and the Canary Islands.
During my Georgia sojourn, observing from my home was difficult due to heavy light pollution. So I often fled to dark sky sites — like Jon Wood Field near Mansfield, Georgia (home of Charlie Elliott Astronomy) and the very dark skies at Deerlick Astronomy Village, where I had an observatory. When I left Georgia, I had to give up my Deerlick observing setup. Fortunately, though I no longer have full time access to Deerlick, I have been able to make number of trips back to enjoy its dark skies and star parties. And from here in Wisconsin, I have been able to complete a number of Astronomical League observing programs. I have completed about 20 programs to date, and am slowly working my way towards Master Observer certification. I am also involved on the Board of the Madison Astronomical Society and use the club’s dark sky site at Yanna Research Station, near Brooklyn, WI.