About James
📍 Belen, New Mexico
James Calloway spent thirty years as an optical systems engineer in the aerospace and defense industry in Albuquerque, designing and testing imaging systems for defense and space applications. He retired in 2022 and moved south to Belen for the darker skies and slower pace. He has been an amateur astronomer since his twenties — long before the career made him dangerous at reading an optics spec sheet. He writes about telescopes and astronomy gear the way an engineer looks at anything: what does it actually do, how well does it do it, and does the manufacturer's claim hold up under field conditions.
James Calloway is a retired optical systems engineer who spent three decades in the aerospace and defense industry designing imaging systems. He holds a B.S. in physics (1987) and an M.S. in optical sciences (1990). He started chasing Messier objects with a borrowed Edmund Scientific refractor in 1991 and has been at it ever since. Current setup: Takahashi FSQ-85 ED on a Pegasus NYX-101 mount for wide-field imaging, and a 15-inch Obsession Dobsonian for visual work under the Milky Way at the Salinas Pueblo dark sky site. He lives with his wife Diane and two rescue dogs in a passive-solar adobe house south of Albuquerque with a small concrete pad and a Telegizmos cover — which he describes as "the most important piece of astronomy equipment I own." He does not own a dome. He is working on it.