Advanced Imaging Conference
2009 Pleiades Award Recipient
Daniel Marquardt

Enthusiastic, talented and wise beyond his 26 years, Daniel Marquardt is a youth-prodigy within an astrophotography community mostly populated by more mature people. While his similarly aged peers focused their attention on more terrestrial matters, Daniel's head was in the night sky- ever the star gazer and deep space explorer. His love for producing imagery inspired him to leave a career in banking so he could manage a retail telescope shop in Zurich, far from his home in Alzey, Germany. Simultaneously, he joined with friends and built a remotely controlled observatory in the southern mountains of France becoming one the first European photographers to make this move. Daniels' imagery is noteworthy for its sense of depth, precision and confident color. His images have graced the pages of magazines and appeared on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) web site- the Internet's number one location for astronomical imagery featuring newsworthy pictures from orbiting space telescopes, far flung planetary robots and mountain top professional observatories. Even after being stricken by unexpected illness, Daniel continued to produce pictures with his distant outpost. In late October 2009, he was featured for a second time on the APOD web page with a then recently completed, expansive view of the Swan constellation's central region. Surrounded by family and friends, this brave young astrophotographer departed on his final journey in late 2009. Visit Daniel's web site: Sky-image CCD Astronomy