About

Astronomer, instrument builder, astrophotographer

I'm an astronomer interested in instrumentation and observation, and in making the way we observe work better. I build instruments, observe with them, and write the software to process the data.

On a 60-cm Zeiss double refractor I developed a speckle interferometry method that allows astrometry at separations below 1.5 arcsec. I also developed Indonesia's first fully robotic telescope system, used for exoplanet observation.

To help detect the crescent Moon for the early determination of the hijri month, I developed a method for imaging the extremely thin crescent in daytime. With it we have imaged the Moon at an elongation of just 3° 44′ and at conjunction (moon age 0h 0m). The method is now widely used by the hilaal observation community in Indonesia.

I like solving problems computationally: I built the first computer cluster for the astronomy community at Bandung Institute of Technology, and I'm now developing a photometric pipeline that detects variability in light curves, aiming to automate variable-star classification and exoplanet detection.

Public outreach is a big part of my career: night observation events, technical support for observation and broadcasting, and educational material through design, illustration and video. I also support other observatories across Indonesia with facility design, instrumentation, operations and data workflows.