Thomas Ashcraft (born 1951, Springfield, Illinois)[1] is an American astronomer, naturalist, scientific instrument-maker, and artist.[2] He is known for his observations of transient luminous events (lightning sprites),[3] meteoric fireballs,[4] solar radio and optical phenomena,[5] and Jupiter radio emissions.[6]
He is an artist and citizen scientist whose work, Heliotown II, is on exhibit in the old pool house located on the Hyde Park campus of at the Santa Fe Institute.[7] He resides and maintains a laboratory and studio west of Villanueva, New Mexico[8] where he operates the Observatory of Heliotown.[9] Research-grade images, audio, and video captured at the observatory have been featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day blog.[10][11]
In 1992, Ashcraft built the Fast Drift Burst Observatory, also called the Radio Fireball Observatory,[12] for monitoring and recording fireballs, space dust, and meteoric phenomena. He has made numerous innovations in the merging of optical and radio telescope technology.[13] In 2001, he began observing Jupiter, the sun, and ionospheric phenomena with NASA's Radio Jove Project.[14]
In 2009, Ashcraft began noting lightning-generated phenomena called transient luminous events (red sprites)[15] on his radio-optical telescope systems. Over time he has established a multi-faceted observatory devoted to the capture and study of this rarely imaged phenomenon.[16]
Ashcraft is primarily a sculptor and installation artist incorporating space, time, mind, sound, and electricity.[17] He is also a figurative sculptor exploring biological subjects such bacteriophages, viruses, microbes, and medicinal plants.[18] He was awarded a Louis Comfort Tiffany Prize[19] in art in 2005.
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