Author's publications

Chronology

Picture of the Moon

published in ScienceAm

 in 1978.

Comet Bennett pictured by Akira Fujii in 1970.

Akira Fujii

in 1991. Document Roger W. Sinnott/S&T.

Years 1970's

All began in 1978, when I published advertisings and various high resolution pictures of the moon and the sun in specialized magazines to invite the amateur community to participe in activities of Club Observatoire ORION, a non-profit association that I founded with a friend in 1975, during our studies at St.Paul College (B).

With a little more experience, I wrote technical articles and continued to publish pictures in amateur magazines like Ciel et Terre (B), Cosmos (B), Ciel et Espace (F), ScienceAm (F), Man and Stars (男と星, JA), Sky & Telescope (USA), including in books like "A l'affût des étoiles" (F), sometimes in cooperation with other amateurs from Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, the U.S.A. or Japan.

It is at this occasion that I introduced Akira Fujii (1941-2022), the famous japanese amateur astronomer, astrophotographer and author (cf. ref1, ref2) to the French community in publishing some of his pictures (Bennett, Halley, M81/M82, M42, lunar eclipse, Mercury transit, etc) in Ciel et Espace. He was very honored to be appreciated by the French community after have been congratulated in his country and in the U.S.A. for all his astrophotography work.

Receiving no financial support from the school authorities, in 1979 I moved my club to Brussels City, where I decided to work in collaboration with a local cultural centrum.

I published an half page article in the largest Brussels newspaper "LE SOIR" about my objectives. Reply from the amateur community was immediate. Young and adults soon joined the club.

Thanks to my pictures (mainly those of the moon in high resolution), I won several contests, mainly in the U.S.A. and Japan. I received for gift a small refractor of 60 mm f/5 and a large electric barn door on a tripod. Superb gifts for a young adult short of money !

Chronology

Advertising for the

Club Observatoire  ORION published in Brussels newspaper "LE SOIR" in 1979.

Article inviting young people to practice astronomy in DEXIA bank newspaper dedicated to youth (former Club Jeunesse du Crédit Communal de Belgique)..

Pictures and other icons published in A+ Magazine dedicated to Apple in 1983

Article about home computing published in a well-known newspaper distributed in Namur (B).

Years 1980's

In the meantime, I bought my first Apple computer soon equipped with 1 MB of RAM (it was much at that time !), a graphic board and an enhanced keyboard. At that time such a computer cost about 4000 € !, much money invested in a hobby. Hopefully 20 years later a high-end computer is worth half that price. Thanks, Moore !

Sign of time, today, and probably like you, I till own a computer that I have completed with connected devices.

Fan of digital images and computing, I used my spare time to write technical articles, creating graphics and programs that were, to my surprise, published in newspapers like Confluent (B), and computing magazines like A+ Magazine, Nibble, SoftDisk (USA), L'Ordinateur Individuel (F) and other well-known publications edited in Belgium, France, Japan and in the U.S.A.

In January 1982, I published my first academic paper titled "Projet Luna Incognita" in "Ciel & Terre" magazine edited by SRBA in Belgium. The objective was to promote the photography of the Moon near the south and southwest limbs, that were poorly photographed by the space missions of the 1960's.

For the special issue of Summer 1986, I published in L'Ordinateur Individuel (F) dedicated to home computing, my first in depth article dealing with the use of videodisks together with home computers, a way to support this new media, ancestor of the DVD.

My objective was to learn to the French readers the existence of this technology, and demonstrate them all the potential of this marvellous media, mainly in the field of education.

In the meantime, I became member of the "Optical Memory User Group" (OMUG) and the "Amateur Space Telescope" association from Troy University, two american non-profit organizations devoted to the use and development of new technologies for amateurs. These projects were cancelled after some years by lack of support from professionnals.

In depth article dealing with interfacing videodisks and computers published in "l'OI" #83, Summer 1986.

Two programs published in SoftDisk in 1987, a disk magazine dedicated to Apple II computers.

One of the many technical articles published in Cosmos magazine (B) in the 1980's.

In the end of 80's, I had gathered a large collection of astronomy pictures and technical documents that used a dozen of binders.

To not loosing all this material, I decided to publish these information in a book dedicated to amateur astronomy including a large part dealing with astrophotography. Pierre Bourge and other well-known French writers as well as manufacturers like Interoptic, Celestron and Meade gave me a positive feedback. I seeked for some months a French editor willing to publish my project, in vain.

By chance in 1987 I contacted Bordas-Elsevier editor to know if he could be interested in publishing this book. For various reasons, the editor prefered to give me the opportunity to participate in the scientific supervision of Ian Ridpath's book dealing with astronomy. I was very proud and excited : think about, my very first collaboration with an editor at 27, and very well remunerated ! For the first time my name was displayed in a popularizing book...

Scientific supervision of Ian Ridpath's popularizing book in 1987.

A Cyprae leucodon, one of the most beautiful cowries of my collection.

Years 1990's

I am interested in seashells since I am kid, and surely after reading the March 1969 issue of the "National Geographic" magazine about the subject. Later, I had the opportunity to acquire (by diving on site or by purchasing) some wonderful seashells to complete my collection. This collection is now for sale. Do not miss this opportunity.

Some of my most beautiful seashells are displayed in Kenneth Wye's book herewith, all gem specimens of well-known families that are Conidae, Cypraeidae, Muricidae, Pleurotomariidae, Strombidae among others, pure natural beauties, but that I partly sold since that time.

As diver and very concerned by the preservation of our natural resources, I only buy specimens from old collection, and I never order seashells to divers, thus new specimens (all the less than they become smaller with overfishing). It is my way to protect life, these organisms being better living in nature than dead in my living room !

Some dozen of my seashells specimens are displayed in K.Wye's book.

Article about chasing DX stations of the Pacific published in the belgian hamradio magazine CQ-QSO March/April 2005 edited by UBA.

Years 2000's

In 2000, after have used BBS, Compuserve and participating in astronomy forums for years, I decided to create the LUXORION educational website (cf. this french page) based on the manuscripts, photographs, videos and other documents that remained in my drawers with the hope of arousing the curiosity of readers and teaching them something they did not know.

Today LUXORION represents 22 GB of information, including about 850 articles spread over more than 2100 pages illustrated with more than 28000 images, 325 animations and video, 484 sound recordings and the review of 162 programs. It is enriched with new information almost every day (specially the French pages).

It was in July 2009 that LUXORION reached one million unique visitors. In over 20 years, this website has received in average 200 visitors each day with peaks three to five times higher.

But Internet being out of control (or almost), it is also in pray to hacking and other abuses. So, due to the long work that has required the writing of these documents and their update, as well as my contract with Aegeus publishing company, the content of this website is protected by copyrights registered in several countries, and valid all over the world. My radioamateurs callsigns are also protected.

The reproduction of my works (text and images) are only allowed with my permission or paiment of a fee. See my FAQ for more details.

LUXORION website is open since 29 Sep 2000 and receives in average 200 visitors every day.

Cursus on Technological pathway to the modern HF transceiver in the frame of the australian Advanced Diploma of Electronics.

Short article about Echolink in CQ magazine, VHF Plus column, Dec 2005 issue.

Today my activity is mostly oriented to the sharing of all my knowledges and documents with the public, what does not mean that my work is in the public domain.

As listed in my awards and commendations page, regularly editors, authors, teachers, associations, webmasters and many amateurs ask me permission to publish some of my images or articles, that they are written in French or in English, on a website, in a magazine, a book or in an educative CD-ROM. This is always with pleasure that I share these documents while asking you to respect the copyright.

Sometimes too, associations or editors contact me to write an article in their magazine, about sciences or technology.

Knowing my interest for amateur radio, in 2004 my history of amateur radio referenced on the ARRL website has been used by Ian Grinter and Kevin Crockett, VK3CKC, to write the academic cursus on Technological pathway to the modern HF transceiver in the frame of the australian Advanced Diploma of Electronics. This story was also used by Ron Bertrand, VK2DQ, in the frame of his "Education hour" about ham radio at Radio & Electronics School, Qld, Australia as well as by the SADARC Radio Club, VK3SOL, in Vict., Australia.

Being also fan of photography, in 2007 the French editor of the Cours-Photophiles webzine published my dossier on "Digital photography" dedicated to DSLRs on the occasion of the release of the 60^th issue of the Photophiles magazine.

In parallel, when time permits or on request, I write articles for paper and electronic magazines like CQ magazine, Futura-Sciences, Cours-Photophiles, Space Daily, PhysOrg or NASA Astrobiology Magazine to name a few.

I also publish astronomy, weather or nature pictures in online magazines or photo libraries (see below).

Article and renderings about

terraforming of Mars published in

NASA Astrobiology Magazine in

Aug 2005.

Rendering of exoplanet 16 Cygni b published in Sciences et Avenir Special Issue 145, Dec 2005

My book about quantum physics published in 2005

In 2005, I published my first book about quantum physics, the result of more than ten years of investigations. It is published in French to Aegeus Editions, and is entitled "Un siècle de Physique : 1 - La Physique Quantique".

To complete articles published on this site or in magazines, in 2007 I created a blog written in French entitled "Bouillons de Cultures". It is a way for me to share easier and faster ideas and opinions with you. Advantage, hosted by Blogger (belonging to Google), new articles are immediately indexed and available in the first page of Google in the next minutes. Although it is always online and had some success, to avoid to dissipate my efforts and by lack of time, I decided to no more feed this blog and to concentrate on LUXORION website.

About social networks, a Facebook page was created by 2010 on wich I publish some documents and that allows me to easily be in touch with amateurs and professionals. It is also an alternative to the mail for readers wishing to contact me. I have also created a page on Flickr and Instagram.

Since 1976 I have also created about 4000 illustrations and taken a few thousand pictures. From this collection, about 3000 drawings and infographics as well as some hundred pictures illustrate the various subjects developed on this website.

My blog written

in French entitled

"Bouillons de Cultures"

opened in 2007

Venus Express

Protons & Quarks

Space Station

Sunset of

a Giant Star

T Tauri Stage

Years 2020's

You will also find some of my finest drawings, pictures and sounds on the website of several institutions, astronomers, in webzines (APOD, EPOD, Sciences et Avenir, Quest, etc), including to illustrate conferences or exhibitions (IAP, NASA/NSSDC, etc), and in audio recordings published by editors and artists.

Some weather pictures were published in 2023 in the book titled "Quel Temps!" (What a Weather!) published to Kennes by the belgian french television RTBF.

Progress obliges, since 2024 some of my photos have also been used for deep learning of new graphic tools exploiting artificial intelligence (generative AI), in particular those available on Shutterstock under data licensing.

After more than 20 years of activity, the numerous encouragements received from amateur and professional from all over the world have confirmed that not only my objective has been achieved but that the LUXORION website has became a reference in the French-speaking world and beyond, including on some academic sites. So I have good reasons to maintain the regime and to continue the adventure by publishing ever more complete feature articles.

The book published by RTBF in 2023 in which they published several of my weather pictures

Jesus

Squirrel

Images published

Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) : Aerial view of a pyrocumulus cloud breaking through a stratiform layer, 7 March 2023

Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) : Strange Imleria badia mushrooms in shape of seat, 13 February 2023

Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) : Evaporating fog in Meuse Valley pictured from the Sept Meuses viewpoint, 14 December 2022

Encyclopedia of meteorites and The Meteoritical Society (LPI) : Treated sample of Muonionalusta Iron IVA meteorite, June 2022

Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) : Treated sample of Muonionalusta Iron IVA météorite, 6 April 2022

Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) : Rainbow wheel (rainbow with crepuscular rays), 11 Mar 2022

RTBF - Quel Temps! : Pictures of meteorological phenomena, flowers and mushrooms, including released on TV, 2022

Scientific paper : "New model of unification of active galaxies, and the different steps of their formation", Melati Rabia, ResearchGate, 2020

Online thesis HAL Open science, L'étude de l'influence du champ magnétique sur l'évolution stellaire, Alizée Duthu, 2017 : stellar diagrams (pp.8, 23)