An avid amateur astronomer, Ken Harrison was born in Scotland where he trained as a mechanical engineer. He has been designing and building telescopes since the early 1960's and has built a series of spectroscopes for use on medium-sized amateur telescopes. He was Section Director of the Astronomical Society of Victoria, Australia, Astrophotographic Section for ten years and past president of the society. Harrison's university thesis (and his first publication) was Design and Construction of the Isaac Newton 98-inch Telescope (Strathclyde University, 1970). Since then he has published articles on optical design including "Blink Comparison" (BAA Journal Vol. 87, pg. 94) and "Method of Radially Supporting Large Mirrors" (Vol. 87, p. 154). He has made contributions to the Astronomical Society of Victoria Newslettre and was for three years the Editor of the 'N'Daba' newsletter of the Natal Centre, Astronomical Society of Southern Africa. His first book for Springer, called Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs (2010) serves as a useful companion to this volume.
