Gary Fildes (born 27 September 1965) is an amateur astronomer.

Early life and education

Fildes was born in Sunderland in 1965. Growing up in Grindon, a council estate on the outskirts of Sunderland, he left school at the age of sixteen to work as a bricklayer. Not formally trained in astronomy or academia, in 2012 Fildes was given an honorary master's degree from Durham University.

Career

Early career and Sunderland Astronomical Society

Fildes worked as a bricklayer in the North East for 25 years. In the late 1990s he joined the Sunderland Astronomical Society and eventually started hosting

Kielder Forest Star Camp The Kielder Forest Star Camp is an annual star party, held each autumn and spring in Kielder Forest in northern England. The area is known for its dark skies. The five night event is based on the Kielder Campsite. Free talks on astronomy are held ...

s in the

Kielder Forest Kielder Forest is a large forestry plantation in Northumberland, England, surrounding Kielder village and the Kielder Water reservoir. It is the largest man-made woodland in England with three-quarters of its covered by forest. The majority o ...

Kielder Observatory

While running star camps and other astronomy events, Fildes was the lead contributor and driving force in the effort to build an observatory. An open competition ran through the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

, eventually raising £450,000 to construct the observatory. Kielder Observatory was officially opened on 25 April 2008 by Sir Arnold Wolfendale, 14th

Astronomer Royal Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the astronomer royal dating from 22 June 1675; the junior is the astronomer royal for Scotland dating from 1834. The Astro ...

. On 9 December 2013, a 579 square mile (1,500 km²) area, jointly led by Northumberland National Park Authority, Kielder Water and Forest Park Development Trust and Kielder Observatory Astronomical Society, gained Gold Tier Dark Sky Park status from the

International Dark-Sky Association DarkSky International, formerly the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), is a United States–based nonprofit organization incorporated in 1988 by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer, and Tim Hunter, a physician and amateu ...

, becoming the largest area of protected night sky in Europe.

After Kielder

Fildes left Kielder Observatory in February 2019. As of 2020, he was working at Grassholme Observatory.

Awards and honours

* Honorary MSc, Durham University, 2012 * Honorary Fellowship, Sunderland University, 2017

Works

Non-fiction

An Astronomer's Tale
(2016)

Film and Media

Searching for Light documentary
(2016)
The Apollo Tribute
(2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fildes, Gary 1965 births Living people British bricklayers 21st-century British astronomers