Dr. Steve Mazlin secretly longs to be a magician.

It doesn’t sound so crazy, really. Not until you learn what the good doctor is already doing with his time.

By day, he is a neurologist exploring the mysteries of earthbound brains. By night, he switches views, turning his eyes from the very small components inside the skull to the very large structures of the universe.

An amateur astrophysicist, Mazlin’s images of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters are good enough to have appeared alongside the work of the big boys. His works have appeared in publications such as “Sky & Telescope,” “Beautiful Universe,” “GEO International” and the mother of them all, the “Astronomy Picture of the Day” (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091106.html).

On March 26, Mazlin will be at Bates College in Lewiston to share his work. His astrophotography work, not the brain stuff.

Although you never know.

Witty and even playful, Mazlin is one of those dynamic sorts who on any given day might utter a sentence such as: “Is it me? Or does this man’s hypothalamus look a lot like the crab nebula?”

You think I’m joking.

“Ah, so you noticed!” Mazlin said, when I asked if he had ever uttered such a line. “The crab nebula indeed looks like an angiogram of the brain. Look at my version of the crab.” (http://www.fourthdimensionastroimaging.com/CrabNebulaSSRO.html)

So, what is it that draws a man to fascination over both the workings of the inner mind and the beautiful enigma of the cosmos? Is it simply a problem with attention span?

Not quite. For Mazlin, who hails from Bucks County, Pa., there is a link between the two that compels him to overachieving.

“In my opinion, if you want to know where the REALLY BIG QUESTIONS OF LIFE are being asked, it’s obviously in the fields of neurobiology and astrophysics,” he says. “On a somewhat pessimistic level, I don’t believe the fundamental truths will ever be revealed in either discipline.”

Still, it’s good to know that someone is trying. Especially for those of us whose knowledge of the mind is limited to taking aspirin for a headache and whose understanding of the universe entails occasionally wishing upon a star.

When you are introduced to a person with such lofty ambitions, you wonder how they came to be. Did something about the human mind provoke curiosity about the greater world? Or the other way around?

For Mazlin, it was about the sky first. The brain, well, he came to that almost reluctantly.

“I loved looking at astro images in Time-Life books when I was 8 years old or so. I can recall reading articles about the Hale telescope, and thinking how utterly cool it must be to peer through an instrument of that size,” Mazlin says. “So, clearly my love of astronomy predated all else. But I hated flying, and still do, so I never wanted to become an astronaut.

“In those days, medicine wasn’t even in the picture as I pondered a future career. Even in college — at Cornell, where Carl Sagan was teaching Astronomy 101 — as it became clear that I was to become a doctor, I still secretly considered myself a scientist,” Mazlin says. “I think this is true of many practicing physicians who chose clinical medicine over careers in medical research or other physical sciences, since they thought the lifestyle would be superior.”

He got his first peek inside a human skull in his first year of med school. By his third year, he was “slicing and dicing brains all day long,” his words, not mine. Mazlin was getting gory with the blood and muck of the brain in the early days when AIDS was becoming an epidemic.

“I was real scared when I first applied for life insurance a few years later and had to be tested,” he says.

So, maybe it’s safer to explore space, where the really interesting stuff is safe light years away. An amateur astro fan doesn’t have to get his hands dirty at all, really. Much of the big work today is done when he is not even there.

As Mazlin puts it in his introduction: “Gone are the days when amateurs, exposing themselves to winter frostbite or summer mosquito attacks, used clunky old telescopes and film cameras and produced inferior images that were usually grainy, blurry and poorly exposed.

“The telescopes sit on top of computerized go-to mounts, which instantly and accurately slew to any thousands of objects in their databases. The cameras are digital, and often manufactured solely for astro imaging, though many amateurs also use digital SLRs — the same ones that you can purchase at your local Walmart.” (http://www.fourthdimensionastroimaging.com/introduction.html)

Mazlin has added other bells and whistles, including a rotating dome observatory that houses everything all year round. There is hardware and software that allows him to control everything by remote from his in-house computer. If everything goes according to plan, he can usually sleep while much of the data is collected.

“The final product, taken from a backyard observatory in light-polluted Bucks County, often produces more ‘wows and gee-whizzes’ than a Hubble image, simply because you expect the Hubble to perform beautifully,” Mazlin writes on his Web site, “but you don’t necessarily expect an amateur to produce work of this caliber.”

Which sounds like a very interesting day to the rest of us. Wake up and see if your photos of the Hercules globular cluster came out all right. Have coffee and head to the office to see if you can unlock the secrets of dreams and memory that still largely evade the reaches of science.

As a neurologist, his favorite part of the brain is the cerebellum, an organ way back in the head involved with coordination of motion.

It’s not so easy to pin down his favorite region of space.

“You know, my wife – despite her slim appearance – loves to eat,” he says. “I used to joke that ‘Violet’s favorite meal is her next meal!’ In the same vein, my favorite part of the universe is the one that I will be imaging next. All of my energies will be thrown into the mix to make that image memorable — at least to me.”

There is a wider audience for Mazlin’s brand of imagine than there used to be. These days, with seek-and-go telescopes affordable to even those on a budget, more and more people are dabbling in amateur astronomy.

Mazlin takes his show on the road because he likes to mingle with those who have similar interests. His audiences might include mostly those interested in photography, or those whose main focus is space itself. Usually, it’s both, as he expects to see at Bates in March.

“I was told the audience would consist of artists and physicists – tough job to please both without boring either,” he says. “I think I will, of course, show many images, but also explain the place that astrophotography occupies within astronomy, and explain the basic methods used to create the images.”

So, what about this magician business?

On Mazlin’s Web site, near the end of the introduction, is this sneaky, almost bashful line: “Dr. Mazlin’s alter ego, The Great Mazlini, can be found on YouTube.”

And as promised, there it is, a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eShOLJJnlLs) of this accomplished doctor and scientist playing like a child with cups, a ball and a wand.

Maybe it’s no surprise that a man who has spent his life examining worlds of the very large and very wee wants to have a go at the misty regions of the mystical that lie in between.

“Alas, I might have traded everything else to have become world famous in this field, but ’twas not in the cards,” Mazlin says. “Pun definitely intended.”

 Who: Dr. Steve Mazlin, neurosurgeon, astrophotographer

Where: Olin Art Center, Bates College in Lewiston

When: March 26 at 7 p.m.

More info: www.fourthdimensionastroimaging.com

How astrophotography works

Data collection involves taking multiple exposures of a given object – say 30 – with each exposure being 5 to 15 minutes in duration. A very accurate clock drive in the telescope mount turns to compensate for the Earth’s rotation, so the object stays precisely centered on the imaging chip.

However, be forewarned: The hours of data collected for a single image, often over several nights, is the easy part of this hobby. Next comes the arduous task of image processing, during which time the raw data is “reduced” to remove the effects of heat-generated aberrations, dust near the imaging chip and other clarity-robbing problems. Then the exposures are digitally superimposed, greatly improving the image and allowing for very faint objects to be shown with a wealth of detail.

It’s not done yet. The image is further processed to adjust the color, sharpen and/or blur selected areas, and remove light pollution effects.

Good image processing requires knowledge of complicated computer software. Astrophotographer Steve Mazlin can spend weeks tweaking a single image until he is satisfied. Sometimes a large object is imaged in pieces, which are then digitally and seamlessly blended into a mosaic, “a tedious task requiring a good helping of OCD traits,” jokes Mazlin.

Source: www.fourthdimensionastroimaging.com/introduction.html

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