One of the things about the internet is that it sometimes gives you the ability to look up someone you haven't heard of in a long while.Recently, I got to wondering what Fr. Royer was up to these days. Fr. Ronald Royer (indeed, Msgr. Royer now, I find) was known to both my parents in different capacities. He was an associate pastor at St. Francis of Rome parish in Azusa California back in the 70s, which was my mom's family's parish. He was also a well known amateur astrophotographer, whom my father once had out to Santa Monica College to give a guest lecture about taking photographs of celestial objects.
The Orange County Astronomers offer a brief bio of Msgr. Royer on their site. Msgr. Royer was ordained in 1958, a graduate of St. Johns Seminary in Los Angeles. He was pastor of St. Pancratius parish in Lakewood from 1983 to 2002, when he retired. (He was made a Monsignior in 1992.) He now lives with his mother in Springville, CA where he has moved his observatory, and helps out at the local parish.
You can see a lot of Msgr. Royer's astrophotography here, in the Science Photo Library, which is where the above photo of part of the Milky Way is from.
3 comments:
I want to know how old his mother is....beautiful pictures.
What did your father do at Santa Monica college, and when? The reason I ask:
Mu husband was chief engineer/director of engineering for KCRW (at smc) from 1977 to 1997. Sometime during his tenure there, he had several elected positions in the classified employees union.
Wouldn't it be a really small world scenario if my dh knew or knew of your dad?
It's quite possible. Dad was the planetarium director at SMC from 1979 to 2005.
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