David Malin

David Frederick Malin (born 28 March 1941) is a British-Australian astronomer and astrophotographer. it is the largest spiral galaxy so far discovered, with an approximate diameter of .

Since the early 1990s, silver-based astrophotography has been largely superseded by digital sensors, but many of the technical advances Malin introduced to the field have been carried over to processing astrophotography on computers.

Malin has published over 250 academic papers on the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and ten books.

In 2001 he retired from the AAO to concentrate on his own business, David Malin Images, which manages his and fellow photographer's collections of images.

Awards 1985: Henri Chrétien Award of the American Astronomical Society 1986: Jackson-Gwilt Medal, Royal Astronomical Society 1990: Rodman Medal of the Royal Photographic Society 1993: Progress Medal, highest award of the Photographic Society of America 1993: Commonwealth Medal of the Australian Photographic Society 1994: University of NSW Press/Eureka Science Book Prize (for "A View of the Universe") 1998: Elected Fellow of the International Academy of Astronautics 2000: Lennart Nilsson Award for outstanding imaging in science 2003: Honorary Doctorate of Applied Science from RMIT University 2006: Hubble Award of the Advanced Imaging Conference 2019: Member of the Order of Australia

The minor planet 4766 Malin, discovered by Eleanor Helin, is also named after him.

Selected publications