An experienced 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. Ken’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, p 94) and Method of Radially Supporting Large Mirrors (Vol 87, p 154). He has made many contributions to the Astronomical Society of Victoria newsletter and was for three years the Editor of the ‘N’Daba’ newsletter of the Natal Centre, Astronomical Society of Southern Africa. He is the author of "Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs" (Springer, 2011) and "Grating Spectroscopes and How to Use Them" (Springer, 2012).