Trivia

A B O U T D E N N I S M A M M A N A

― TRIVIA ―

● Mammana was born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania, a historic city located at the confluence of the Lehigh and Delaware Rivers, just across from New Jersey.

● His first views and photos of "unseen" worlds came not through a telescope, but through a microscope.

● His celestial photography began with a Kodak Vigilant Junior Six-20 camera for which he paid five dollars.

● While in high school, Mammana built a complete basement darkroom in which to do his photographic work.

● His first published photos were those of the April 12, 1968 total lunar eclipse. His shots were selected over those of the newspaper's own staff photographer.

● While growing up, Mammana had the unusual hobby of collecting rare U.S. and foreign license plates for which he won four consecutive World Championships (1964-67).

● During his senior year of high school, his football team outscored its opponents by a whopping 317-72 and finished the 1968 season ranked 1^st in Pennsylvania and 2^nd in the nation. He sat out five games with a broken left hand.

● On the evening of November 16, 1971, Otterbein College's roof-top observatory in which he was working caught fire and was totally destroyed.

● Mammana has directed actors Burgess Meredith, Patrick Stewart, Keye Luke, Nichelle Nichols, Mark Lenard and sportscaster Dick Enberg, and has worked with science fiction icon Arthur C. Clarke and Apollo XI Command Module Pilot Michael Collins.

● In late 1985, only weeks before the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, Mammana was one of 1,033 applicants for NASA's "Journalist in Space" program.

● The name Mammana is Italian, and his grandparents emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s. His mother's family originates from Roseto Valfortore, about 53 miles northeast of Naples; his father's from Castel di Lucio, a small town some 56 miles east-southeast of Palermo, Sicily.

● He was born on the same September day as actor Michael Keaton, but some 300 miles away and on the opposite side of Pennsylvania.

● When not spending time with his head in the stars, Mammana enjoys cooking, sports, news and news analysis, reruns of Seinfeld, Frasier and The Honeymooners, the music of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Sons of the Pioneers and 50's Doo-Wop, comedians Lewis Black, Dom Irrera and Jeff Dunham, taking naps, and relentlessly pursuing the perfect Philly cheese steak sandwich.