He spends his day buried in the archive of the European Space Agency's infra-red telescope, based at the Villa Franca Satellite Tracking Station in Madrid, but on Wednesday Dr Leo Metcalfe intends to be chasing the eclipse of the sun in the skies somewhere off the south-west of Ireland.
Dr Metcalfe (40) and his companions on board a chartered executive jet hope to be among the first to meet the lunar shadow sweeping across the Atlantic. His meticulous planning suggests they will intercept the shadow at 50 degrees 12.78 minutes north and 11 degrees 0 minutes west, 100 miles south-west of Ireland, at 11 a.m. local time. The jet normally accommodates eight, but this is one flight where everyone needs a window seat, so he has restricted passenger numbers to five.
"When you see a total eclipse the most impressive experience is that you `feel' the shadow come over you at the same time that you see the moon cover the sun," he explains, "so suddenly you perceive as a direct experience the motion of the planetary bodies."
It is a unique extension of the scale of normal perception, so he will be looking to see how the experience is modified by being even more a part of the dynamic aspect than an observer on the ground.
The group, which includes UCD's experimental physics professor, Mr Brian McBreen, will take their WestAir Hawker Siddeley 125 (costing £2,900 for a two-hour flight) higher than normal commercial airlines and up to 41,000 feet, if necessary, to get above the clouds.
They will attempt to stretch the duration of their observation of the eclipse from 2 to 2.5 minutes, or even more, by flying along with the movement of the moon's shadow.
They will enter the eclipse track flying towards the shadow and will try to view it come towards them over the sea from the horizon at a rate of 3,600 km per hour. The shadow will be about 100 km wide and 135 km long on the curved surface of the Earth. When the shadow gets to within a minute of the plane, the pilot will make a 180-degree turn to join with it as it races over Earth.
Not being in a specially-adapted aircraft inevitably limits the amount of scientific research that can be done, but Dr Metcalfe says photographs taken on the trip will be of value to the ESA's work and there may be an opportunity to monitor dynamic phenomena such as the prominences in the solar corona, ejected plasma (ionised matter) swirling along the sun's powerful magnetic field like tongues of fire.
Should a cloudy morning spoil the fun for those stuck to land, the Metcalfe account of the eclipse will at least reveal what they missed. A graphic account with pictures is promised for the ESA website (at http://sci.esa.int/).