Podcaster: Rob Sparks ; Guests: Babak Tafreshi
Title: The Earth and Sky Photo Contest
Organization: NOAO
Links: www.noao.edu ; @NOAONorth; http://www.gemini.edu/; https://www.facebook.com/GeminiObservatory; http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/index.asp
Description: Nighttime photography has become increasingly popular in recent years. Advances in cameras have made it possible to capture stunning nighttime images. The World At Night sponsors an annual Earth and Sky Photo Contest. In this podcast, Babak Tafreshi discusses the contest and its future.
Bio: Rob Sparks is a science education specialist in the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) group at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and works on the Galileoscope project (www.galileoscope.org), providing design, dissemination and professional development. He blogs at halfastro.wordpress.com.
TWAN founder and leader, Babak Tafreshi is an award winning photographer working with the National Geographic, Sky&Telescope magazine, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Babak is also a freelance science journalist and astronomy communicator using all media. Born in 1978 in Tehran he is based in Boston, United States, but could be anywhere on the planet, from the Sahara to the Himalayas or Antarctica. He is a board member of Astronomers Without Borders organization, an international organization to bridge between cultures and connect people around the world through their common interest to astronomy. He received the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award, the world’s most recognized award for scientific photography, for his global contribution to night sky photography. Since TWAN was designated as the first Special Project of International Year of Astronomy 2009, Tafreshi cooperated with the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO as a project coordinator for IYA2009. As a science journalist he has contributed to many television and radio programs on astronomy and has interviewed world-renowned astronomers and space scientists. When living in Iran he was editor of the Persian astronomy magazine (Nojum) for a decade and has been a board member of the Astronomical Society of Iran’s outreach committee were he directed many national astronomy events.
Babak started photography of the night sky above natural landscapes and historic architecture in the early 1990s when he was a teenager. He has always been fascinated by the universality of the night sky; the same sky appearing above different landmarks of the world. He connects with world-wide astronomy community through science journalism and his presentations and educational workshops. Photography, science stories, and eclipse chasing has taken him to all of the continents.
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365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by NUCLIO. Audio post-production by Richard Drumm. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. This year we celebrate cosmic light as light is our info messenger in the universe. Join us and share your story to celebrate the International Year of Light. Until tomorrow! Goodbye!