Many of today's amateur stargazers learned their way around the night sky with the observing guides of Ian Ridpath. Among these are The Monthly Sky Guide, now in its 9th edition; the Collins Stars and Planets Guide (known in the US as the Princeton Field Guide to Stars and Planets), now in its 4th edition; and Collins Gem Stars. All these have been continuously in print for over 25 years. A particular interest of Ian's is the Greek and Roman myths of the constellations, which he wrote about in his book Star Tales.
Ian is editor of the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy and the last three editions of Norton's Star Atlas, the longest-established star atlas in the world and reputedly the best-known. He is a major contributor to the Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia Universe, and is author of Dorling Kindersley's Eyewitness Companion to Astronomy. In 2012 he won the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Klumpke-Roberts Award for "outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy", the most prestigious award of its kind.
He is also a leading UFO skeptic and is well-known for his investigation and explanation of Britain's leading UFO case, the Rendlesham Forest Incident.
For more about Ian Ridpath, see his personal website
http://www.ianridpath.com
and his entry in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Ridpath
Support pages for Ian Ridpath's books in print can be found here
http://www.ianridpath.com/books/support.htm
For talks by Ian Ridpath see
http://www.ianridpath.com/cv/lectures.htm
Read Ian Ridpath's author blog
http://ianridpathauthorblog.blogspot.com/
