This book would not have been possible to produce without the support of my wife Shadi Hamedi, for understanding my dedication to the stars and long nights at the computer, and of my family, who have embraced the eccentric lifestyle of a night sky explorer. This collective work came to existence with the contribution of The World at Night members across the world; each introduced in the Photographers section.
TWAN project and our international group came together in 2007 with the support of the Astronomers Without Borders organization (astrowb.org), which became possible under the leadership of Mike Simmons. Most of the TWAN team has been inspired by the work of scientist astrophotographer David Malin, who has contributed to TWAN since the beginning as an advisor and was kind enough to write the book’s foreword. Another source of inspiration to the team has been the pioneer Japanese nightscape photographer Akira Fujii who has contributed to this book with an image of Great Comet McNaught.
TWAN’s main long-term way of reaching the public is website twanight.org, with thousands of captioned images. Since the beginning, webmaster and science journalist Shahob Saqri has been the dedicated power behind the website. Our other main source of public reach has been the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), a long-running highly respected NASA webpage since 1995 (apod.nasa.gov). TWAN photos have been featured more than 300 times on this most visited astronomy page on the web. Astronomer and the APOD co-editor Jerry Bonnell supported TWAN as an advisor for many years. A few of the captions in this book are based on the fantastic text provided by APOD for the TWAN images.
I also appreciate my partner organizations who paved the way for a career that allowed me to dedicate time to the non-profit activities of TWAN for more than a decade: The European Southern Observatory (ESO) and specifically Lars Lindberg Christensen, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), specifically Pedro Russo, UNESCO, and Sky & Telescope magazine. National Geographic, which has been a constant source of inspiration to me since childhood, have published many TWAN images on their website since the launch of the project. Since 2012 I have been a photographer for NatGeo which helped immensely to start new ideas and share the messages of TWAN with the world-wide audience.
In the last two chapters of the book I have referred to the International Dark Sky Association (IDA). Without them some of our effort would become aimless. This non-profit organisation has been an essential element in allowing our images to communicate with the public about the importance of preserving natural night skies.