Babak Amin Tafreshi ( fa, بابک امین تفرشی, born 1978 in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

) is an

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

, science journalist, and

amateur astronomer Amateur astronomy is a hobby where participants enjoy observing or imaging celestial objects in the sky using the unaided eye, binoculars, or telescopes. Even though scientific research may not be their primary goal, some amateur astronomers m ...

. He is the creator and director of The World At Night (TWAN), an international program in which photographers from around the world capture images of night skies as seen above notable landmarks of the planet. He is also a member of the board of advisors of

Astronomers Without Borders Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) is a U.S.-based organization founded by Mike Simmons, dedicated to spreading astronomy throughout the world and connecting people through this universal interest. Projects include crowdfunding in developed countri ...

and a project coordinator for the

International Year of Astronomy The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) was a year-long celebration of astronomy that took place in 2009 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first recorded astronomical observations with a telescope by Galileo Galilei and the pu ...

(IYA2009). In 2009, he won the

Lennart Nilsson Award The Lennart Nilsson Award recognizes outstanding contributions to scientific photography. Honorees are chosen based on the merits of their efforts in scientific imagery. It is administered by the foundation ''Stiftelsen Lennart Nilsson'' and awarde ...

for best scientific photography, in joint effort with NASA's Cassini Imaging Director

Carolyn Porco Carolyn C. Porco (born March 6, 1953) is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging scienc ...

Gallery

File:Ultra HD Expedition day 3 - Babak Tafreshi in action.jpg, Ultra HD Expedition day 3 - Babak Tafreshi in action File:Paranal and the Shadow of the Earth.jpg,

Paranal Cerro Paranal is a mountain in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and is the home of the Paranal Observatory. Prior to the construction of the observatory, the summit was a horizontal control point with an elevation of ; now it is above sea ...

and the Shadow of the Earth File:Whirling Southern Star Trails over ALMA.jpg, Whirling Southern Star Trails over

ALMA Alma or ALMA may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Alma'' (film), a 2009 Spanish short animated film * ''Alma'' (Oswald de Andrade novel), 1922 * ''Alma'' (Le Clézio novel), 2017 * ''Alma'' (play), a 1996 drama by Joshua Sobol about Alma ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tafreshi, Babak Amin Iranian astronomers 1978 births Living people