Ian William Ridpath (born 1 May 1947, in Ilford,

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

science writer and broadcaster best known as a popularizer of astronomy and a biographer of constellation history. As a UFO sceptic, he investigated and explained the Rendlesham Forest Incident of December 1980.

Life and career

Ridpath attended Beal Grammar School in Ilford where he wrote astronomy articles for the school magazine. Before entering publishing he was an assistant in the lunar research group at the

University of London Observatory UCL Observatory (called the University of London Observatory until 2015) at Mill Hill in London is an astronomical teaching observatory. It is part of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London. History The Observator ...

, Mill Hill. He now lives in

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings wh ...

, Middlesex. He is editor of the ''Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy'' and Norton's Star Atlas, and author of observing guides such as ''The Monthly Sky Guide'' and the ''Collins Stars and Planets Guide'' (the latter two with charts by Wil Tirion, and both continuously in print for over 30 years). His other books include ''Star Tales'', about the origins and mythology of the constellations, and the children's book ''Exploring Stars and Planets'', now in its fifth edition. He is a contributor to the Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia ''

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...

'', and a former editor of the UK quarterly magazine '' Popular Astronomy''. He is also currently editor of ''The Antiquarian Astronomer'', the journal of the Society for the History of Astronomy. His early books on the subject of extraterrestrial life and interstellar travel – ''Worlds Beyond'' (1975), ''Messages from the Stars'' (1978) and ''Life off Earth'' (1983) – led him to investigate UFOs. But he became a sceptic, a position reinforced by his findings about the Rendlesham case. He was one of the first to offer an explanation for the so-called Sirius Mystery involving the supposedly advanced astronomical knowledge of the

Dogon people The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon ...

of Mali, west Africa. He was a space expert for

LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadcast ...

Radio from the 1970s into the 1990s, and was also seen on BBC TV's Breakfast Time programme in its early years. It was for Breakfast Time that he first investigated the Rendlesham Forest UFO case. His star show Planet Earth ran at the

London Planetarium The London Planetarium building is located on Marylebone Road, London. It is adjacent to and owned by Madame Tussauds. It previously housed a planetarium, offering shows related to space and astronomy. In 2006, it closed as a separate attractio ...

from February 1993 to January 1995; it was the last show to use the planetarium's original Zeiss optical projector.

Awards

In 2012 he received the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's

Klumpke-Roberts Award The Klumpke-Roberts Award, one of seven international and national awards for service to astronomy and astronomy education given by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, was established from a bequest by astronomer Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts to ...

for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy. In 1990 he won an award in

The Aventis Prizes for Science Books The Royal Society Science Books Prize is an annual £25,000 prize awarded by the Royal Society to celebrate outstanding popular science books from around the world. It is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience, and ...

(in the under-8 children's books category) for ''The Giant Book of Space''.

Other interests

From 1993 to 1995 he was Race Director of the

Polytechnic Marathon The Polytechnic Marathon, often called the Poly, was a marathon held annually between 1909 and 1996, over various courses in or near London. It was the first marathon to be run regularly over the distance of 26 miles, 385 yards which is now the g ...

from Windsor to Chiswick, Britain's oldest marathon race which traced its origins back to the 1908 Olympic Marathon. In that role, he was involved in a public controversy over the ownership of the '' Sporting Life'' marathon trophy, originally awarded to winners of the Polytechnic Marathon, which was claimed in 1994 by the

London Marathon The London Marathon is an annual marathon held in London, United Kingdom, and is the 2nd largest annual road race in the UK, after the Great North Run in Newcastle. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically he ...

. The Polytechnic Marathon was last held in 1996. A keen astro-philatelist, he is chairman of the Astro Space Stamp Society.Astro Space Stamp Society
/ref>

Selected bibliography

* ''Stars and Planets Guide''. Collins (UK). . Princeton University Press (US). . * ''The Monthly Sky Guide''. Dover. . * ''Astronomy: A Visual Guide''. Dorling Kindersley. . * ''Gem Stars''. Collins. . * ''Times Universe''. Times Books. . * ''Exploring Stars and Planets''. Philip's. . * ''Star Tales''. Lutterworth. . * ''Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy'' (ed.). Oxford University Press. . * ''Norton’s Star Alas and Reference Handbook'' (ed.). Dutton. .

References

External links

Who's Who entry

Ian Ridpath's page at Amazon Author Central US

Ian Ridpath's page at Amazon Author Central UK
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridpath, Ian 1947 births Amateur astronomers English sceptics English science writers Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society Living people People from Ilford UFO skeptics