Terence Dickinson
Terence Dickinson is editor of SkyNews, Canada’s national astronomy magazine. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a staff astronomer at two major planetariums and, since then, has written 14 astronomy books and more than one thousand articles on the subject. His lifelong fascination with astronomy began at age 5, when he saw a brilliant meteor from the sidewalk in front of his home. At age 15, he received his first telescope (a 60 mm refractor) as a Christmas gift from his parents.
Dickinson has received numerous national and international awards, among them the New York Academy of Sciences book of the year award and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Klumpke-Roberts Award for communicating astronomy to the public. Asteroid 5272 Dickinson is named after him. In 1995, he was awarded the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honor. He and his wife Susan, who has been production manager and copy editor for all his books, live under the dark rural skies of eastern Ontario.
Alan Dyer is a writer and producer of multimedia astronomy shows that have played in planetariums across Canada and throughout North America. He works days as a producer at the TELUS World of Science in Calgary. A former associate editor with Astronomy magazine, he currently serves as associate editor of SkyNews magazine and is a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope.
Dyer is widely recognized as an authority on commercial telescopes, and his reviews of astronomical equipment appear regularly in those publications. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Advanced Skywatching; Astronomy: The Definitive Guide; and Insiders: Space, a children’s astronomy book. Asteroid 78434 is named for him.
Dyer recalls, as a child, asking his parents’ permission to stay up late to watch the stars. At 14, using money he had earned from delivering newspapers, he purchased his first telescope, a 4.5-inch Newtonian reflector. His telescope collection has since grown to take over his house in the big-sky country of rural Alberta.
