Babak A. Tafreshi is a photographer, a freelance science journalist, and astronomy communicator using all media. Tafreshi is the founder and director of The World At Night or TWAN international program, a board member of Astronomers Without Borders, a contributing photographer of the Sky&Telesacope magazine, and a photo ambassador for the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Tafreshi received the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award, the world's most recognized award for scientific photography, for his global contribution to night sky photography (the award was shared with Dr. Carolyn Porco of NASA's Cassini spacecraft mission). He was born in 1978 in Tehran and currently lives in Germany. From 1997 to 2007 Tafreshi was editor of the Astronomy Magazine of Iran (Nojum). He has appeared many times on television and radio programs on astronomy and has interviewed many world-renowned astronomers and space scientists. He has been a board member of the Astronomical Society of Iran's Amateur Committee between 2001 to 2010 and has organized many national astronomy events, including Iran's annual national Messier Marathon. Through The World at Night, which was designated as the first Special Project of International Year of Astronomy 2009, Tafreshi cooperated with the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO as one of the project coordinators for IYA2009.
Babak is a professional photographer specializing in images of the night sky with foregrounds of natural landscapes and historic architecture. He has always been fascinated by the universality of the night sky, with the same sky appearing above a variety of landscapes around the world. His work has been exhibited in various countries and has appeared in international magazines and websites. He communicates with world-wide astronomy community through science journalism and his TWAN trips and imaging workshops. He also regularly gives presentations during his expeditions to solar eclipses observing sites. Astronomy and TWAN imaging has taken him to all of the continents including Antarctica.
