I am Ronald Stoyan, the author of this site. Having started with astronomy 25 years ago, I was able to turn this hobby to a profession quite early. At age 23, I founded “interstellarum” magazine together with two fellow observers, and subsequently began writing books about observational astronomy and amateur telescopes. Currently I am CEO of German language astronomy publisher Oculum-Verlag and senior editor of Abenteuer Astronomie magazine.
My focus is on observing the universe with my own eyes, from phenomena in our Earth’s atmosphere to galaxy clusters and quasars. My biggest obsession is visual deep-sky observing, which I have been doing very intensely for more than two decades. I like to push the instruments and myself to the limit, from the naked eye to my 20-inch Dobsonian, and sketch what I see.
As I have a university degree in geography, I like to travel and visit the best places to do astronomy across the world, from the icy shores of Spitzbergen to the deserts of Namibia and Australia.