Born:  February 19, 1943

Deceased:  July 5, 2024

Married:  Yes, to Cokkie (since 1975)

Son:  Martin - born in 1967

Daughter:  Naära - born in 1977

Grandson:  Kylian Rocco - born in 2004 

Profession:  Uranographer & Graphic Designer

Uranography as a profession  

I have been interested in stars and especially in star maps for almost all my life. In 1977 I started working on my first real star atlas. Five large maps, showing the whole sky, with stars down to magnitude 6.5. It was published in the book Encyclopedia of Astronomy (edited by Colin Ronan), and later as a separate set of star maps by the British Astronomical Association (B.A.A.).  The title: B.A.A. Star Charts 1950.0.

After that, still as a hobby, I started working on Sky Atlas 2000.0, with stars down to magnitude 8.0. After it's publication in 1981 (Sky Publishing Corporation / Cambridge University Press), publishers started asking me to do star maps and star atlases for them. This resulted in quitting my job as a graphic artist and designer, and starting as a full-time star-map-maker (uranographer) in 1983. Since then I have worked on star maps for several atlases and a large number of books and magazines.

Over the last few years a lot of things have changed in the way star maps are created, and in fact in the whole area of graphic work. My old drawing table is now replaced by an Apple computer. I use several graphic programs, of which Adobe Illustrator (a vector drawing program) is the most important.

Awards

On November, 7, 1987 I received the ‘Dr. J. van der Bilt-prize’; a reward from the “Nederlandse Vereniging voor Weer en Sterrenkunde”, a Dutch organisation for weather and astronomy amateurs.

On September 1, 1993, the Internationale Astronomical Union

named a minor planet (asteroid) after me:

(4648) Tirion = 1931 UE
Discovered 1931 Oct. 18 by K. Reinmuth at Heidelberg. 

Last update: September 16, 2024