Early April in Alaska is barely beyond winter, yet I stood patiently with my father and a group of other avid astronomers, waiting to look through the telescope eyepiece at the dusty streak of a comet passing through our solar system. It was 1997, and the comet Hale-Bopp was near its closest point to the sun and earth on its 2,533-year orbit. Seeing Hale-Bopp was my first and earliest memory of discovering the wonders of the night sky; I’ve since been fortunate to build a career focused on experiencing astronomy first-hand and sharing my experiences as a resource for others. But for most of my career, I wasn’t aware that there was a formal name for the type of tourism I was participating in and promoting—astrotourism—and it dates back ...
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