So this is how the story goes...
It all started on Labor Day 2006, I had just gotten my first Macbook after decades of avoiding Apple products.
And on this laptop was a thing called iMovie and you could make videos with it.
A thing about me: I’ve grown up and lived my life loving astronomy and from high school I have worked in various planetaria (you know, the things with a big dome in them projecting stars - usually found as part of a museum).
Another thing: I love sharing astronomy with others, so me and planetaria were a great fit.
But then along comes the internet, and Apple makes iMovie and puts it on all of them, and also YouTube is born (this was before Google bought it). So, I post a video called the The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken on YouYube. Long story short, it caught on, I made more and they caught on, and then I spent the next 15 years making content for YouTube in my spare time.
I eventually branched out and created related video series: Space Fan News (every week), Your Sky Tonight (whenever I felt like it) and I continued to make space videos whenever I could get around to it.
But I Don't Want to Be Internet Famous!
Creating all of this content was having the desired effect, I was gaining exposure, getting views and people were getting a lot out of the stuff Deep Astronomy was putting out. But I discovered along the way that I didn’t want to be internet famous. I don’t like being recognized in public and I very much value my privacy.
What’s more, posting all the time was taking it’s toll on my career and personal life and since I was doing all of this in my spare time, I needed to cut back on creating online content.
Cutting Back Made Me Sad
The thing is, I love creating astronomy content. I’m good at it and I know what people want to hear and learn more about. My space videos in particular were well recieved and to this day I get people asking for more content.
I thought about this for a long time. Did I like creating content because I like the attention, or what? Why exactly did I enjoy making if it wasn’t to be internet famous?
I was really puzzled.
Then It Hit Me
After months of soul-searching and talking with people, I discovered why I was driven to make content. It came down to two things:
- I love learning new research in astronomy and for me, as someone who has spent years in a planetarium and making videos, the best way for me to learn something was to try and teach it to others.
- I’ve lived a full and priviledged life full of wonderful people and happy things, I want to give back to others. At this stage in my life, I want to help others without getting internet famous
So I'm Shifting the Focus of Deep Astronomy
For years, Deep Astronomy was a one person operation (me) doing all the work. That’s a bit unsustainable, so I’m investing some savings into producing content that others can use in their outreach and social media efforts. I’m starting small with an audio program called Exoplanet Radio, a show dedicated to highlighting all the cools stuff going on in this brand new field of astronomy.
We are focussing our efforts for Exoplanet Radio to become syndicated on radio stations around the U.S. and abroad. At least at first. Our plans will include influencers, outreach programs and streaming platforms.
As of this writing, things are just getting started so please Contact Us to keep informed when content becomes available. We have lots of astronomy programs in production right now, so there will be a lot of changes.