Donald E. Osterbrock (Author) Donald E. Osterbrock is a world-renowned research astrophysicist, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics Emeritus at Lick Observatory of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was its director for eight years. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago at its Yerkes Observatory, was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, and was a faculty member at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a staff member of Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories. Dr. Osterbrock was a council member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was president of the American Astronomical Society 1988-90, and was named its Henry Norris Russell lecturer, its highest honor, in 1991. He taught astronomy and astrophysics courses at Caltech, Wisconsin, and UCSC, and many of the current leaders of astrophysical research on nebulae and active galactic nuclei worked with him as Ph.D.-thesis students or as postdoctoral research associates.Gary J. Ferland (Author) Gary J. Ferland received his doctorate from the University of Texas and did post-graduate research at Cambridge University before joining the faculty of the University of Kentucky in 1980, where he is now Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Kentucky. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 publications, mainly on classical novae, active galactic nuclei, and H II regions. Ferland has also developed the plasma simulation program, Cloudy, which is widely used to create computer simulations (or models) of the types of nebulae discussed in this book. In addition to serving on the faculty of University of Kentucky, he has spent periods at Ohio State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Toronto, Cambridge University, and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory.
