Ian William Ridpath (born 1 May 1947, in Ilford, Essex) is an English science writer and broadcaster best known as a popularizer of astronomy and a biographer of constellation history.

[1] Before entering publishing he was an assistant in the lunar research group at the University of London Observatory, Mill Hill.

He is a contributor to the Dorling Kindersley encyclopedia Universe, and a former editor of the UK quarterly magazine Popular Astronomy.

He was one of the first to offer an explanation for the so-called Sirius Mystery[7] involving the supposedly advanced astronomical knowledge of the Dogon people of Mali, west Africa.

[9] In 2012 he received the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's Klumpke-Roberts Award for outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.