Career Interview Series: How An Amateur Astronomer Turned Her Passion Into A Business.

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy has compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers, planetary scientists, and enthusiasts. These interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals who have navigated both traditional and non-traditional paths in the field.

Vicky Derksen’s journey into astronomy didn’t start with a childhood telescope or a university degree. Growing up in northern Idaho, she saw the Milky Way all the time and simply assumed everyone else did too. She took that night sky for granted until she moved to Phoenix at twenty-one and had her first serious encounter with light pollution. The stars that had always been there were harder to find, and she missed them, but life continued as Derksen began raising her children.

Vicky Derksen, Night Sky Tourist

The real spark didn't ignite until she was in her early forties and homeschooling her children. She looked up one night and realized she had a vast resource above her but no vocabulary to describe it. She realized she wanted her children to know the sky better than she did. "I had everything to look at, and I knew none of it. I could find the Big Dipper; I could find the Moon. That's it," she recalls.

Determined to change that, Derksen began teaching herself naked-eye astronomy. Her method was practical and shared; as she learned a constellation or a star story, she immediately passed it on to her kids. This personal passion soon became contagious, leading her to teach a class for homeschool students. It proved a popular topic, with parents joining in as well. As Derksen learned more about the night sky, her enthusiasm for dark sky communities grew. This grassroots interest pulled her into a larger mission: working with a group to get Fountain Hills, Arizona, designated as an International Dark Sky Community, a goal they achieved in 2018.

What started as a personal quest for knowledge evolved into a flourishing business almost by accident. The transition began when a local resort requested telescopes for their grand reopening. By now, Derksen had connected with a local astronomy group of mostly retired older men. They agreed to bring their telescopes out for the event. The resort’s marketing dubbed the group the “Star Dudes." This event led to others, and Derksen realized the strong interest in the Phoenix area for astronomy events. People wanted to look up and learn about the night sky. They just needed a little help.

Through this revelation, Night Sky Tourist was born. The astrotourism business launched into the untapped market for high-quality, personal stargazing experiences, with Derksen hiring the “Star Dudes” for the events. “They would do it for free,” she adds with a laugh. “They love it that much, but I pay them.”

Derksen at the telescope for a Night Sky event.

Phoenix hosts many business conferences, receiving travelers from all over the U.S. and even internationally. These groups are looking for unique events to offer attendees, and Night Sky Tourist is a great fit. The demand for their unique brand of entertainment has exploded, particularly as "astrotourism" becomes a travel trend. In February alone, her team handled twenty-one events in twenty-eight days. 

Derksen has carefully curated these experiences to be more than just looking through a telescope; she offers "Twilight Hikes" and "Starlight Full Moon Hikes" that connect people to the environment and the cultural history of the stars. Her favorite events include the opportunity to tell the story of the stars across cultures, using these cultural myths to connect us more deeply to the night sky and each other. People often tell her it’s these stories that stick with them after the event.

She has also been involved in the development of the International Dark Sky Discovery Center in Fountain Hills, a new facility opening in the fall of 2026 that will hold the largest telescope in Arizona, a planetarium and theater, and an exhibit on the growing dark sky movement.

In addition to the physical events, Derksen has built a digital home for sky enthusiasts through the Night Sky Tourist website and podcast. The podcast was born out of a friend’s suggestion and a "leap before you look" moment where she announced the launch on social media before she even knew how to edit audio recordings. Now, with over 130 episodes, she has found her stride in a medium that allows her to reach people far beyond Arizona.

Vicky Derksen teaching naked eye astronomy, helping others understand the night sky.

Her content is built on four intentional pillars that reflect her holistic view of the sky. She emphasizes naked-eye stargazing because she believes the barrier to entry shouldn't be an expensive telescope. She also highlights dark sky destinations, like national parks with dedicated astronomy programs, and explores cultural astronomy by sharing sacred star stories from indigenous cultures. Finally, she uses her platform for dark sky advocacy, educating listeners on the ecological importance of preserving darkness—not just for the sake of the view, but for the health of the planet.

To learn more about Vicky Derksen’s business, Night Sky Tourist, or to find a dark sky destination for your next trip, visit nightskytourist.com.

Career Profile: From Physics Student to Independent Scientist and Business Owner

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy has compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers, planetary scientists, etc. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

October 3, 2024 is National Women-Owned Business Day. Below is our interview with Sally Seaver, a space scientist, book author, business owner, scholar, and polymath. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Irvine and has had a self-proclaimed unconventional career path that was shaped by strong curiosity, courage, determination, confidence that solutions exist, and entrepreneurial spirit. Sally’s curiosity has taken her theoretical research in multiple directions, including investigating what force opposes gravity and understanding the initial conditions of Earth. She is the author of Mass Vortex Theory; Development of a Solar System From Atoms To Star and the accompanying website.

Tell us a little about your background.
My academic journey is very unconventional. As an undergraduate, I took Conceptual Physics as a breadth requirement, and I enjoyed learning about how the physical world works including the fundamental forces. It seemed weird to me (not in keeping with balance and aesthetics) that there would not be a balancing force to the attractive force of gravity. Then, I considered that if there was an opposing force, where would it come from? I reasoned that gravity is a force associated with mass. What is the opposite of mass? I reasoned that space seemed to fulfill this opposite. At any rate, it was something to investigate. 

As I attempted to write my ideas about space, I learned that space is defined academically as the set of all possible points. I visited several different professors during office hours to understand more about this and I was told that countably many points do not provide spatial extension, but uncountably many points do. To me, this is unacceptable magic! So, I set out to learn more about the assumptions of math and physics, resulting in a year-long course on mathematical logic. By the time that I concluded my bachelor degrees in Physics and Mathematics, I concluded that academic science had some problematic standards preventing productive advances:

• Defining space as the set of all points when a point itself has no distance or direction—distance and direction being critical for space

• The mathematical handling of infinitely many things using only the concepts “countably-many” and “uncountably-many”

• Major problems with Set Theory and its role as the foundation of Math, especially when Math provides the rigor (and language) for all science.

I learned that my curiosity is super powerful and it ended up taking me towards my impractical path. After earning my undergraduate degree, I worked temp jobs and did my research at night, Saturdays and holidays. In 1994, as a single parent, I was able to complete the first version of my big paper, “Working Together on Knowledge”, which to my way of thinking provides a better foundation for creating and developing formal scientific theories so that they are clear and consistent. As a certified producer for Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) cable access station 23, I created a three-part show to present my research up to that point in October 2003.

Tell us about your research investigations.
In 2012, I watched a presentation about the Mayan calendar, which sparked my curiosity about reference dates. After doing some research and paying a physics professor to consult, I decided that I should write a book. My book is called Continental Cataclysm Theory. Friendly reviews found some problems with my assumptions about the initial conditions of the Earth, but I was not deterred. 

As I set out to explain the initial conditions of the Earth, I developed a new theory of planet formation, star formation and galaxy formation which is captured in my book, Mass Vortex Theory; Development of a Solar System From Atoms To Star (2019). This book is the first of five books in my Continental Cataclysm Theory Series. A distinguishing feature of my theory of planet formation is that every planet starts with an ice shell. Each of the inner planets has lost theirs, but the outer planets still have theirs. The goal of the Juno spacecraft, in orbit around Jupiter since 2016, is to explore the origin and evolution of the planet. Juno’s science themes include its origin and its interior structure in addition to two other themes. My model of Jupiter’s interior may be able to  contribute to the science themes of Juno.

Tell us a little about your business.
For 10 years after graduating from college, I worked as a contractor for companies such as Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), AT&T Computer Systems, ADP, and Fidelity Investments. I was able to take time off from 1994-1996 for full-time research. Then, I worked three years at MFS Investment Management doing desktop publishing and automation projects. In March of 2001, I left MFS to found my own company, Active Lightning. Work includes database publishing, custom software and ecommerce websites. Since 2018, the focus of Active Lightning has shifted to creating business-to-business [B2B] websites heavy on integration with relevant business systems - essentially, Active Lightning has pivoted from doing services work to being a software company with two proprietary products, Active Hub and ActiveTransfer. In 2021, I started working on developing an energy storage device, which was inspired by an online college course (edx.edu) in materials and discoveries from my space science work on Mass Vortex Theory. The patent is currently pending.

I also founded an ecommerce company, Egyptian Cotton TShirts LLC, in 2007, in order to take advantage of what I had learned from clients. You can read about that experience here.

What do you like most about your working environment?
I get to work from home on my own schedule and I get to work in the comfort of my home. I don’t lose productive time commuting.

However, being a small business owner is not very family-friendly. I am self-employed (my bill rate is $125 to $150 per hour), so when I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I work a lot for income and then spend other time working on my research. I often don't get enough sleep.

What advice do you have for achieving work-life balance (including having a family)?
Have your children early in your life while you have plenty of energy

What do you do for fun (e.g., hobbies, pastimes, etc.)?
A girl friend from my church who had done science reporting at Princeton University, put me in touch with a post-doc mathematician at MIT. He read some of my work, but he was not taking me seriously - and let’s face it, my work is a departure from established orthodoxy. I asked him point blank if he believed that a woman such as myself could make a significant contribution to mathematics. He confessed that he did not. I left that meeting and resolved that I would work with color and light by getting more involved in beading (as in necklaces and earrings). I go through phases of doing beading and oil painting as time allows. I also enjoy reading fun escapist novels or watching HGTV.

To learn more about Sally's specific career route, please contact her at sally_at_placeofunderstanding.com (replace the _at_ with @) and check out her website, Place of Understanding.