To philately… and beyond

My life-long interest in astronomy was sparked when I saw Saturn and its rings clearly through the eye piece of my father’s telescope at a young age and since then my interest has taken me on a fantastic writing journey and in recent years, indulging myself in the hobby of astronomy and space-themed philately or astrophilately (figure 1).

Brazil issued the first astronomy stamp in 1887. Perforated and blue in colour, this small 300 réis stamp depicted the Southern Cross or Crux Australis, an asterism of the constellation Crux seen only in the Southern Hemisphere. Stamps with an astronomical theme slowly spread to other countries including Italy, the United States, Poland and Norway. Here in the UK astronomy and astronomers were not commemorated philatelically until 1966 when the Royal Mail issued a yellow stamp depicting a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank (figure 2).

With the growing global celebration of space and astronomy through philately, some covers made it beyond our atmosphere into space aboard shuttles or Apollo missions. The Apollo 15 postal cover incident, for example, is notorious. Unknown to NASA, the crew of. Herman Seiger, the German stamp dealer involved in the plan, sold some of the covers for prices in the thousands. When the news of the flown covers reached NASA, the astronauts were reprimanded and forbidden to fly in space again.