Phil Harrington is an ardent amateur astronomer from Smithtown, New York. Bitten by the "astronomical bug" while watching the total lunar eclipse of April 1968, Phil has spent countless hours touring the universe through telescopes and binoculars. He is a former staff member of New York City's Hayden Planetarium (1979-1981) and instructor at the Vanderbilt Planetarium (1982-1998) in Centerport, New York. Most recently, Phil has been an adjunct instructor at Suffolk County Community College's Eastern Campus in Riverhead, New York, where he taught courses in stellar and planetary astronomy. Phil is also one of the coordinators of the annual Astronomer's Conjunction, held ever summer in Northfield, Mass.  

Phil is most familiar to amateur astronomers for his books:

• ASTRONOMY FOR ALL AGES (Globe Pequot Press, 1994; second edition 2000)
• ECLIPSE! (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997)
• STAR WARE (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1994; second edition 1998)
• THE DEEP SKY: AN INTRODUCTION (Sky Publishing, 1998)
• TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1990)
• TOURING THE UNIVERSE THROUGH BINOCULARS ATLAS (self-published, 1998)

A native of Rowayton, Connecticut, Phil now lives on Long Island's north shore with his wife Wendy and daughter Helen. By day, he works as corporate training developer at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he spends most of his time creating web-based training courses. Phil is also an avid bicyclist, and author of SHORT BIKE RIDES IN AND AROUND NEW YORK CITY.