Imelda B. Joson
Founder, Joson Images

Imelda Joson worked 11 years in the magazine-publishing industry as image archivist, researcher, and photo editor at Sky Publishing Corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which publishes Sky & Telescope, Night Sky, SkyWatch, and Beautiful Universe. Imelda’s passion for photography, coupled with her innate entrepreneurial spirit, led her to establish Joson Images, a stock-photo agency specializing in science and nature, in the spring of 2006.

As a young girl growing up in the Philippines, Imelda’s interest in the night sky was sparked when she heard about the appearance of Comet Kohoutek. (She was actually born with a brilliant comet in the sky -- the great Sungrazer Ikeya-Seki was then heading toward perihelion in 1965.)

Imelda’s desire to help popularize astronomy led her and her future husband, Edwin Aguirre, to become freelance science writers in major newspapers and magazines in Manila. Her first published astrophoto -- that of a total lunar eclipse -- appeared on the Manila Bulletin’s front page when she was just 16 years old.

In 1985 she coauthored a 335-page reference book on Halley’s Comet, which was published by the National Research Council of the Philippines. It was the first book on astronomy ever written by Filipino authors. For this she was awarded the Philippine Astronomical Society’s Padre Faura Astronomy Medal as well as a Resolution of Commendation from the California State Assembly. 

In the early 1990s Imelda conducted research on the high-vacuum, thin-film metal coating of telescope mirrors at the Jesuit-run Manila Observatory. There she aluminized mirrors ranging in size from 6 to 12 inches, including the observatory’s spectroheliograph. She was also commissioned to design and construct two 17.5-inch f/4.5 Newtonian reflectors – one for a private observatory in Queensland, Australia, and the other for the Philippine Department of Science and Technology.

A veteran eclipse chaser, Imelda had traveled to such exotic destinations as Java, Indonesia (1983); Mindanao, Philippines (1988); Baja California Sur, Mexico (1991); Caribbean Sea (1998); Harput, Turkey (1999); Lusaka, Zambia (2001); and Salloum, Egypt (2006), to observe and photograph total eclipses of the Sun. In addition, she successfully observed the 1994 annular solar eclipse from New Mexico and the 2004 transit of Venus from the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

Imelda also proposed and designed two astronomical stamps issued by the Philippine Postal Service – in 1986 to commemorate the return of Halley’s Comet, and in 1988 to mark that year’s total solar eclipse in Mindanao.

In 1990 she and her husband obtained from then-Philippine president Corazon Aquino an executive proclamation declaring the country’s first National Astronomy Week. The event is now celebrated each year.  

In 1995 the International Astronomical Union recognized their contributions by naming asteroid 6282 “Edwelda” in their honor.

In addition to astronomy and astrophotography, Imelda's interests include conchology, philately, and the popularization of science in developing countries. She tries to help young people, even in a small way, by donating magazine subscriptions to a public elementary school in Manila and through the Binocular Award. Over the years she had given binoculars to high-school and college students who have the interest and enthusiasm to explore the night sky but couldn’t afford to buy their own instruments. Another outreach program she has started recently is to collect old or discontinued science textbooks and encyclopedias and then ship them to schools and public libraries in the Philippines. She hopes to expand these programs to other developing countries in the near future.