Herbert Raab was born in 1969 in Linz, Austria. He holds a degree as graduate engineer in computer sciences from the Johannes-Kepler-University Linz, and a masters degree in "Management for Engineers" from the LIMAK business school. He works as a software engineer developing business software.

He has been interested in astronomy since his early youth, and became a member of the Linzer Astronomische Gemeinschaft (Astronomical Society of Linz) in 1983. Since 1996, he has been president of that association.

In 1990, he joined Erich Meyer and Erwin Obermair, who had built a private observatory some 30km north of Linz in 1978, and occasionally measured positions of minor planets there. After developing some software to support the process of measuring positions on photographic film, the three regularely submitted astrometric positions of minor planets and comets to the Minor Planet Center. In early 1993, they switched from film to CCD: Since then, Astrometrica has been in constant use by the author and his friends. Thousands of astrometric positions, mainly of NEOs and comets, and number of discoveries of minor planets are the results of this collaboration so far. Currently, they use a SBIG ST-6 CCD camera at the prime focus of a 60cm f/3.3 reflector for their observations.

In 1994, the IAU General Assembly in The Hague elected Raab as a consultant of IAU comission 20 (Minor Planets and Comets). In the 2004-2006 turn, Raab was also on of the vice-presidents of the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Astronomieund Astrophysik (Austrian Society for Astronomy and Astrophysics).

The popular astronomy magazine Sky & Telescope featured an article on Herbert Raab in the August 1997 issue (pp.72-74).

The author, talking with the late Eugene Shoemaker and Carolyn Shoemaker (Vienna 1997).