The HEDLA-08 conference was a continuation of a series of biennial conferences first held in Pleasanton, California, in 1996, and focused on progress made during recent years in designing, conducting, and analyzing the results of laboratory experiments, theoretical work, and computer simulations relevant to high-energy density (HED) astrophysics. The astrophysics aspects of HED experiments are extremely diverse and include jets, the mechanism of their generation and interaction with the ambient medium; stellar evolution with a focus on turbulence, hydrodynamic instabilities, and mixing of nuclear species; radiative supersonic flows associated with stellar explosions and jets; radiative processes in plasma; equation of state and material properties; and last but not least magnetized and relativistic plasmas. This volume contains a small but representative subset of 35 peer-reviewed papers presented at the HEDLA-08 meeting.