Moonlight skating in Sweden. Credit and copyright: Göran Strand.
“Nights like these are almost to good to be true,” says astrophotographer Göran Strand.
Glide along with Strand and two friends who went ice skating recently on a frozen lake near Östersund, Sweden. “This night was really magic, no wind, lots of ice crystals in the air and an almost full Moon that shined upon us during our two hours out on the ice,” Stand said. “To the right of the Moon you can see the constellation of Orion and down left of the Moon you can see planet Jupiter shining brightly.”
A simulation of what it might look like to see the night sky from within a city setting. Credit and copyright: Sergio Garcia Rill.
What if we could have the best of both worlds, where a vibrant city didn’t interfere with the view of the night sky? That was the thought of astrophotographer Sergio Garcia Rill when he decided to create simulated versions called “Urban Nightscapes.”
“I have been shooting astrophotography nightscapes for a few years now, but due to light pollution I need to travel hours away from the city to be able to see and photograph the night sky,” Rill wrote on his website. “But I wanted to make a combination of what it might be to see the night sky from within the city and my Urban Nightscapes series was born.”
His first video includes Texas cities of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, and he makes it clear, the images and video he’s produced are mockup views.
“The stars in the video have been added through digital manipulation and the sky doesn’t look that way inside the city due to the light pollution,” Rill clarified. “I did my best effort to try to simulate the sky as it would have looked without light pollution but I am aware that not all the segments have achieved that, and I’m aware that this kind of shots are (at least at the moment) impossible to do in camera.
Enjoy the video above, and we’ll look forward to more in the future! Find out more about Rill’s project on his website.
It’s a-comin’: a “monster” sunspot is steadily rotating around the Sun’s southern hemisphere and will soon be in position to fire flares and CMEs in our direction — and this past weekend master solar photographer Alan Friedman captured it on camera!
The image above was taken in full-spectrum visible light on Sunday, Oct. 19 by Alan from his backyard in Buffalo, New York. Sunspots 2186 (at the top limb), 2187 (upper center), 2193 (the small middle cluster) and the enormous AR2192 are easily visible as dark blotches – “cooler” regions on the Sun’s surface where upwelling magnetic fields interrupt the convective processes that drive the Sun’s energy output.
This particular image was a single frame of video, unlike some of Alan’s other photographs. According to Alan the air turbulence was particularly bad that day, shooting between the clouds, so only this one frame was usable. Click the image for full-scale “wow” factor.
(And if you think AR2192 looks scary in that image, check it out in CaK bands here!)
Scale size of Earth compared to AR2192 on Oct. 20 (NASA/SDO/AIA. Diagram by J. Major.)
According to Spaceweather.com AR2192 has grown considerably over the past few days and has the potential to unleash M- and X-class flares in our direction now that it’s moving into Earth-facing position. It’s currently many times larger than Earth and will likely get even bigger… in fact, during this week’s partial solar eclipse AR2192 should be visible with the naked (but not unprotected!) eye for viewers across much of North America.
PNA - First prize in the'Pro' Category: ‘Night at Tatio Geysers. Credit and copyright: J.M. Lecleire/PNA
We told you earlier this year about an astrophotography contest held by Ciel et Espace Photos in France, called the Photo Nightscape Awards. This is the first year of the competition and the winners have now been announced — and they are gorgeous!
They had two categories: pro and ‘espoir’ (amateur, or literally, ‘hope,’) and more than 100 photographers from around the world participated. Above is the winning entry for the pro category, a wonderful shot of a geyser field located in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile with a beautiful night sky overhead, taken by Jean-Marc Lecleire.
See a video compilation of the winners and other submissions, below, along with more beautiful images:
PNA 2014 – First in the ‘Espoir’ (hope) category: ‘Milky way over Baobabs.’ Credit and copyright: Mohammad Taha Ghouckkanly/PNA.
The organizers of the contest said they are looking for “astrophotography that mixes photographic art and poetry. The judge for the contest was Miguel Claro, whose astrophotography we feature often here on Universe Today.
Other winners were 1st prize ‘Pro’: Tommy Eliassen; 2nd prize ‘Pro’: Mohammad Taha Ghouchkanlu for the “Baobabs” image, below; 1st prize ‘Espoir’: Pascal Colas; 2nd prize ‘Espoir’: Jérémy Gachon; 1st prize in young astronomers 9-12 group was Louis-Hadrien Gros and 2nd 9-12 was Justin Galant. 1st prize in the young astronomers 13-17 group was Tess Gautier, 2nd prize ’13-17.
You can see all the winning photos at the website here, where you can also learn about next year’s competition.
'Astrophotography' by Thierry Legault, now in English. Image courtesy Rocky Nook.
If you’re looking for detailed, step-by-step instructions of how to start or improve your photography of astronomical objects, look no further. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault shares the expertise he has garnered from over 20 years of “amateur” photography in his newly translated book titled simply — and appropriately — “Astrophotography.”
“It took me more than two years to write the first edition of the book (published in French in 2006),” Legault told Universe Today, “and I worked several months on the second edition (2013), and worked several months again for this new English edition.”
This softcover book is filled with dramatic images, helpful graphs, charts, and more – plus over 100,000 words of text to provide detailed, guided instructions on everything from choosing the right camera for your needs to how to process imagery for the best and most accurate results.
Despite the full moon that turned the sky blue, the Milky Way, crossed by a bright meteor, is visible on this 1-minute exposure taken with a 14mm f/2.8 lens on a 24x36mm DSLR over Wallaman Falls, Australia. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
100% of the astronomical images in the book are Legault’s own photos, just a few of which are featured here in this review. “I really wanted to use my own images,” Legault said.
While each page is a treasure trove of Legault’s beautiful images, he’s not just showing off: he tells you how you can try to get the same results.
Of course, we’ve featured Legault’s stunning and sometimes ground-breaking astrophotography here on Universe Today, and his work has been published and broadcast worldwide. You’ll likely recall images of the space shuttle or International Space Station crossing the Sun or Moon, views of spy satellites in orbit, beautiful deep sky views, or shots like the striking image above of a ‘moonbow’ and meteor over Australia’s Wallaman Falls.
His continued dedication to his craft, along with his attention to detail and quality has earned Legault the reputation as one of the top amateur astrophotographers in the world. And he now shares his tips and know-how in this well-organized and detailed — but highly accessible — manual. Legault’s descriptions and instructions will not lose even those just beginning with astronomical imaging.
Lunar close-ups such as these, taken with a video camera and a 14″ telescope, need good atmospheric conditions and telescope collimation. From the book ‘Astrophotography’. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
So, with experts like Legault and so many other accomplished astrophotographers taking incredible photos (which we love to feature on Universe Today) why would someone want to bother with trying to just start out and learn the craft?
Legault addresses that question immediately in the forward of his book.
“Part of the answer to that question lies in the desire to get our own pictures of the stars: after all most of the tourists who visit the Egyptian pyramids, Niagara Falls, or The Great Wall of China also take photographs, even though these sites have already been photographed millions of times with beautiful tomes devoted to them,” Legault writes. “The pleasure of photographing the sky is a natural progression from the visual observations of the night sky…”
Plus, Legault continues, with current equipment that is now available, the expanding avenues of citizen science offers the chance for anyone to add to the body of astronomical knowledge.
“It is entirely possible to go beyond the purely aesthetic aspect of astrophography and use images of celestial bodies to study their behavior and deduce the physical mechanisms that govern them, or even reveal new insights,” Legault writes. “In some cases, advanced amateurs can do useful work assisting professionals who, while certainly having more sophisticated means and deeper skills are s0 few that it is impossible for them to perform a complete survey of a a celestial object to to continuously monitor it.”
So not only can you create beautiful imagery but you can contribute to science as well.
These images of the ISS are taken from a video obtained on February 28, 2011, with a 10″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a monochrome video camera mounted on a Takahashi mount. The mount’s electronics were considerably modified by Emmanuel Rietsch for satellite tracking and were used in conjunction with his software, Video Sky (a modification he also performs on EQ-G mounts). At the center left of the ISS, viewed from the rear and docked to the ISS, is the space shuttle Atlantis. Just to its right, astronaut Steve Bowen is on a spacewalk at the end of the ISS articulated arm (triangular structure). When the images are merged in pairs using the cross-eyed viewing technique described earlier in this chapter, the ISS appears in 3D. The solar panels of the ISS are at top and bottom. The large rectangular white checkerboard structures are radiators. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
The book begins with the simplest ways for amateurs to begin photographing the night sky, and you don’t even need to own a telescope. For example, Legault’s video, below, of fireworks and a big Moon over Paris is something anyone can record. But using the right settings — and planning ahead — are key to capturing beautiful images and video.
But then Legault delves into the details of telescopic photography, and provides information on using telescopes and tracking mounts. He shares how to precisely capture everything from incredible solar imagery, to deep sky photos, to his ‘trademark’ transits of satellites, like those seen below:
For the total eclipse of March 29, 2006, five images of exposure increasing by a factor of four per step (1/250, 1/60, 1/15, 1/4, and 1 second) were combined with HDR processing to produce this wide dynamic range view of the solar corona. The earthshine on the moon also can be seen. The HDR program Photomatix was used to register the images before they were combined. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.a.) On May 16, 2010 near Madrid, Spain, the weather allowed me to get this simultaneous transit of the ISS and the space shuttle Atlantis just tens of minutes before docking, during the STS-132 mission. This is an exposure of 1/8000 s with a Canon 5D Mark II on a 150mm apochromatic refractor with a Herschel prism and neutral filter. Transit time was 0.5 seconds. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.b.) Six days later, in Switzerland (Berne), atmospheric conditions were especially favorable to imaging Atlantis docked to the ISS (on the left, between the solar panels). Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
Also key is image processing. While Legault has provided details for Universe Today before on how not to over-process and be fooled by image artifacts, his book offers much more thorough information on how to start — as well as knowing when to quit — processing images for the best results.
Other areas Legault covers are how to:
Select the most useful equipment: cameras, adapters, filters, focal reducers/extenders, field correctors, and guide telescopes
Set up your camera (digital, video, or CCD) and your lens or telescope for optimal results
Plan your observing sessions
Polar-align your equatorial mount and improve tracking for pin-point star images
Make celestial time-lapse videos
Calculate the shooting parameters: focal length and ratio, field of view, exposure time, etc.
Combine multiples exposures to reveal faint galaxies, nebulae details, elusive planetary structures, and tiny lunar craters
Postprocess your images to fix defects such as vignetting, dust shadows, hot pixels, uneven background, and noise
Identify problems with your images and improve your results
“Astrophotography” is not just a dry manual: Legault tells stories and explains details in a manner that seems like he is talking directly to you. For a translated book, the text flows extremely well, making for a very readable book. Legault credits Alan Holmes from the Santa Barbara Instruments Group (SBIG) – one of the main manufacturers of CCD cameras for astronomy — for his assitance with the translation from French. “He did a tremendous job of correcting my bad translation!” Legault told UT.
This false color image of the North America and Pelican nebulae covers 3° and shows the SII, Hydrogen Alpha, and OIII lines isolated with a set of 3 nm wide narrowband filters using a CCD camera from a very light-polluted area, with cumulative exposure times of 12, 2.5, and 4.5 hours respectively. Each 5-minute raw frame was calibrated and all of them were registered. Then, each stacked group was assigned to a layer in the MaxIm DL Combine Color function in LRGB mode: H? to luminance and green, SII to red, and OIII to blue. To compensate for the weakness of OIII, and especially SII with regard to H a, their respective amplification factors were 3.5 and 10. Final adjustment of levels, curves, and color saturation was done using Photoshop after export from MaxIm DL in 16-bit TIFF format. Credit and copyright: Thierry Legault.
The gibbous moon shines on Sept. 5, 2014. Credit: Christian Kamber
While the SuperMoon of earlier this week got a lot of attention — and rightly so, given the Moon was closest in its orbit to Earth when it was full — the waning and waxing phases around our celestial neighbor are also beautiful. Haunting, in fact.
These shots were taken by members of our Universe Today Flickr pool, with the moon either entering or exiting the full moon phase. Got some stunning astronomy shots to share? Feel free to add your contributions to the group (which says you will give us permission to publish) and we may include them in a future story.
The moon in its waning gibbous phase on Sept. 12, 2014. Photo taken with a Canon 700D attached to a Maksutov 127mm telescope. Credit: Sarah&Simon FisherThe moon shines red in this photo taken from Newcastle upon Tyne, England on Sept. 11, 2014. Credit: David BlanchflowerThe large craters Atlas (left) and Hercules (below) on the moon. Taken using a Canon 1100D. Credit: Paul M. Hutchinson
EDIT: We just received a nice sequence of shots from Laura Austin:
Active regions 2108 and 2109 are now passing around the limb of the Sun, but not before solar photography specialist Alan Friedman grabbed a few pictures of them on Friday! The image above, captured by Alan from his location in Buffalo, NY, shows the two large sunspots nestled in a forest of solar spicules while a large detached prominence hovers several Earth-diameters inside the corona. A beautiful snapshot of our home star!
Captured in hydrogen-alpha wavelengths, the image above has been colored by Alan, rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise, and inverted from the original. The sunspots and standing prominence are cooler in Ha than the surrounding chromosphere and corona, and so actually photograph darker.
A view of sunspot 2109 in visible light can be seen below:
AR2109 photographed by Alan Friedman on July 11, 2014.
Sunspots are the result of magnetic fields rising up from deep within the Sun, preventing convection from occurring in large areas on the Sun’s surface and thereby creating relatively cooler regions we see as dark spots. They can often be many times the size of Earth and can be sources of powerful solar flares.
See these and more images by Alan on his blog here.
Star trails at Balanced Rock in the Arches National Park in Utah on May 30, 2014. Credit and copyright: César Cantu.
Wow! This video brought tears to my eyes because of its sheer beauty. Our friend and frequent astrophoto contributor César Cantu fulfilled a lifelong dream this past month of taking a trip through the southwestern of the United States, to “see and feel the shocking nature reflected in the Grand Canyon, in the Arches National Park and in the terrible atmosphere of Death Valley,” he told us via email.
Although César produced this video entirely on his own, the US Park Service and the states in the US Southwest couldn’t have a better promotional video! It is simply stunning, showing both the splendid landscapes during the day and the magnificent starscapes at night.
He drove from his native Mexico to the US Southwest, carrying several cameras to capture multiples landscapes, “to show different characteristics from the nature of our planet.”
“I drove just over 7,000 miles in 32 days and I visited all these extraordinary places,” César said. “I believe that nature, humanity and society, have found support and positive, creative, respectful and viable response from the National Park Service of the United States of America.”
Make sure you see the night sky footage starting at about :50 — it’s amazing! And the video César took while driving down a desert road is really fun to “ride along.”
The Milky Way over Saguaro National Park on June 17, 2014. Credit and copyright: César Cantu.
“I must say that the trip was so exciting, and I am already planning another for next summer!” he added.
We can’t wait to see more of his travel pics!
You can see more images from César’s “dream” trip at his website.
Thanks once again to César Cantu for sharing his work with Universe Today!
The 2014 contest had two categories: “Beauty of The Night Sky” and “Against The Lights.”
“Both contest categories provide a visual awareness of the disappearing starry night sky and hopefully an understanding as to its cause,”said contest judge Connie Walker, associate scientist and education specialist at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. “The added hope is that the photos will provide an incentive to be more actively involved in reasonable light pollution solutions and therefore dark skies preservation.”
Click on each of the image here for larger versions.
The first prize in Beauty of the Night Sky category was awarded to Luc Perrot from Réunion Island of France (southern Indian Ocean), for his image “Over the Top,” below, shot on Feb 28, 2014. A volcano in the Reunion Island peaks out of a sea of clouds and rests under stars.
“The photograph beautifully captures a scene that is eternal, the central bulge of the Milky Way is rising majestically over Piton de la Fournaise volcano,” said contest judge David Malin, who is widely known as a pioneer in scientific astrophotography “The image shows no sign of human presence, and is a reminder that the foreground landscape and the dark dust lanes in the Milky Way are made of the same elements, seen here as delicate clouds and solid mountain peaks.”
Here are the “Beauty of the Night Sky” top winners:
1- Luc Perrot, Reunion Island (France)
2- Ben Coffman, USA
3- Nicholas Roemmelt, Austria
4- Ibrahim Elawadi, Egypt
5- Phil Hart, Australia
We loved this image, below, from Nicholas Roemmelt of Austria for his outstanding capture of aurora over Kirkjufell waterfalls in Iceland in a moonlit night of March 2014, titled “Kirkjufell Nights” which won third place in the “Beauty of the Night” category.
Contest judge and long-time National Geographic photographer James Richardson regards this image “a fantastic confluence of the forces of nature. This is, of course, just one small corner of our universe, and yet we see swirling all the waterfalls carving at the rocky landscape, the mountain resisting erosion, the aurora sweeping around the pole and the stars beyond, part of the whole. The organizational power of this photograph is just wonderful.”
The first prize in “Against the Lights category” (and the overall contest winner) goes to Giorgia Hofer of Italy for his photo “Light in the Sky” taken on January 1, 2014 from Cibiana Pass in the Dolomites (Alps), northern Italy.
“I tried to portray the mist produced by the drones launched fireworks on the evening of new that were illuminated by a nearby light tower. in the only dark part of the sky the Big Dipper (the prominent part of constellation Ursa Major) is perfectly framed by the rays,” said the photographer.
Contest judge James Richardson said of this photo, “This captures the great ambiguity we feel about the night and night lighting. It is at once beautiful and beautifully composed. But it is also night lighting obscuring the beauties of the night. A beautiful image that confronts us with our own, conflicted desires.”
The entire “Against the Lights” winners are:
1- Giorgia Hofer, Italy
2- Alex Conu, Romania
3- Majid Ghohrudi, Iran
4- Mark Gee, New Zealand
5- Song Hongxiao, China
We also loved the fifth place winner in the “Against the Lights” category. “Heavenly Street” by Song Hongxiao of China is a long-exposure photo sequence of March 30, 2013 that captures star trails from the sacred Taishan or Mount Tai. Says the photographer: “Its been an ancient China tradition that people climb to the top of Mountain Tai to watch the beautiful sunrise and pray. In this picture thousands of people are walking across the Heavenly Street. The lights from their flashlight interplays with the stars in the sky.”
There are also 70 images as honorable mention which you can see in the video below, or in the contest Guest Gallery. The images were submitted (or taken) from 55 countries and territories.
Rising Milky Way above Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on April 10, 2014. Credit and copyright: Justin Ng.
We feature A LOT of astrophotos here on Universe Today, and we get many comments about them, too — with some people saying they could NEVER take photos of the night sky because they live in cities, or are too close to street or yard lights or other causes of light pollution.
Now, award-winning astrophotographer Justin Ng from Singapore has created a tutorial for how to photograph the night sky, even in light-polluted area.
“This tutorial shows you how I photograph the Milky Way that’s obscured by the extreme light pollution in Singapore, using photography equipments that you may already have and a workflow that probably works on most versions of Photoshop,” Justin writes, adding that the type of photo processing he uses in Photoshop can be achieved without purchasing additional plugins.
Justin says that taking pictures of the night sky is a way you can “do your part to promote public awareness of astronomy and the importance of preserving the beauty of our night skies through your images. And I am going to show you how you can do just that using photography equipment that you may already have and a workflow that probably works in most versions of Photoshop.”
For this tutorial, you will need some previous knowledge about basic photography and post-processing.
