Astronomy Images and Video

In this last article of 2024, I share with you ten of my favorite images of the night sky that I captured this year. I hoped to do more visual observing over the past 12 months, and I did manage to work through my lists of double stars and carbon stars in the winter and spring. But I also wanted to record images specific objects as well as interesting regions of the night sky as part of a lifelong goal to understand the layout of our own galaxy. Also, in my line of work, I need to keep up some technical skills and an understanding of astrophotography. So, I figured as I learn I might as well capture images of something good. Here are some interesting vistas and events from 2024, most captured from my suburban backyard in Calgary… [Read more…] about Ten Favorite Night Sky Images of 2024

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A recent thread on the astronomy forum Cloudy Nights explored the possibility of capturing quick ‘snapshot’ astrophotos with small but sensitive monochrome cameras and inexpensive, small-aperture lenses of less than 25mm (!) aperture. Even better, this approach used no astronomy mount or tracking at all, just a fixed camera tripod and a PC to capture and stack each image over the course of a minute or two. Lightweight, cheap, simple.

It seemed like a preposterous idea. So of course I had to try it!

[Read more…] about The Pleasures of Ugly Astrophotography

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To call me an astrophotographer would be an overstatement. But that doesn’t stop me from bringing a camera along when stargazing on a clear night to complement some casual visual observations. No image can reproduce what it’s like to look through a telescope or binoculars, especially in dark sky when the eye beholds the scintillation of stars and silver-white nebulae and galaxies against the black matte of the background universe. But images have the advantage of permanence, to some degree at least, and of leaving a record of what we’ve seen and where we’ve been in the night sky over the months and years [Read more…] about Five Favorite Images from 2020

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