Astronomy Images and Video

Beautiful and interesting images and video of the night sky including stars, planets, the Milky Way, and deep-sky objects taken through a camera lens or through a telescope.

Milky Way Photography on Medium-Format Film – A Q&A With James Cormier

November 1, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video, Deep Sky

The Pipe Nebula and Milky Way in Scorpius on Fujifilm Acros film shot with a Pentax 6×7 medium format camera. Image credit and copyright: James Cormier.

Before the days of sensitive, low-noise digital cameras, amateur and professional astronomers used chemical emulsions on cellulose film or glass plates to record photographic images. But film astrophotography was not for the faint of heart – it took time, patience, and more than a little skill to produce good images of deep-sky objects or the Milky Way. Modern digital cameras now make astrophotography so much easier, of course, so why would anyone use film anymore? [Read more…] about Milky Way Photography on Medium-Format Film – A Q&A With James Cormier

Share This:

The Pleasures of Ugly Astrophotography

August 26, 2022 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

An untracked snapshot of the North America nebula taken with a ZWO ASI385MC camera and Nikon 28mm manual camera lens at f/2.8.

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!

Share This:

Five Favorite Images from 2020

December 31, 2020 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) along with a faint summer display of aurora borealis over Calgary, Canada on July 13, 2020. Image credit and copyright: Amanda Ventrudo.

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

Share This:

The Golden Light of a Winter Solstice

December 21, 2018 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
― John Steinbeck

On December 21, 2018 at 22:23 Universal Time, the Sun reaches the December solstice, its most southern point on the ecliptic. This marks the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere and the first day of summer in the southern hemisphere [Read more…] about The Golden Light of a Winter Solstice

Share This:

Dawn Sky – Crescent Moon, Mercury, Regulus, and Orion

September 14, 2018 by Brian Ventrudo Filed Under: Astronomy Images and Video

Late-summer sunrise from Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho.

After a cloudy night, the sky cleared as dawn arrived on a late summer morning as seen from Bruneau Dunes State Park in southern Idaho on September 8, 2018. Here you see a very slender waning crescent Moon to the upper left of the star Regulus. Mercury is at the lower middle of this image, just above the clouds. Just minutes earlier, the constellation Orion tried to peak through the early-morning clouds (see below) [Read more…] about Dawn Sky – Crescent Moon, Mercury, Regulus, and Orion

Share This: