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| The North America Nebula |
Curiosity is said to have killed the cat, but I can't help but wonder how much less interesting life would be without it. Perhaps our early human ancestors would have never wondered if they could control the spiraling flames of natural wildfires that consumed the grassy fields during the summer months. Perhaps the forebearers of aviators would have never imagined soaring high above like the birds of the sky. And perhaps the Moon would be just a strange occurrence that existed in an untouchable plane - not a placed to be visited, or even worth thinking about.
My venture into astrophotography started with a single thought "what would happen if I pointed my camera to the stars at night?" I wondered if I would even be able to see them - if I could get them in focus, and if the rotation of the Earth would cause some kind of strange effect. Curiosity, and the thought of capturing an awe inspiring glimpse of a distant galaxy far away lead my 18-year-old self outside my home one evening to setup a tripod and release both the shutter to my camera and the answers to the questions that burned a hole in my mind. And what I discovered, to my amazement, was that it didn't really work that well at all.
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| First attempt at photographing the stars. |
Above is an actual photo from that night. The sky contains light, but the orange glow that is present in the image wasn't caused by photons traveling millions of lightyears from a distant galaxy to reach the camera sensor but it was instead caused by the light pollution from the most populated city in America which was mere light-microseconds away. The photo reveals stars, but they are faint, and are all oddly colored. Viewing the great cosmos above, it seemed, was reserved only for the most well-equipped scientists at NASA. Curiosity didn't kill the cat; disappointment did.
Four years after my first attempt at astrophotography, two major events occurred in close succession: firstly, my eldest brother informed me that he had discovered a community of amateur photographers online which were capturing the Milky Way with the exact same Canon 6D that I had, and secondly, my other older brother had just purchased a dobsonian telescope which he was eager to try out. Both of them wanted to travel to the darkest sky they could find in New Jersey and I was invited to come along. We packed the telescope, camera, and tripod into the trunk of my brother's trailblazer, and drove 45 minutes north. As we did, the roads grew smaller, the houses fewer, and the skies, indeed, became darker.
Seeing the Milky Way for the first time in your life, even if it's just the November tail, will cause two possible reactions - you will either gasp audibly, or you will be shocked into a reverenced silence. I found myself in the former camp as I gazed up at the glowing arch above which stretched from horizon to horizon.
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| First Encounter with the Milky Way |
I now knew observing the stars with both my eyes and camera was possible. But in order to see this, I had to use a lens which let in a lot of light, use the longest exposure that was possible coupled with a camera which itself had great low light performance, and finally, I had to escape the unwanted man-made light which surrounded me and my home. Despite my success, there was still a disappointment lingering in the back of my mind for I knew that on my drive home, I was driving away from the cosmos and into a long period of starless nights. I wish I could tell my past self to not worry, because several months later, my passion for landscape photography would increase, and I would begin to travel further from home and into skies darker than I could have ever have imagined.
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| A Dark Sky City which caused a reverenced silence in my friend Joe |
Up until December of last year (2019), I had been photographing just one (albeit massive) celestial subject. But another one of those single thoughts had occurred to me after viewing a nebula through a pair of binoculars with the naked eye: could I photograph a deep space object? For me, this was entering into uncharted territory. I felt myself falling down the rabbit hole of online research, reading dozens of articles talking about polar alignment, the Earth's axis of rotation, and expensive equipment. Discouragement is a bitter drink, so I looked for something to wash the taste out of my mouth. Why don't I just try to find the same nebula I saw with those binoculars with my camera? The idea stuck in my head until Christmas evening when my father convinced me, as we sat by the fire, that there could be no harm in trying.
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| Christmas Orion Nebula, untracked, single exposure (f/2.0 135mm ISO 4000 1.3 Seconds) |
It was a cold night, but at the time, my excitement kept me warm. There, in frame, was a strong glow of an actual nebula, emitting the faintest of colors. Had it actually worked? Was I really standing in the same yard where 8 years prior I tried and failed to see beyond our planetary bounds? If I could shoot this without astro gear, what would I unlock if I had it? I decided it was time to roll the dice and see where they land. Within days, I had purchased what I determined to be the minimum amount of gear required to see these objects in their full glory: a star tracker to track the rotation of the Earth so I could take long exposures of the stars without any motion blur, and a compact telescope to reach into the delicate details of the astronomical objects. Previously, the longest photo I could take without blur was 30 seconds, but now, I could theoretically do up to 4 minutes without seeing any motion blur in the stars.
The telescope shipped from overseas, so while I waited, I went out the first night my tracker arrived. Beforehand, I had watched about 3 hours worth of YouTube videos on how to use it. It seemed so simple: setup the tripod with the tracker on top, attach the tripod head and camera, look through the tracker to find the North Star, and begin to take pictures. However, finding a single star in the night sky is like finding a needle in a haystack when you have no sense of what's above you. Additionally, you also have to place the North Start in a specific part of the star tracker's reticle. And finally, once you are tracking correctly, you have to locate the object you want to photograph without being able to see it with your eyes - by only using the surrounding stars as reference points. This whole process took over an hour, but luckily for me, I picked a very large first target: the Andromeda Galaxy. Unluckily for me, I did a terrible job of focusing.
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| A Very Blurry Andromeda, 200mm, f/4 ISO 1600 1 Hour Stacked |
Exhilaration and disappointment mix like oil and water. My night's work wasn't worth sharing, but I saw a galactic core for the first time in my life, so I was determined to try again. The weather, however, had different plans for me. Is it cloudy outside by you right now? Do you know the phase of the moon? These are questions which I never cared about the answer to up until that point, and now it seemed that every day was cloudy and every night the moon was brighter than the last. Every rare and precious clear night, I ventured out into the cold to try again.
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| Andromeda, Attempt #2 |
And again.
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| Andromeda, Attempt #3 |
The reward of Astrophotography is immense. These photos went from simply showing Andromeda as a blurry dot to eventually revealing both the arms of the galaxy, and all captured from my backyard. But between every successful shot there are countless sleepless nights of mishaps. Nights of unforecasted clouds materializing out of nowhere. Nights of tracking and focus failure. Nights of bitter cold. Nights of washed out skies from full moons. Digital photography usually has a major advantage when compared to film: instant feedback and results. While you're looking through the viewfinder, you can immediately see what's almost the final composition. With astro, however, a single photo can take hours to produce at minimum, weeks on average, and even months for fainter objects. Nebula and galaxies can only be seen from the darkest skies with our eyes, and to capture them successfully from so close to a major city, you need to take dozens of exposures to collect the most amount of data. All of these factors combined make creating a deep-space image worth sharing extremely difficult, and astrophotography one of the most challenging forms of photography.
With all the practice and learned patience, I knew it was time to revisit the Orion Nebula.
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| Orion Revisited |
Now I began to see more than just a single color. I saw faint clouds surrounding the bright core. The above shot was done through the trees, so I needed to wait for later in the year when it was higher in the sky. I also needed to take a longer exposure, and to cut back on some of the light pollution. I bought a light pollution filter to help with the latter.
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| Orion Nebula with Light Pollution Filter |
I was getting close to what I wanted. With the filter, more of the cloudy emission could be seen. But I just needed a longer session.
And with the above shot, I finally had something I was truly proud of. Was it the sharpest and most detailed image of the Orion Nebula that has ever been taken? No. But was it something that I had captured on my own? Yes. It reflected three difficult months of constant revision and adjustments. 8 years later, and I had proved myself wrong - I could point my camera up at the night sky and see something spectacular.
Curiosity is an ember that, if fanned even the slightest, can continue to burn bright until the waters of explanation put it out. Even though opening one door to see what's behind it might expose another equally closed door, you might find you are a different person after you cross the threshold.
