Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Photographer Jason De Freitas has shown us a fantastic lunar eclipse sequence and a timelapse of the Milky Way. What’s special about these projects is that they were shot entirely on 35mm film.
Now Jason has done it again. Using his film camera and a telescope, he shot what seems to be the Holy Grail of astrophotography lately: the ISS transitioning the moon. What’s more, it’s probably the first ISS transit captured on 35mm, ever!
It’s not common anymore that I come across photos on Instagram, especially those that stop me in my tracks. But when it happens – oh boy do I get amazed! One of the people who always blows my mind with his images is Andrew McCarthy, and it happened the other day with his latest image of Mars and the Moon.
The celestial objects were perfectly lined for a shot that looks like it was taken from the Moon. Of course, we can’t go there (yet), and Andrew didn’t even leave his backyard for this image. He told DIYP a bit more about how he took it and shared the magnificent photos with our readers so we can all admire it together.
In a detailed technical blog I compare six AI-based noise reduction programs for the demands of astrophotography. Some can work wonders. Others can ruin your image.
Over the last two years, we have seen a spate of specialized programs introduced for removing digital noise from photos. The new generation of programs use artificial intelligence (AI), aka machine learning, trained on thousands of images to better distinguish unwanted noise from desirable image content. At least that’s the promise – and for noisy but normal daytime images they do work very well. But in astrophotography our main subjects – stars – can look a lot like specks of pixel-level noise. How well can each program reduce noise without eliminating stars or wanted details, or introducing odd artifacts, making images worse?
To find out, I tested six of the new AI-based programs on real-world – or rather “real-sky” – astro photos. Does one program stand out from the rest for astrophotography?
Can you imagine seeing anything “dirty” in a photo or video of a meteor? Yeah, neither can I. However, Twitter can, and it banned an astrophotographer this August because of that.
Astronomer and astrophotographer Mary McIntyre published a video of a meteor she took during the Perseid meteor shower. Twitter flagged it as “intimate content,” which resulted in banning the photographer for the whole three months!
If you’re into astrophotography or just enjoy sky-gazing, there’s a real treat ahead. On 26 September, and a few days before and after that, beautiful Jupiter is going to be easy to spot and shoot. It will be so close to the Earth that a good pair of binoculars will be enough to see it. And it’s a truly unique opportunity as the planet will be the closest to us in 70 years.
Astronomy Photographer of the Year has announced the winners of its 2022 contest. The overall winner is Gerald Rhemann from Austria. His photo Disconnection Event is a rare image of a piece of Comet Leonard’s gas tail being disconnected and carried away by the solar wind.
Other than Rhemann’s impressive photo which won the overall prize and the Planets, Comets and Asteroids category, the contest has also announced winners and runner-ups in all of its categories. They kindly shared it with DIYP, so we bring you the best of the best from the 14th Astronomy Photographer of the Year.
One of the most marvelous things about photography (and there are many) is the collaboration with other artists. You get to meet new people, you inspire each other, and together you make something extraordinary.
So, when two incredible astrophotographers get together, what can you expect? An equally incredible image. Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne got together and combined over 200,000 shots to create a single moon photo. The result: a super-detailed 174-megapixel image that lets you zoom all the way in and see all the details you wish.
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy is one of those people whose each and every photo always makes me go “wow!” After buying his first telescope only five years ago, he rapidly grew to become a master astrophotographer, getting better and better with every new image.
But even while he was still fairly new to astrophotography, Andrew captured a photo that will knock your socks off. He recently shared one of his very first astrophotos showing two of the Sun’s atmospheres, including the “corona” – the one we normally only see during an eclipse. Blending it with his later photo, he created a piece of art that’s a wonderful homage to the first five years of his astrophotography journey.
When I was little, I would always color the sun yellow in my drawings and I can bet you did as well. While it’s actually white, we can see it in many different hues here on Earth.
Italian photographer Marcella Pace captured all of these colors that we can observe through our eyes and our cameras. They cover many warm hues of orange, crimson, and every child’s favorite: yellow. But you’ll also see it in an unexpected cold shade of blue. Marcella shared with us her amazing composite Colors of the Sun and told us a bit about how she made it.
Pillars of Creation is undoubtedly one of the most iconic photos that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has ever taken. The Hubble mission has cost approximately $16 billion, so have you ever thought that the magnificent Eagle Nebula could be captured from your own backyard, with a modest telescope?
Well, astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy (previously) did. So he set up his telescope in his backyard, pointed it at the Eagle Nebula, and ended up with his own take on the iconic Pillars of Creation.
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