The Milky Way arching over a dark sky with trees on the horizon

Astronomy

Stargazing and astrophotography

Looking Up

Since I learned to recognize Orion’s belt as a little kid, I’ve gazed in awe towards the dazzling constellations above. Seeing meteor showers and the milky way in dark skies inspired me to learn the names and mythology associated with the sky. When I eventually got older, I acquired an old telescope from my science teacher, and used it to see further into the heavens.

The Milky Way over a mountain ridge in Yosemite National Park
The Milky Way from Yosemite National Park.

Planets

At first, I was drawn to viewing the planets. I saw the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, and imagined what it would be like to visit other worlds. I learned about the structure of the solar system and which planets were gaseous and which were rocky.

Eventually, I decided to buy an adapter to connect a DSLR camera to the telescope in order to capture and share what I saw. Images like these of Saturn and Jupiter were some of the first photos I took of the night sky. They were taken by shooting a series of many photos and then stacking them using software.

Saturn and its rings through the telescope
Saturn.
Jupiter with cloud bands and two of its moons
Jupiter and two of its moons.

Deep Sky

The camera sensor is more sensitive and better at capturing faint light than the human eye. This enabled me to take photos of objects like nebulae, comets, and galaxies.

The Orion Nebula can be located as the middle “star” of the three in Orion’s sword, and is the most prominent nebula you can see with the naked eye. It is a stellar cloud of hot dust and gas, where stars are born. Brilliant reds, purples, and blues become visible when exposures are taken on a sensitive camera.

The green comet is 12P/Pons–Brooks which became bright during its closest point to the sun in April, 2024. I also took photos of the galaxies in the constellation Virgo.

The Orion Nebula in pink, purple and blue
The Orion Nebula.
A green comet with a faint tail against a star field
Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks.
A field of faint galaxies in the constellation Virgo
Galaxies in the constellation Virgo.

More from the Night Sky

Adam pointing out Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS above the city lights, from the Berkeley fire trails
Pointing out Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS from Berkeley fire trails.
Two people sitting beside a telescope and DSLR at night
Sitting out with the telescope and camera.
A 10 inch reflector telescope set up outdoors at night
10 inch reflector telescope.
A 7 inch Maksutov telescope on an equatorial mount, outdoors at night
7 inch Maksutov telescope.
Craters along the terminator of a gibbous moon
Craters along the terminator of the Moon.
Animation blinking between two exposures of a faint galaxy field
Two exposures of the same star field, blinking back and forth.
Adam at eleven, looking through a small telescope fitted with a home-made solar filter
11 year old me observing a solar eclipse through a home-made telescope filter.
A crescent sun seen through a telescope eyepiece during a partial eclipse
The sun during a partial solar eclipse.
The sun seen through a filtered telescope eyepiece, with sunspots visible
Observing sunspots through a telescope eyepiece.