3 ms·

As a side project I do a lot of dark sky and deep space photography [ IG: https://instagram.com/dheeranet https://instagram.com/dheeranet ]. Seeing the Milky W

by dheera 6y ago

As a side project I do a lot of dark sky and deep space photography [ IG: https://instagram.com/dheeranet https://instagram.com/dheeranet ]. Seeing the Milky Way at night is incredible, but what a lot of people don't realize is that there is a whole lot more than the Milky Way up there in "plain sight" and huge, just too dim to see with the naked eye. Many people don't realize for example that the Andromeda galaxy is visually about 6 times the size of the full moon, but just too dim to see. Some of the nebulae I photograph are actually barely visible with the naked eye if you go to a truly dark enough place (e.g. Death Valley). A big part of what I'm trying to do through photography is to inspire more people to be interested in space, STEM, and also protect the beautiful views that have been bestowed to us by the universe. It's something that I'm quite privileged to have easy access to in California but did not when I was growing up in Asia and later on the east coast of the US. By the way, although although a lot of people have been pointing fingers at StarLink, including a huge swath of the amateur astronomy community, it's not actually a huge problem for most photography and observations. StarLink satellites are easily filtered out using even the most basic outlier rejection techniques (e.g. sigma clipping) and their tracks are presumably predictable and known in advance. They are much less of a problem in my experience than planes and assholes with car headlights who deliberately stop by your observing site for extended periods of time. I can't comment if there are any research projects affected by them but I imagine that at most they are an annoyance to data filtering and not dealbreaker.

MattGaiser 6y ago
Off topic, but it was amazing realize just how much other stuff is up there in the sky just outside our immediate visual perception. Great photos.
hermitcrab 6y ago
Cool photos.
mncharity 6y ago
> STEM I was thinking last week about creating a web app to teach light pollution. And a bit of brightness in astrophotography more generally. Context is I'd like to sketch a primary-school "atoms up" learning progression, but emphasizing nuclei. Nucleosynthesis then pulls in deep time, galaxy, and stars. But many kids, and many teachers, have never seen a sky of stars. So how might stars, largely unseen, be tied to their everyday lives? I saw this graphic[1] go by. But it's physically unrealistic - even faint stars in darkest "1" are shown brighter than the sky in polluted "9". So how might it be done better? Perhaps as an interactive. A slider for sky illuminance. Another for exposure (pupil dilation, etc). IIRC, retina dynamic range is similar to a screen's. Conceptual buttons, like day/twilight/night, moon and phase, urban to sea, altitude, clouds, etc. These all next to a similar sky graphic, with room left over for secondary material. So one might explore the space from cloudy day, to nights with eye and instruments, to above atmosphere, Hubble, and beyond inner-system dust scattering. With some potential for fun stories. Like once above atmosphere, being able to see a sky of stars in the middle of the day, as long as you're not looking towards the Sun, or anything sunlit. And for addressing common misconceptions. Like the moon and stars are only up at night. [1] https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tMWGuSj2j3zs_oLTysYa3Q.jpeg https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tMWGuSj2j3zs_oLTysYa3Q.jpe... from https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/your-guide-to-the-best-meteor-shower-of-the-year-the-geminids-6324580cb5ad https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/your-guide-to-the-best...

by dheera 6y ago

MattGaiser 6y ago

Off topic, but it was amazing realize just how much other stuff is up there in the sky just outside our immediate visual perception. Great photos.

hermitcrab 6y ago

Cool photos.

mncharity 6y ago

> STEM I was thinking last week about creating a web app to teach light pollution. And a bit of brightness in astrophotography more generally. Context is I'd like to sketch a primary-school "atoms up" learning progression, but emphasizing nuclei. Nucleosynthesis then pulls in deep time, galaxy, and stars. But many kids, and many teachers, have never seen a sky of stars. So how might stars, largely unseen, be tied to their everyday lives? I saw this graphic[1] go by. But it's physically unrealistic - even faint stars in darkest "1" are shown brighter than the sky in polluted "9". So how might it be done better? Perhaps as an interactive. A slider for sky illuminance. Another for exposure (pupil dilation, etc). IIRC, retina dynamic range is similar to a screen's. Conceptual buttons, like day/twilight/night, moon and phase, urban to sea, altitude, clouds, etc. These all next to a similar sky graphic, with room left over for secondary material. So one might explore the space from cloudy day, to nights with eye and instruments, to above atmosphere, Hubble, and beyond inner-system dust scattering. With some potential for fun stories. Like once above atmosphere, being able to see a sky of stars in the middle of the day, as long as you're not looking towards the Sun, or anything sunlit. And for addressing common misconceptions. Like the moon and stars are only up at night. [1] https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tMWGuSj2j3zs_oLTysYa3Q.jpeg https://miro.medium.com/max/700/1*tMWGuSj2j3zs_oLTysYa3Q.jpe... from https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/your-guide-to-the-best-meteor-shower-of-the-year-the-geminids-6324580cb5ad https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/your-guide-to-the-best...