"Star" "Light" "Capturing" (1)

The word photography comes from two roots: “photo” meaning “light”, and “graphy” meaning “to capture”. Now add an “astro” to the front of the word and you have not only captured a beautiful image of the night sky, but you have captured my mind as well. For as long as I can remember I’ve had my head up in the heavens, gazing into the endless black void. I became even more fascinated when I learned that those little dots in the sky were actually big balls of gas, millions of times bigger than Earth. Next, I learned that most of the objects in the sky are so far away that humanity has no hope of ever reaching them. I think it is this vastness and scale that draws me to the field of astrophotography. The only connection we have with the stars of the universe is the light they emit, so capturing that light is of great importance. It is truly incredible that the light from something as far away as Betelgeuse (which BTW is 500 light-years away, so every image we have of it is 500 years old) can be seen with something as weak as a human eye. 

Betelgeuse

Of course, because of the incredible distances associated with astrophotography, the conditions have to be almost perfect to take any worthwhile shots. There has to be zero cloud cover, and there has to be during a new moon (unless I want to take pictures of the moon). The biggest factor is light pollution. The reason why so many stars cannot be seen in urban areas is because there is too much light pouring out of all the buildings. This gives me few opportunities to take good photos, so I have to capitalize on the ones I get. To get good shots, I will try to travel 30 minutes to Evansburg State Park, a DVAA (Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers) recommended spot for star gazing.

A big part of photography is post-production, and I will incorporate that aspect into my project. One way that I will measure improvement over the course of the next six weeks is by using Adobe Lightroom. My editing skills will improve through constant use, showing my achievement. My end goal is to capture and edit an image that is good enough to print out and frame. This will make for some great home décor.