JOIN USAiming for the stars
It’s festive time for sky lovers and the celestial celebration shows no signs of ceasing — solar eclipse, lunar eclipse, shooting stars, meteor showers and comets!
Till August 4, comet Neowise was visible in India; it will next visit our planet only in 8720 AD! Then was the turn of Perseid meteor showers. The month of October will be a month of the planet Mars when it will shine bright from dusk to dawn. The last grand show for 2020 is in December when there will be the meteor Geminids’ shower. This may be better visually than Perseid as the December sky will be clear. The year will end with another total solar eclipse visible in the afternoon in Chile and parts of Argentina, but unfortunately not in India.
Coveted spots
With so much happening in the night sky, it’s quite the best time for astro-photographers. Though their movement is curbed due to lockdown during this pandemic times, they are still managing to reach with their heavy photographing equipment to as remote a place as possible near their cities to photograph these celestial happenings. A real good look at the night sky and great photography is only possible away from the dazzling city lights. Of course, the coveted astro-photography locations in India are the Spiti Valley in the Himalayas, Hanle’s Observatory in Leh and others.
“I don’t much enjoy photographing planets. There isn’t much happening on the planets in our solar system. The excitement is to look deeper in the Milky Way, which to a naked eye, looks like a dim, glowing milky band across the night sky. The same band, when seen through our camera, comes up with unimaginable beauties,” says Kerala-based 27-year-old amateur astronomer and astro-landscape photographer Navaneeth Unnikrishnan, who started gazing at the sky in his teens and fell in love with the deep sky, especially the Milky Way. A full-time photographer, specialising in commissioned travel photography assignments, his deep sky photographs have been published in many international magazines. His favourite sky hunting spot is the Spiti Valley.
Not your Instagram pics!
“It’s an exciting time for deep sky gazers. A couple of years ago, I was absolutely elated when my camera captured the Horsehead Nebula in the Orion arm of Milky Way,” says Pune-based software engineer Nilesh Desai, who works with a bank and is a passionate sky gazer. The 40-year-old admits that to pursue his hobby and to buy his equipment — the scientific camera, tripod stands, etc., — he has spent money enough to buy another house in Pune! He enjoys the sky, especially from particular spots in Mulshi village, Torna Fort etc., near Pune.
Don’t confuse these detailed pictures of celestial beauties with everyday Instagram pictures of the sky, clouds, full moon and sometimes the eclipse that pop up on your mobile screens.
That isn’t astrophotography. “Let me put it this way. You hear the late Pandit Jasraj singing after years of riyaz and you hear bathroom singers too. Both are singing, but the depth is different. Similarly, astrophotography is a sadhna with the sky for years,” explains Mumbai-based veteran astro-photographer Nilesh Vayada known in his circles as the ‘eclipse chaser’!
Along with his Gurugram-based astro-photographer partner Ajay Talwar, he has been chasing eclipses for over three decades. Besides several magazines, websites, their video, the ‘False dawn’ was published by NASA’s APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day) website. “That is a very proud moment for any amateur astro-photographer,” beams Nilesh.
For this eclipse chasing duo, the location doesn’t matter. They zip across cities, states and even continents to ‘capture’ the solar eclipse with their camera. They are skipping the December solar eclipse visible in Chile due to the pandemic. But, the duo is reaching the South Pole, Antarctica in December 2021 to ‘shoot’ the total solar eclipse visible in that region after nearly 18 years.
“We have been planning for it for four years now. Obviously, it is not easy to visit this region. So, we have got permissions from every authority to record this unique total solar eclipse along with very few other international astro photographers,” explains Nilesh.
The uniqueness of the location of this total solar eclipse is its path. It will move from east to west across the Antarctica while most other eclipses move from west to east. This reversal of path is possible to observe only at the poles.
A passionate madness
Talking about practical things, this kind of astro-photography needs a lot of investment without any noticeable returns. “It’s a junoon!” chorus the group. To financially support their passion, they take up other photography assignments like travel, wedding, coffee table books, etc. Many of them conduct on-site astro-photography workshops, which are very popular or upload lessons in astro-photography on YouTube.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of photography can train to be an astro-photographer.
One needs to attend a couple of workshops conducted by professional astro-photographers to know where to aim the camera and what to look for in the sky. Rest assured, the night sky can become your best source of entertainment.