Our story
We are a married couple of astronomy enthusiasts passionate about all things astrophotography. In 2017, we stumbled upon a documentary on the formation of the universe, which kindled our interest in astronomy. We spent a ton of time reading and learning about our universe that year. Then one day, we discovered astrophotography, an amazing hobby that enables ordinary people like us to capture the same objects that the Hubble Telescope does right from our backyard.
Our life was changed forever.
Since then, we have spent endless nights outside looking at the sky and photographing the many beautiful deep sky objects that we didn't even know existed. This passion has been such a big part of our lives in the last few years, and we are thrilled to share our work with you. We hope to inspire as many of you as possible to join us in explore this magnificent universe we all share.
Frequently Asked Questions
What cameras do you use?
We use a few different cameras to capture images. All of our cameras are monochrome, which means they take detailed black and white images. In order for us to capture color, we use specialized filters in front of the camera to separate light into separate channels. In the processing step we combine these different channels into one image to form a colored image.
The main cameras we use are the following:
What telescopes do you use?
We are currently using the following telescopes for imaging:
Where do you take the pictures from?
Our pictures are either taken from our backyard or taken from remote dark sites that we travel to using our van.
How long does it take to capture an image?
Capturing the data to form one of the images you see on the site is a very lengthy process. Each individual image frame can take up to 5 minutes to capture. To get the faint details, hundreds of frames are needed. It is not unusual to have 20+ hours of integration time to form a single image. This means several nights of capturing images are needed. After the image frames are captured, we begin the processing phase. Processing a single image can take several days.
What other accessories do you use in addition to telescopes and cameras?
We use equatorial mounts to track the Earth's rotation. We use auto focusers to help focus the telescope. We also use specialized software to help guide the telescope, capture images, and process images.
Mounts:
Auto Focusers
Software
Are these images how the objects appear in the sky?
There are two main ways to capture an image. You can capture an image using true colors (how the object appears to your eyes). You can also capture the image using what is known as "false color". The famous Hubble telescope uses what is known as the Hubble palette to assign color to images.
The Hubble palette is a color mapping technique used in astrophotography to represent the emission of gases in nebulae. It is named after the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble who first proposed the idea of classifying galaxies based on their morphology.
The Hubble palette is derived from the use of narrowband filters that isolate specific emission lines of gases in the nebula. These filters are often used in combination with a monochrome camera to capture images of the nebulae. The emission lines are then mapped to a specific color channel, resulting in an image that represents the emission from the various gases in the nebulae.
The standard Hubble palette consists of mapping the Sulfur II emission line to the red channel, Hydrogen-alpha emission line to the green channel, and Oxygen III emission line to the blue channel. This results in a false-color image that highlights the different emissions in the nebulae.