Abe's Astrophotography Gallery

The Sun

The Moon

The Earth

The Planets

Here is a selection of my astronomical photographs. For anyone who hasn't tried astrophotography, it is an astoundingly difficult and often frustrating endeavor. Those beautiful images of swirling galaxies, glowing emission nebulae, and colorful planets don't just happen by pointing a telescope and pushing a button (well, at least not with an old uncomputerized telescope like mine). They require hours of searching and squinting, backbreaking hauling of heavy, cold, and expensive equipment in the dark, frostbitten fingers and hours of patient coaxing of pixels or film. So, why do it? Why do it when we know that we can never match the images coming back from the Hubble or Keck telescopes? Well, part of it is the challenge. Part of it is the satisfaction and little bit of thrill at seeing an occasional beautiful and otherworldly image captured entirely by me and my humble little telescope and camera.

However, perhaps the most important thing for me is that it makes astronomy real. Those ridiculous sounding facts and figures about our unimaginably tiny place in the universe somehow seem just a little more real when you have the actual experience of peering through a telescope eyepiece at a tiny distant orb that is actually another world. I enjoy photographing the skies as a way to better see and apprecate what's up there. While I'm not as fanatical and dedicated as many true astrophotographers are, I find that with a little patience I am periodically granted an opportunity to capture some pleasing and occasionally amazing images. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed capturing them.