Category Archives: Astrophotography

Latest Google Pixel 7a news

Google Pixel 7a release date

Google Pixel 7a price

When it comes to pricing, we’ve seen Google stick to tradition. What we mean by that is that, for example, all Pixel a-series phones have had a price tag of $499. Given what we’ve seen thus far from Google’s habits, it’s fair to assume that this may very well be the price of the Pixel 7a too.

* – anticipated prices

Pixel 7a camera setup, render based on leaks

As such, we can expect the Pixel 7a to follow suite and have: 

Google Pixel 7a storage

Google Pixel 7a design

Well, now that the Pixel 7a has had its renders leaked, we can definitely say that Google is sticking to the signature Pixel look. Ever since the Pixel 6, we’ve entered this new age of futuristic visor-esque bars on the backs of Google phones, instead of the typical asymmetrical camera bump we’ve come to know from the Samsung Galaxy S22 or the iPhone 14.

From the render, we can see that the 7a will be following in the footsteps of its older siblings, the 7 and the 7 Pro, with that said camera bar gaining a silvery metallic finish, and becoming slightly more protruded than on the 7. A difference that can be noted on is slightly larger screen bezels, but considering the expected price point, that’s fair.

Pixel Phones traditionally come in two monochromatic options, which dance around black and white, such as charcoal or obsidian, for example. Then there is the third option, which goes for something more vibrant, without becoming too overbearing, like the muted greens of the sage variant or the fresh lemon grass option.

Pixel 7a render based on leaks

So, it would be safe to assume that we can look forward to two variants of the Pixel 7a, which will be some nuances of black and white, respectively. As to the third option, we can make a solid guess that the nature-inspired muted greens, seen on the last three Pixel phones, are going to make a come back in some way, which evades the coolness of lighter hues, while still not going overboard with warmer or darker tones.

The Pixel 6 and 7 phones were both rated at IP68, while the 6a manages an IP67 rating. As per the IP rating system, the 6 indicates that dust can’t get inside all three phones, as long as some sort of external damage hasn’t compromised their vacuum seal.

The second number is related to the phone’s water-resistant capabilities, with a rating of 7 allowing for 30 minutes of submersion of up to 3ft (1m), while the rating of 8 takes things further to a depth of 9.8ft (3m), but the time is undisclosed.

While the flagship series are protected by Gorilla Glass Victus on the front and on the back, making them capable of surviving a drop from 6.5 ft , the Pixel 6a comes with a 3D thermoformed composite back – a fancy way of saying plastic – and Gorilla Glass 3 on front, which still offers some protection, but on a lower level than what Victus has to offer.

We can see what looks like brushed matte aluminum on the sides of the phone.

Ergo, we can surely anticipate the Pixel 7a to come with some protection over its screen, but we remain curious to see as to what Google has in store for the phone’s backside. It’s likely going to be some sort of plastic again, but they might surprise us and offer a higher grade Gorilla Glass front, and a lower one out back.

Lastly, regarding the phone’s sides: we’re betting on aluminum. We’ve seen the material both on the 7 and the 6a, so it would only make sense to keep things in line and incorporate it once again in the Pixel 7a. Most probably in a matte finish, as before.

Google Pixel 7a display

Here’s the deal: one of our biggest gripes with the otherwise excellent Pixel 6a was its 60Hz display, especially after seeing the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro’s screens and their 90 and 120Hz refresh rates respectively. With higher refresh rates slowly becoming a sought-after feature, it would be great to see such an improvement in the Pixel 7a.

Why fix what isn’t broken? Hefty bezels though.

Google Pixel 7a features and software

The visor-styled camera bump is not a feature, but helps the phone stand out quite a lot.

Google Pixel 7a hardware and specs

Should I wait for the Google Pixel 7a?

Guiding your mount can make a huge difference to the quality of your deep-sky images. This is because accurate tracking enables you to increase the length of your exposures while ensuring you get good, point-like star shapes by avoiding star-trailing.

Fitting your guide camera to an off-axis guider (OAG) is a popular alternative to the time- honoured practice of fitting it to a separate guide telescope to make sure that your mount tracks objects accurately.

They also resolve two of the issues associated with using a separate guidescope – additional weight and unwanted movement between the two telescopes.

OAGs are small and light, but most importantly, they have a small prism that picks off a sample of the view to find a guide star, through exactly the same telescope that you use for imaging.

They’re not without their own issues – it can be difficult to achieve simultaneous focus of the imaging camera and the guide camera, and the reduced field of view captured by an OAG’s prism can make locating suitable guide stars difficult.

But they do get rid of unwanted movement between the main scope and guide scope, and combat the problem of ‘mirror flop’ in Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, when the scope’s mirror moves slightly during long exposures as the scope tracks.

More like this

If you’d like to know whether an OAG could help you take better images, read on as we put four to the test.

How we tested our off-axis guiders

All off-axis guiders were tested using the same criteria: build & design, connectability, ease of use, features and guide star quality.

The features we looked at included:

Attachment

We checked how easy it was to attach each off-axis guider to the telescope and to the imaging and guiding cameras. We also tested the rigidity of the connections, as any movement here could result in inaccurate tracking.

Construction

Off-axis guiders should be light, to avoid stressing the focus tube, yet robust enough to support the weight of both an imaging camera and a guide camera. The pick-off prism should be of high quality – adjustable yet held securely.

Ease of focus

It’s important that both the imaging and guiding cameras achieve focus at the same point, so we checked that this was possible and noted any adaptors and spacers that were required to attain good focus with both.

Image quality

The pick-off prism can introduce optical aberrations as it collects light from the very edge of the field of view where optical distortions are at their worst. We checked the quality of the guide stars to ensure their suitability.

Prism use

We noted the size of each prism, as this would affect the area of sky that would be covered, and checked if the prism’s position could be adjusted to allow us to choose a specific area of the sky from which to select guide stars.

Best off-axis guiders

Celestron Radial Guider

The Celestron guider is beautifully made with a black satin finish outside and a ridged matt finish inside to avoid reflections.

The horizontal orientation of the 9.5mm-wide prism is adjusted by unlocking the 1.25-inch eyepiece holder and rotating it.

The vertical angle of the prism’s face can also be adjusted to locate more stars by using a tapered pin on a knurled bolt in the base of the eyepiece holder.

The prism can be rotated inside the OAG by 142°, giving the largest amount of adjustment of all the units on test.

With our Canon 450D DSLR camera attached using a standard ‘T’ mount and our Starlight Xpress autoguider inserted in a 37mm eyepiece extension tube, we easily achieved focus on both cameras.

However, we had to use our own extension ring to achieve focus. We found that the best way to focus this OAG was to set it up in the comfort of indoors and then focus it on the roof tiles of a house some distance away, before making the final adjustments outside.

Adding a 40mm ‘T’ extension tube at the rear of the unit allowed us to install and focus our Starlight Xpress CCD imaging camera using its ‘T’-threaded faceplate.

Well designed and with plenty of adjustment, we found suitable guide stars without too much difficulty and were rewarded with well-shaped stars in our test images.

Meade Off-Axis Guider

The Meade Off-Axis Guider has a simple construction with a black satin- finished ‘box’ section, and gloss-finish, tall 1.25-inch eyepiece holder, an SCT slip ring and a 43mm ‘T’ extension tube.

The tall eyepiece holder meant that we didn’t have to use eyepiece extension tubes to bring the guide camera to focus.

Matt black ridges inside the unit were incorporated to stop reflections.

Meade also supplied a 1.25-inch nosepiece, which seemed an odd choice as this diameter cuts into the prism’s light path quite considerably.

Adjustment of the prism isn’t as slick as on the other OAGs. Once aligned it remains solid, although there is no adjustment for the face angle.

We achieved focus on both the imaging and guide cameras, using our own ‘T’ extension tube for the imaging camera, but there was only one bolt to hold the eyepiece or guide camera in place.

This OAG doesn’t have a built-in method of rotating the pick-off prism to help locate suitable guide stars, although at 12.9mm wide, it does have a large prism.

To frame the imaging object with our DSLR and locate a suitable guide star meant releasing the SCT slip ring, locating a star by rotating the whole unit and then slackening off the three retaining grub screws in the camera’s ‘T’ mount and rotating the DSLR.

Although awkward to use, we managed to find suitable guide stars and, once we were locked onto them, our test images showed well-formed stars.

Telescope Service Off-Axis Guider

Telescope Service supplies its unit as a series of modules, making for a flexible solution.

We ordered the OAG, SCT adaptor, 1.25-inch eyepiece adaptor, plus 40mm and 10mm ‘T’ extenders.

We also used our own 17mm extension tube to space the DSLR camera away from the eyepiece holder to avoid it catching on the camera’s flash housing.

The orientation of the 10.1mm-wide prism is adjustable in exactly the same manner as the Celestron and Orion units, but with a 136° angle of rotation.

Despite very careful adjustment of the prism, this OAG didn’t produce particularly well-formed guide star shapes, especially when using our ED80 refractor.

This could have affected the tracking accuracy, but we found we were still able to autoguide successfully.

The flexibility of its solid connection for either a ‘T’-mounted guide camera like a QHY5 or the 1.25-inch nosepiece of a guiding eyepiece or autoguider (like our Starlight Xpress SXV guider) is a bonus with this OAG.

Although a rather tight fit, the compression ring in the eyepiece holder made it easy to slide the autoguider in and out to achieve focus.

Orion Deluxe Off-Axis Guider

Orion products are normally supplied with a good range of accessories and its Deluxe OAG is no exception.

It comes with three extension tubes, an Allen key for adjustments and a comprehensive manual.

However, this OAG is clearly designed for use with a refractor, because it’s also supplied with a 2-inch nosepiece rather than an SCT slip ring, but our own 2-inch-to-SCT adaptor resolved this.

The build quality and satin finish are excellent and the unit features a fully adjustable eyepiece/guide camera focus system, with both coarse and fine adjustment.

Designed for use with the Orion StarShoot guide camera, any guide camera with a ‘T’-thread mounting will be well catered for.

Unfortunately, the built-in 1.25-inch eyepiece holder is only 3mm deep and uses just a single grub screw to retain the eyepiece or guide camera.

This was unstable, so we used our own ‘T’ to 1.25-inch adaptor.

Adjusting the 9.5mm-wide prism is done in a similar way to the Celestron OAG.

The prism extends slightly further into the body than the others on test and the 125° of prism rotation proved fine for locating guide stars.

By including a locking collar for the imaging camera, Orion has allowed for an infinite range of adjustments to be made between the telescope, imaging camera and guide camera, making this the easiest OAG to use to locate suitable guide stars.

If your imaging telescope is a refractor rather than an SCT, this would be the natural choice of OAG for you and it produced excellent, pin-sharp stars in our test images.

Baader RCC OAG Off-Axis Guider

The Baader RCC OAG is a 140° swivel Off Axis Guider fitted with a with T2 thread connection.

This Off Axis Guider is made specifically for the RCC I Rowe Coma Corrector (for Newtonian telescopes) and, along with a Baader T ring, enables the user to guide any DSLR camera without the need for additional extensions.

It can also be used ‘off-axis’ via the use of a reticle eyepiece or LVI Smartguiders. You will, however, need a T-ring for connection of the T-thread to your own DSLR camera, as this is specific to each camera brand and model. The OAG can be used with 1 1/4″ eyepieces.

The Galaxy S22 has an upgraded camera that’s better at seeing in the dark and a fresh design compared with its predecessor. These are welcome improvements, but there’s plenty of room for Samsung to further upgrade its main smartphone series. In particular, I’d like to see longer-lasting batteries, more photography features that take advantage of the Galaxy S family’s impressive cameras, and faster charging that doesn’t require an expensive adapter. 

Samsung typically releases new Galaxy S devices in the first couple of months of the year, and early rumors suggest it’ll maintain that schedule in 2023. A report from Korean newspaper JoongAng Daily says the Galaxy S23 may arrive in early February.

Samsung leads the smartphone industry, with 21% of the worldwide market in the second quarter of 2022, according to Counterpoint Research. Upgrading core features like the camera and battery could help it maintain that top spot, especially as it faces increased competition from Apple and Google.

Longer battery life for the regular Galaxy S23

Battery life can never be long enough, but the standard-issue Galaxy S device is in particular need of a boost. The 6.1-inch Galaxy S22 generally lived up to Samsung’s claims of all-day battery life, but sometimes just barely. After using it for a month straight, I noticed the battery level dipped roughly to 30% or 40% by 9 p.m., even with the always-on display turned off and the screen’s refresh rate set to standard. That’s enough to get through a work day, but you’ll likely want to pack a charger if you have after-work plans or a long commute home. 

The Galaxy S22 has the smallest battery (3,700-mAh capacity) of the three phones in the Galaxy S22 lineup, and it shows. For example, I was pleasantly surprised when the 6.6-inch Galaxy S22 Plus, which has a larger 4,500-mAh capacity, lasted for about a day and a half when I reviewed it in February. I also had the refresh rate set to high, which typically drains battery more quickly. The Galaxy S22 Ultra, which has a 6.8-inch screen and a 5,000-mAh battery, had similar battery life. 

It makes sense that the Galaxy S22 line’s smallest phone would also have the smallest battery. But I hope Samsung finds a way to improve battery life on next year’s 6.1-inch Galaxy phone, whether it’s through better power efficiency or a larger physical battery. After all, Apple made upgrades to the iPhone 13 Mini that gave it an extra two to three hours of battery life compared to the iPhone 12 Mini. Battery life is the main complaint I had about the Galaxy S22, and addressing that would make the Galaxy S23 an even more compelling choice for Android fans who prefer smaller phones. 

Korean news outlet The Elec indicates that could indeed be the case, as it reports that Samsung aims to increase the Galaxy S23’s battery capacity by about 5%. 

More clever camera features

The Galaxy S22’s 50-megapixel camera and the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s 108-megapixel camera capture impressively colorful and detailed photos. I only wish there was more you could do with those cameras when it comes to editing and software features.

The Galaxy S22 lineup has shooting options like panorama, night mode, portrait mode, slow motion, super slow motion and Director’s View, which lets you record video using two different lenses simultaneously. Then there’s Single Take, which creates multiple stylized shots with a single press of the shutter button. You can also download the Expert Raw app to get more granular control over photo settings. 

But not much has changed between the Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S22 when it comes to camera features and shooting modes. I’d love to see Samsung take a page from Google, which regularly adds nifty camera tricks that feel practical rather than gimmicky. For example, Google introduced a new feature on the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro called Photo Unblur, which sharpens low-quality photos, even ones taken with an older camera. Photo Unblur builds on Face Unblur, a previous Pixel 6 and 6 Pro camera feature I also appreciate. As the name implies, Face Unblur freezes moving subjects that may otherwise look blurry.

Features like these show that Google is not just thinking about camera quality, but also ways to eliminate everyday annoyances with mobile photography. Many of Samsung’s updates, on the other hand, feel aimed at giving content creators more tools for capturing different types of shots and video clips. 

While the Galaxy S23 likely won’t launch for another two to three months, Samsung is already making enhancements to the cameras on its current Galaxy phones. It just added a new feature to the Expert Raw app that helps stargazers take better photos of constellations, similar to Google’s Astrophotography feature for Pixel phones. There’s also a new Camera Assistant app that lets you enable or disable certain features, like a faster shutter or automatic lens switching. 

Faster charging that doesn’t cost so much

The Galaxy S22 lineup supports fast charging of up to 25 watts for the Galaxy S22 and 45 watts for the Galaxy S22 Plus and Ultra. But you have to purchase a separate charger to do so. Samsung charges $50 for the 45-watt charger and $35 for the 25-watt charger, although you can often find them for less through retailers like Amazon and Walmart. In some scenarios, I also didn’t notice much of a difference between the pricier 45-watt charger and Samsung’s less expensive 25-watt charger when powering up the Galaxy S22 Plus, which you can read more about here.

With the Galaxy S23, I’d like to see a more noticeable improvement in charging speeds, as well as more affordable charger options. The OnePlus 10 Pro, for example, offers either 65- or 80-watt fast charging depending on your region, both of which are speedier than what Samsung has to offer on paper. OnePlus also includes a compatible power adapter in the box. 

Samsung and Apple stopped including power adapters in their product packaging to cut down on waste, which is an admirable cause. But I at least wish Samsung would let you choose to include a fast-charging compatible adapter as an option for a discounted price when ordering a new phone, similar to the way it lets you select a storage option or add Samsung Care Plus. 

If rumors turn out to be accurate, the base Galaxy S23 model might have the same 25-watt charging speed as the Galaxy S22. That’s according to Ice Universe, a Twitter account with a history of publishing details about unreleased Samsung products. 

Samsung is already doing a lot right with the Galaxy S22, particularly when it comes to software support and display quality. But as year-over-year smartphone upgrades have become more incremental than revolutionary, focusing on core elements like the camera and battery are as important as ever.

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Jacob Schlichter with an image of “Sunflowers in Starlight.” Alex Guerrero/Albert Lea Tribune

“Sunflowers in Starlight,” was taken at the sunflower fields in Manchester by Jacob Schlichter. Provided

“HWY 105” will be one of the astrophotos Schlichter will have on display at the Rochester airport. He said it took took two years of planning and preparations for him to get the right shot. Provided

Jacob Schlichter is an Albert Lea photographer and fashion designer who grew up in the area.

His interest in photography goes back to high school.

“I saw a lot of my friends were running around with cameras and I wasn’t familiar with an actual camera as much as I was with a video camera,” said Schlichter, referring to recording snowmobiling on GoPro cameras.

From there, he transitioned to photography in high school.

“Right off the bat I was just in love with it,” he said.

And he’s been doing photography ever since, almost a decade now. For him, photography allowed him to capture a moment or place and share it with people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to experience the moment or place themselves.

He also loves capturing people in events and time in what he called event photography.

“It was just really cool to be able to capture all these people just in a moment of bliss,” he said, referring to photographs from concerts or festivals.

“I have always had a lifelong love of astronomy,” he said. “I used to want to be an astronomer, and then when I discovered photography I was like, ‘Wait a minute. There’s an intersection that I can put all my passion and love into?’”

He’s been going nonstop ever since.

And his passion for photography has led him to being recognized by the Rochester airport, after leaders of the airport put out a call for art. Schlichter figured that because Rochester has an international airport, visitors would likely be visiting local areas. And his three submissions all focused on local places.

“I figured that the airport would appreciate that,” he said. “I figured the people at Rochester International would also appreciate that.”

He described his first piece, “HWY 105,” as an astrophoto that took two years.

“I spent that entire time scouting locations throughout the year, because in astrophotography even 15 seconds and your whole photo is ruined,” he said. “Everything is misaligned. So it took a lot of planning every night.”

He said he spent a lot of long nights looking for the right location. And he found the right spot on Minnesota Highway 105 seven miles south of Austin.

“I had to plan it for the summer, the right time of year for that Milky Way to be in the sky for the trees to line up with the leading lines,” he said.

He took the photo roughly seven miles south of Austin on Minnesota Highway 105 in Mower County. 

His second submission, “Sunflowers in Starlight,” was taken at the sunflower fields in Manchester.

“I combined light painting and astrophotography,” he said. “… Astrophotography is basically the combination of astronomy and photography. Basically you’re taking photos of the stars.”

The photo is actually his second sunflower work.

“This time I lucked out because the way they cut the trails into the sunflowers actually made a really beautiful-looking path that lit up the barn in the background,” he said. “It gave me a nice background element with the foreground being the sunflowers and the light trail leading right up to the Milky Way.”

And depending on how complicated the artist wants it to be, an artist could get anything from a Milky Way photo to star tracking and doing star trails or deep-space photography.

Getting the shot wasn’t as simple as getting there and snapping away either, and Schlichter said getting the shot required a “pretty good understanding” of moon cycles, his positioning related to Earth, light pollution and knowing where to shoot.

“You need really, really good quality equipment to really pull this off in an effective manner that isn’t just gonna look blurry or noisy,” he said.

Lens quality was also important for astrophotography, something he described as “make or break.” 

“You get a decent prime lens and the quality of glass is going to make all the difference in whether or not you get a pin prick sharp star, or if it’s blurry or you get the chromation on the edges of each star that’s making it off white or pink or blue,” he said.

In viewing his pieces, he wants viewers to gain a deeper appreciation for the natural beauty of Minnesota.

“I think southern Minnesota is pretty slept-on in terms of the actual natural beauty that we do provide,” he said. “I know we don’t have the Driftless Area from Winona, we don’t have the … waterfalls in northern Minnesota or the woods, but there’s still a lot of beauty down here.”

Schlichter first heard about the call after an email was forwarded to him, which he thinks was from the Albert Lea Art Center.

Though he’d done a gallery exhibit before, Schlichter admitted he usually shied away from submitting work as part of a competition, though he had submitted work for the state fair.

“I’m not the best at marketing myself or taking advantage of some opportunities,” he said.

The other reason he doesn’t do these: He doesn’t hear about them. 

But he talked himself into submitting pieces for consideration, and said he thought this was an opportunity to submit work people might enjoy.

What convinced him to do this was his familiarity with the airport in Rochester and admitted to having a good time whenever he’d flown through there. He made the decision to submit a day after he heard about the call early this month.

“With the location in mind I just had some really cool captures, some really cool photos that I thought people that would be going through the airport would appreciate,” he said.

Though Schlichter didn’t know when the work would be displayed, he knows it will be on the other side of Transportation Security Administration, meaning his work won’t be available to see unless you’re flying to or from the airport. He also said people in charge of the project were thinking about a public exhibition, but they were currently trying to get all selected artists together to discuss the possibility beforehand. The deadline for accepted artists to drop art off is Friday, and the work will be publicly displayed starting either late next summer or early next fall.

“I was just really excited,” he said after learning two of his pieces were accepted. “I was shocked, I was really happy.” 

In the meantime, he’s working on winter pieces, some of which require knowledge of basic coding and “a few federal licenses” that take longer to complete.

Besides photography, Schlichter enjoys fashion.

“I have a really cool nature-inspired hat coming out, and I basically sew on about 140 different leaves onto a bucket hat so it kind of looks like you’re wearing a bush,” he said.

Anyone interested should visit https://getslicks.com to browse the store.

Growing up in Orland Park near Homer Glen, Jasonn Pellegrini was always fascinated by the idea of space exploration.

“When you’re a kid, everyone wants to be an astronaut or something like that, and my parents bought me a telescope,” Pellegrini said. “It wasn’t a fancy, expensive one. It was your generic department store one, but it allowed me to see the moon and Jupiter and its moons. It hooked me.”

Now 45 years old and living in Lemont, Pellegrini maintained that passion for astronomy. When the pandemic started, he found himself with more time on his hands. So, with some landscape photography under his belt and a degree in graphic design, he bought some equipment to mix his interests by taking photos of the night sky.

He tried it, enjoyed it and realized he could see a lot more of what’s in the sky after working to combat light pollution.

“I wish more people would be concerned about light pollution,” Pellegrini said. “It doesn’t just affect us as hobbyists; it affects real science.”

Pellegrini uses a telescope, tracker, camera, lenses, filters to cut light pollution, mounts and computer software to capture and create images of the moon, sun, planets, asteroids, stars and galaxies. His favorite things to capture through astrophotography are nebulae, or space clouds.

Pellegrini said he would love to shoot more galaxies, but light pollution makes a much bigger difference with those and equipment can be much more expensive. A photographer can get “beautiful pictures” of the Milky Way with a camera, lens and a simple tracker that costs a couple hundred dollars, Pellegrini said. While there is a big market for used equipment, astrophotography definitely comes at a cost.

“It’s not cheap,” Pellegrini said. “It’s a level of how far you want to get into it. It really ranges. … If you want to go all out, you can spend $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, plus more. There’s telescopes out there that cost $60,000.”

Time is also a big investment. Many of Pellegrini’s images require hours — sometimes the bulk of an evening — to capture. He takes multiple exposures that are 3-5 minutes long, and then stacks them for greater detail. While he sometimes experiments when surprised by something interesting, most of his work takes careful planning. Pellegrini also has spent a lot of time checking forums, posts, websites and online videos to educate himself about astrophotography techniques, and looks to astronomy clubs and groups for even more help.

“It’s definitely a process to learn it,” Pellegrini said. “I don’t know if you ever really stop, because there’s always new things coming out and you’re always trying to tweak things to make things better.”

Most of Pellegrini’s images are captured out of his backyard in Lemont. He also made the pilgrimage to the annual Nebraska Star Party near Valentine, Nebraska, for the renowned dark skies there.

“The sky is just amazing to see with your own eyes,” he said. “The Milky Way will cast a shadow — it’s that dark there.”

Astrophotography from dark sky areas such as the Nebraska Star Party is “vastly different,” Pellegrini said.

“It’s not necessarily the quality; it’s the time,” he said. “What would take you a half-hour there will take you 8 hours here. There are some things you really can’t photograph around here.”

Among those things are dark nebulae, essentially dust clouds that are not lit, requiring the photographer to block out the light behind them.

“It’s basically impossible to get around here,” he said. “It’s just not dark enough for that.”

Light pollution is one of the biggest problems Pellegrini faces in astrophotography. He occasionally picks a target that ends up being too dim to get data. And dealing with so much technology can present its own set of problems.

“Every once in a while you get a night that stuff just don’t want to run,” Pellegrini said. “Your telescope doesn’t want to run right, your mount doesn’t want to track. There’s a gazillion things that can go wrong.”

But he has honed his process for a 70-75% success rate.

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“As you get more versed in what you’re doing, you become more successful more often,” he said.

Pellegrini recently presented his work and methods to a capacity crowd at the Homer Township Public Library through a partnership with the Lemont Artists Guild. Lynn Rozycki, vice president of the Guild, said she learned about Pellegrini’s work by word-of-mouth and was amazed by what he could do.

“It’s just awesome,” she said. “You don’t see that much work with that quality and detail.”

Pellegrini said some people in the Chicago area don’t even realize how much sky detail they are missing. He encourages everyone to get out somewhere without so much light pollution — it doesn’t have to be Nebraska — and look up. He also suggests pointing lights down at home and making sure to turn them off at night when not needed to reduce some of the pollution.

“You don’t know until you go someplace like Nebraska what you’re missing, what’s lost in these areas,” he said. “I think people need to see that with their own eyes at least once in their life.”

Pellegrini said he hopes to start selling prints of his work at some point. For now, people can see his images along with the technical aspects of what he does on AstroBin under the user named Starlancer, via Instagram @starlancerastro and through ArtPal under jpastro.

Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.

Astronomers have raised concerns over a new satellite that is now one of the brightest objects in the night sky that could also hinder astrophotographers.

The BlueWalker 3 satellite from Texas-based AST SpaceMobile fully deployed its huge 693-foot communication array a couple of weeks ago. It is the largest antenna of any commercial communications satellite.

As more and more satellites are sent into Earth’s orbit they begin to obscure the night sky.

‘Dismayed at the Streaks on my Camera’s Sensor’

It’s been widely reported that SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have been photobombing astronomy pictures, causing satellite streaks to appear in images.

And astrophotographer Joshua Defibaugh tells PetaPixel that he is concerned about BlueWalker 3.

“The night sky is perhaps the last vestige of beauty in our changing world. The earth is warming at considerable rates, but it’s also getting brighter each year, between two and six percent each year by some estimates,” he says.

“Each time I venture out in a national park or dark sky site to photograph the Milky Way, I’m always dismayed at the streaks that cross my camera’s sensor. Planes and satellites fill the sky and there’s always an orange haze glowing in the distance.”

In January, the American Astronomical Society reported that “the number of affected images is increasing with time as SpaceX deploys more satellites.”

Data on the problem is still hard to come by, but it’s expected to get worse with more and more satellites being launched every year.

Warning

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has now warned of the danger posed by the intense brightness emanating from the BlueWalker 3.

“[It] is a big shift in the constellation satellite issue and should give us all reason to pause,” says Piero Benvenuti, an astrophysicist at the University of Padova in Italy and an IAU representative.

The IAU has outlined two main reasons why humans should worry about ultra-bright satellites.

The first is simply: “humanity’s ability to experience the natural night sky.”

The second is that astronomers are concerned that satellites are encroaching on their ability to carry out scientific studies.

“Astronomers build radio telescopes as far away as possible from human activity, looking for places on the planet where there is limited or no cell phone coverage,” explains SKAO Director-General Philip Diamon.

“Frequencies allocated to cell phones are already challenging to observe even in radio-quiet zones we have created for our facilities. New satellites such as BlueWalker 3 have the potential to worsen this situation and compromise our ability to do science if not properly mitigated.”

A spokesperson for AST SpaceMobile responded to the IAU’s statement by pointing out that their mission is an attempt to “solve the major global problem of lack of connectivity, which affects billion of people around the world.”

“We are building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network — one that is designed to provide coverage to areas currently beyond the reach of today’s networks.

“Our planned network aims to connect devices around the world and support a universal good. Cellular broadband for more people globally would help ease poverty, support economic development, build a more equitable and diverse digital society, and save lives.”