Astroimaging Forum

WVAC’s Astrophotography Forum is an online group for astrophotography and EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy) enthusiasts to interact with each other. Members of the group can post questions, offer suggestions, share experiences and post their work to get comments or suggestions. No matter if you are new to astrophotography or a seasoned enthusiast, you will find this forum a useful environment to make friends. We invite you to join the group by filling out your email in the form below and clicking the subscribe button.

Subscribe to the Astroimaging Forum

Club’s EAA & Astophotography Forum is hosted on a different platform and requires a separate registration. Please fill out the form below and click subscibe. Thanks you.

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Previous AP Meetings

This will be where we list our Past Astrophotography meetings.

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Tuesday November 16 at 7:00PM Arizona MST

Our featured speaker for the meeting will be Richard S. Wright. Whether you are just becoming interested in astrophotography or have been imaging for years, a review of the first principles of astrophotography will provide an introduction or refresher to the core principles and practices to getting your best results. How do telescopes and cameras work together? What kind of results are reasonable to expect for a given set of equipment? Richard will talk about these things and more during an hour long review of the art and science of astrophotography. If you have read any of Richard’s blogs or articles, you will know what an engaging and enthusiastic presenter he is. This evening should be interesting and fun for all our members whether you are interested in astrophotography or EAA (which one of our members aptly termed astrophotography light!). Please mark your calendar and plan to join us. Richard S. Wright Jr. has been an amateur astronomer for most of his life and a serious imager for over two decades. His images have appeared in numerous magazines, web sites, commercial advertisements, and NASA’s Astrophoto of the Day (APOD). Richard is a computer graphics and imaging specialist and works full time at LunarG, Inc. on the world’s most advanced GPU and graphics software technologies. He’s also worked as an engineer at Starry Night, and with Software Bisque for over 20 years and is a contributing editor at Sky & Telescope magazine where he also has a monthly web blog on astrophotography. You can visit his web gallery at www.eveningshow.com

October 19th at 7:00pm

The Speaker for the evening is Peter Zelinka, (From Ohio, a nature photographer turned Astro-photographer, with many tutorials and videos on line and plus paid courses) on low cost approaches to astrophotography, how to get started and improve.

Peter Zelinka is a nomadic nature photographer originally from Northeast Ohio. As an avid hiker and backpacker, Peter spent most of his free time exploring the forests of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Once he graduated from Youngstown State University in 2014, he took an IT job at The Vindicator, the local newspaper company. However, he quickly realized this was not how he wanted to spend his life.

In June 2016, Peter quit his full-time IT job to pursue photography. He spent the next 4 months living out of his car, traveling across the country on a 15,000-mile road trip. While living on the road was an amazing experience, he eventually got worn out. Click here to watch the full story on YouTube, and get a look at some of the amazing scenery along the way. Upon returning home, he began teaching photography lessons at a local camera store.

Peter has now spent over 4 years living out of his car and traveling across the country! In 2020 he decided to take a break and settle down in Kanab. Southern Utah has some of the darkest skies in the entire country, and few cloudy nights, making it the perfect place for an astrophotographer!

He is going to talk about astrophotography made easy! It should be appealing to a lot of folks who are either sitting on the fence thinking about doing astrophotography or want to get started without making heavy investments. If you love the objects in the sky and own a camera, Peter will have tips for getting you started and getting good results. Peter is a great educator, if you don’t know already – many of us got started watching Peter’s YouTube videos!

Astroimaging

Astroimaging is a broad term that we use to cover both EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy) and Astrophotography.

EAA (Electronically Assisted Astronomy): Traditionally the night sky is observed using a telescope with an eyepiece (a lens) that focuses the light, greatly magnified and brightened, directly into your eye. In EAA, the light from the telescope is captured by a camera and the resulting image observed live on a phone, tablet or computer screen. Using a camera for “live” observation offers distinct advantages over using the human eye. One can see objects in more detail and in color; and there is the possibility of reducing the effect of light pollution using filters. For people with visual impairments or those who have trouble using an eyepiece, EAA is a wonderful way to do “live” observations or sharing that experience with others.

Astrophotography: Astrophotography takes the approach of using a camera a step further. Images captured by the camera are generally swamped by “noise” introduced by electronic, mechanical and the optical components of the equipment used by astroimagers and also the atmospheric conditions. Astrophotographers attempt to reduce/eliminate this noise by capturing a large number of images and using computer applications to suppress the noise to extract much improved image of the distant objects. They then use photography software to produce beautiful rendition of these objects. Now that data from images captured by various terrestrial telescopes and also extraterrestrial scopes (such as Hubble or the Webb) has become accessible, astrophotographers are creating beautiful astrophotographs from that data as well.

In WVAC a large section of members is dedicated to these disciplines and use it to explore beyond the reach of our eyes. This growing group of members use a variety of equipment and processing software. We have a very active forum where we share our experience and help each other learn and grow in this rapidly growing area of astronomy.

Come join us if you’re interested in learning what’s beyond the reach of our eyes!