Being a science enthusiast from my childhood days and with my love for Aerospace and Aircrafts early in life, I didn’t realize when it happened but I fell in love with the night skies and the celestial mysteries out there in our universe.

My Journey into Astronomy and Astrophotography

My fascination for capturing celestial beauties began with the Super Moon back during my late Chennai days. The moon was unusually big in size and this was my first capture using my dad’s DSLR camera with a 300mm lens. I got my first telescope early on but wasn’t practically usable much except for looking at some craters on the moon’s surface, it was mainly for visuals alone.

Moved to Gurgaon in 2018 and my fascination for the skies got to its best especially after my NASA visit during my MYP1 days. I gradually learnt a lot about all the major star constellations and started tracking them in the night sky, getting a better understanding of our universe. My favorite constellation was the Orion Belt constellation. One fine night, I decided to capture the Orion Nebula with my DSLR; well, all I got was a little smudged purple patch in spite of my best efforts.

I got my 2nd telescope and this time it was a Maksutov-Cassegrain 152mm, primarily used for visuals but then I used to capture detailed images of the moon by attaching my DSLR to it. I was also able to view our planets Saturn and Jupiter pretty sharp; it’s amazing to see their actual shape, without the telescope it just looked like a bright star. My efforts to capture Orion nebula continued but then I realized after a lot of study that for deep sky objects one would have to ‘stack’ multiple images taken with extended exposure time.

On 21st of December, 2020, the world witnesses what’s called Conjunction Day, this was the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that came close at 0.5 degree away; in terms of view from earth. This event last happened around 398 years back in the year 1623 and the next one would be in the year 2080. Such events being very rare are eagerly waited for in our astronomy community. The next astronomical even I witnessed was the Occultation Day on 17th April’2021 where planet Mars goes behind the moon as seen from earth.

I had the opportunity to capture both these events and my maiden astronomy article took shape for my school magazine at DPSI; I had a lot of encouragement from my parents and teachers.

I got my next telescope when we moved to Hyderabad mid-2021 and that’s when I really got involved into Astrophotography big time. I got an f4.9 refractor William Optics Red Cat 71mm, Petzval design telescope with a 348mm focal length. To be able to capture deep sky objects with long exposures, I needed a mount that would precisely oppose the rotation of the earth helping keep the object being captured in the center of the frame constantly during long exposures; the mount I selected was an equatorial mount GEM28 from iOptron.

I got associated with multiple astronomy groups in the city and also found a mentor to guide me through. I started going to star parties as we call it, spending the night under the dark skies capturing celestial bodies. My dad used to take me to the out-skirts of the city during weekends, about 100 odd kilometers away from where we lived; the skies were pitch dark (technically yet a Bortle Class 7 sky) there and all of my best captures so far has been from this location. Over time, we had identified a couple of spots off city limits to conduct star parties during weekends.

Link to my article at DPSI : https://dpsiedge.edu.in/magazine/2020-21-Secondary-BEATS/index.html (page 90)

It has been an amazing experience and I managed to capture over half of the celestial objects defined in the Messiers catalogue; Charles Messier was a French astronomer and had defined the catalogue of 110 astronomical objects that appeared brightest in the night sky back then. There are many other catalogues developed over the time, namely the Cadwell catalogue, New General Catalogue (NGC) etc.

Galactic Gaze, My Astrophotography journey was the title of my Personal Project at MYP5 (10th Grade) at Oakridge International, Newton Campus, where I scored a 7/7 as my final grade.

Astrophotography is mostly a winter hobby, especially if you are targeting deep sky objects. The skies are clearer during these months with very little to no clouds that helps with longer exposure times during capture.

Check out my of my Astrophotography captures at Showcase Endeavour > Astrophotography (Work in progress)

Galactic Gaze - My Personal Project at MYP5 Exhibition

M45 - Pleiades, Also know as The Seven Sisters

Check out details of my project 'Galactic Gaze'