Astrophotography Journies

As the last vestiges of daylight fade away into the western sky and darkness envelopes us, we can get a glimpse of the universe beyond our tiny planet. The night sky has many wonders that can be photographed if we use a few special techniques and equipment that allow us to extend our vision.

Thursday, October 18 at 7:00 PM at the Nature Museum at Grafton, the Southern Vermont Astronomy Group (SoVerA) will feature Al Takeda, Secretary of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (http://www.atmob.org/), Vice President of the Bridgewater Hill Observatory (http://www.bridgewaterhillobservatory.org/) and an avid amateur astrophotographer.

He will talk about his journey in imaging the night sky and will also share some of his tricks, techniques and blunders that always seem to be magnified when the white lights go out.

Mr. Takeda has been photographing the sky for over 30 years, starting with a black and white Polaroid instant camera and then migrating to film cameras, digital webcams and the latest robotically controlled telescopes and CCD imagers. His current project has him imaging with an off the shelf digital single lens reflex (SLR) camera attached to a 7 inch hyperbolic astrograph.

SoVerA is an organization composed of amateur and professional astronomers, educators, students and members of the lay public dedicated to making astronomy much more accessible to all. Public Outreach Talks and presentations are held in venues throughout the southern Vermont region on the third Thursday of every month and are free to the public. Night sky observing is afterwards, sky conditions permitting. All are welcome. More information may be found at the web site: http://www.sovera.org/ or by contacting Claudio at 802-875-6464.

Photograph by Al Takeda of the Pleiades Star Cluster, an active stellar region.