Satish Ponnala’s house in bustling Mehdipatnam is a modest abode. On the terrace is a small room that has something special — equipment that he can operate from within his home, through his mobile. As Mehdipatnam goes to sleep, the equipment has the ability to filter out unwanted light rays and capture images of the sun, moon and planets from the night sky.
Satish has been pursuing deep-sky photography (a division of astrophotography ) for five years and says, “It requires a lot of patience,” as he shows us images of distant galaxies like Andromeda and nebula he has captured.
Beginners of astrophotography use a regular DSLR and then shift to more sophisticated equipment. Satish has a smaller Alt-azimuth mount as well as the larger EQ or equatorial mount (that can take 25kg weight) with special filters (that cost up to $600 each) and telescopic lenses of 600 to 1000mm. His astro camera comes with a cooling component that prevents the device from getting heated up as it goes through long exposures that range from 10 to several minutes or hours.
From the terrace of his home, there’s limited possibility of astrophotography . Specialised filters help cut some of the sodium light emanating from the streets. For more challenging deep-sky photography that requires pitch darkness, Satish and a few like-minded friends head to the vicinity of forest reserves of Vikarabad, Pocharam, Srisailem and Maredumilli. The outskirts are ideal to capture meteor showers, constellations and star dust rings.
“I do this for the passion of astronomy and photography,” says Satish. He’s an employee of Eze Software and part of Hyderabad Astronomy Club. The interest in astronomy led him to astrophotography five years ago when he, along with other members of the club, would observe “different planets, stars, and the moon with its craters”.
However, he soon wanted to do more than visual astronomy. He looked up the Net and learnt about astrophotography . He thought Hyderabad would have a sizeable group that dabbles in it and it’s a matter of finding the right connections. But he discovered that only a few specialised in astrophotography . “To reach out to like-minded people from other cities, I had to join Facebook,” he laughs.
- Hyderabad Astronomy Club is a good place to begin for visual astronomy and astrophotography .
- Specialised filters help cut light pollution and capture the colours of the objects captured. However, Satish Ponnale reiterates not to expect NASA-like splendid images as beginners. Photographers focus on capturing the structure of the galaxies than the colours.
- Altitude and lack of light play a crucial role. In India, Ladakh is a favourite among astro photographers. Certain spots in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the Great Rann of Kutch are other favourites.
Astrophotography is a vast subject and broadly, has two dimensions — the wide angle captures of The Milky Way, sun, moon and planetary imaging and the narrow band deep-sky photography that helps capture images of nebulae and galaxies.
Typically, those interested in visual astronomy and deep-sky photography would leave the city on a weekend evening, spend the entire night observing/capturing images and return the following morning.
The window for these pursuits is narrow. “We need cloud-free skies, which rules out monsoons. Summer nights with heat waves aren’t great either. October end to February is ideal. With most of us having day jobs, fields trips are feasible only during weekends. Moreover for deep-sky photography, we prefer moonless nights,” he reasons.
In recent years, he’s seen a few others like city-based Bharadwaj Aryasomayajula showing keen interest in deep-sky photography. On why deep-sky photography requires high-end equipment, he says, “DSLRs get heated up during long exposure shots and in post processing, you will need to work on the images to remove the effects on the image.”
The equatorial mount, telescopic lenses and the camera Satish uses, take 30 minutes to an hour to set up during field trips. “The earth rotates 24/7, the camera also has to rotate in sync to cancel the effect of the earth’s rotation speed on the images,” he says. The angle of alignment and speed are crucial.
Ask Satish what drives him to pursue deep-sky photography and he sums up, “People don’t understand why I spent lakhs on equipment.The same people would have congratulated me had I invested in a new car. One has to experience astrophotography or visual astronomy to know why we are hooked.”