Life in the Desert
The fifth of my Life in the “Desert Southwest” series documenting the land of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, The unique landscape in the desert southwest lends itself to infrared photography so well. The light textures, Monsoon season all come together for some amazing images, I have been working on this project for the last […]
A Sunday Buggy Ride
An Amish buggy ride
Ribcave
A 30 second exposure in the total darkness of Porth Yr Ogof Cave in Wales.
Dawn on Derwentwater
A new day breaks over the Lake District, England.
Roadtrip in Texas
After a week-long observing run in Texas, having collected data in sufficient amounts to keep ourselves busy until next year, we enjoyed the scenic route back to the airport, the road leading up into the magnificient mountain pass below the clouds.
Ulmer Mnster
One of my passions is infrared photography of churches in Europe, gothic churches in particular. The Ulmer Münster has the highest church tower in the world and infrared gives it a rather menacing feeling.
An astronomer in Texas – 4
–part 4 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Having reached the top, weather got worse quickly. Here, one can see the HET, which is located on the opposite hill, in more detail. Infrared was able to pierce the fog while visibility was much worse in the visible.
An astronomer in Texas – 5
–part 5 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– The weather cleared (more or less) nicely for the first night of the observing run. However, several thunderstorms were still visible on the horizon, which led to a sight I never thought I could see: lightning arcs below the milky way. Taken in full spectrum, lightning […]
An astronomer in Texas – 6
–part 6 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Several days later, an astrophysicist’s worst nightmare happened! Forest fires several dozen kilometers away spread out and slowly crept closer towards the observatory. We had to close down the dome and enjoy the show while everthing smelled like barbecue. Thankfully, the fire department was successful in […]
An astronomer in Texas – 7
–part 7 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Everything looked more peaceful on the next day. Sadly, infrared revealed a suspicious “cloud” in the sky, which is likely ash and not water. On the right, one can see how it slowly dissolves in the wind.
An astronomer in Texas – 8
–part 8 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Our visibility was extremely poor in the following night, i.e. while we couldn’t detect a cloud with our sky surveillance camera, stars appeared to be much fainter than they should be. Since we wanted to do spectroscopy where every photon counts, this was a huge problem. […]
Infrared ash and full moon
Sometimes, strange things occur in astronomy and this was one of those nights. While observing in Texas, we realized that our instruments recorded almost no light but the sky was cloud-free. I therefore went outside to take infrared images which is when we finally realized what was going on. Seen here, the pink glow in […]
