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An astronomer in Texas – 7

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–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

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–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

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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 […]

An astronomer in Texas – 9

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–part 9 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– The next day, with an early end of the night due to the ash particles, we decided to take a walk and explore the surrounding area. The so-called red edge makes every plant appear very bright in the infrared and cacti are no exception – they […]

Alta Via Merano covered in clouds

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The Alta Via Merano, located in South Tyrol, is one of the most beautiful hiking trails in Europe. We were particularly lucky since the clouds were about to lift just when we started. This photo shows the last seconds right before that, while to our eyes it was still intransparent. People often ask me how […]

An astronomer in Texas – 10

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–part 10 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– Finally, success! Clear, dark skies for science and also for photography. The milky way is fascinating both in the visible and the infrared, but I prefer the mix that is created by this filter and wavelength-sorted with blue corresponding to green, green to red and red […]

The lake of lago di garda

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Lago di garda, or lake Garda, is very popular with tourists, particularly from Germany. It is a beautiful lake in the Italian alps. This, however, is just a puddle of water with the actual lake hidden. I like the difference in perspective between how it actually looked to how the camera captured it only a […]

Lightning and full moon

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This is the only time I saw a full thunderstorm with partially clear skies and full moon. Taken from my balcony at home, I simply enjoyed the show and let the camera do the work in time lapse mode.

Rain in the alps

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With autumn approaching, the stormy season has begun on Mt. Wendelstein where I work as an astrophysicist. Infrared is able to show the structure of the incoming rainclouds with almost no haze, making it look all the more threatening.

Lunar eclipse

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While solar eclipses are a class of their own, lunar eclipses are exciting events as well. During last summer, Europe witnessed the longest lunar eclipse of the century and we observed it on Mt. Wendelstein. Right after the main event ended, I used infrared to decrease the contrast between the bright and dark regions and […]

A sea of clouds in the night

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Full moon is a good time to attempt night-time infrared photography. This night, while working on Mt. Wendelstein, I was still covered in clouds with only very short moments of clear sight. While I couldn’t observe due to the high humidity, taking photos that night was rewarding enough.

Sunrise in the alps

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After a long and productive night observing on Mt. Wendelstein, one of my highlights is watching the sunrise in the morning which announces the end of my shift. Since there is nobody here besides the observer, I put on classical music from Bruckner and sit outside for half an hour while liquid nitrogen is refilled […]

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