The lake of lago di garda
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
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
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.
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 3
–part 3 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– If the weather conditions are just right, inversion can occur. This means that the mountain pierces the cloud layer, leading to amazing observing conditions for astronomy. More important to this essay, however, is that it gives photos a surreal touch as everything seems to be […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 4
–part 4 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Metereological inversion during the day can look amazing. One of my favourite parts on Mt. Wendelstein is getting up after a long night of observations and taking a first look outside the windows. This was one of those moments. I immediately decided to get dressed […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 5
–part 5 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Sometimes, things can happen that are hard to explain for a moment. Here, not only did I see a mountain shadow, there appeared to be an inverted shadow above it, forming an hourglass-like structure. One can even see a small color change between the upper […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 6
–part 6 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– 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 naturally we had to observe it. Right after the main event ended, I used infrared to […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 7
–part 7 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Summer was over and autumn was closing in. This usually shows the most scenic sunsets and golden hours and this here was no exception. Again, infrared provides better clarity.
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 8
–part 8 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Of course, when you are an astronomer, you should do astrophotography from time to time. Armed with a small tracker, I photographed a part of Scorpius with Antares, its central red bright star. Thanks to full spectrum, I could increase the amount of light for […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 10
–part 10 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– One of the sad things in astronomy is that we often can’t enjoy the sunset. Certain calibration operations, the taking of sky flats and opening up the telescope, have to be undertaken during that time. Here, I simply put my camera into time lapse mode […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 9
–part 9 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– After a long and productive night, 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 […]
One year on Mt Wendelstein – 11
–part 11 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Ever imagined how the sky on an extrasolar planet could look like? On Earth, the sky is blue mostly due to Ozone with rayleigh scattering, which is still often taught at school as an explanation, playing only second fiddle. Other gasses therefore would color the […]
