Alta Via Merano covered in clouds
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
–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
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 […]
An astronomer in Texas – 14
–part 14 of the essay An astronomer in Texas– With this photo, our observing run concludes. We collected data in sufficient amounts to keep ourselves busy until next year and enjoyed the scenic route back to the airport, the road leading up into the magnificient mountain pass below the clouds.
One year on Mt Wendelstein -1
–part 1 of the essay One year on Mt. Wendelstein– Astronomy and infrared go hand in hand. I am an astrophysicist who is working at the Wendelstein observatory in the Bavarian alps, where I am in charge of our multi-band camera 3KK which can see simultaneously in the optical and infrared. This, of course, inspires […]
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 […]
