Video – Amateur Astrophotographer’s Spectacular Images of Our Universe
Chad Zimmerman describes himself as a Amateur Astrophotographer.
Zimmerman sent Today’s Northumberland several stunning photos that he took recently.
For those who are unfamiliar with Astrophotography, it certainly isn’t “just a click of a button.”
It takes hours to produce one image.
Zimmerman was kind enough to explain the process and show some of his spectacular images.
By Chad Zimmerman/Astrophotographer
When most of us look up at the night sky, we see a handful of stars—maybe a planet or two—and feel a sense of quiet wonder. But for astrophotographers like myself, the sky is not just something to admire.
It’s a canvas. A challenge. And a labor of love that involves hours of preparation, advanced technology, and meticulous post-processing.
But taking a successful image of deep space is far more complicated than pointing and shooting. In fact, astrophotography presents a unique set of technical challenges, requiring skill, precision, and often hours of work just to create a single image.
The Dim Light of Deep Space
The first major hurdle in astrophotography is the simple fact that most celestial objects are incredibly dim—too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Nebulae, distant galaxies, and star-forming regions emit only the tiniest trickle of photons across light-years of space.
To capture these faint signals, we (astrophotographers) attach digital cameras to telescopes and set them to take long exposure photos—often lasting up to three minutes each. These long exposures allow more light to hit the sensor, gradually building up enough data to form a visible image. However, this solution introduces its own problem.
The Earth Is Always Moving
During a long exposure, the Earth’s rotation causes stars to appear to move across the sky.
The result?
Instead of pinpoint stars, the photo captures streaks of light known as “star trails.”
While star trails can be beautiful in their own right, they’re not ideal for capturing fine details of galaxies or nebulae.
To combat this, we use motorized telescope mounts that track the movement of the stars. These mounts must be carefully aligned with the North Celestial Pole—a point in the sky near Polaris, the North Star.
Once aligned, the mount can rotate the telescope at what’s known as “sidereal speed,” matching the apparent motion of the stars and keeping celestial objects centered in the frame throughout the long exposure.
The Battle Against Noise
Even with perfect tracking and exposure, another issue arises: noise. Long exposures at night generate grainy, speckled images due to electronic interference in the camera sensor.
This “noise” can obscure the delicate details of the objects being photographed.
To solve this, astrophotographers take dozens, sometimes hundreds, of images of the same object. These images are then processed with specialized software that averages or “stacks” them together.
The principle is simple: noise is random and different in every image, but the target object remains constant. The software uses this consistency to amplify the true signal (the galaxy, for instance) and reduce the random noise.
To refine the result even further, we also capture “dark frames” (photos taken with the lens cap on) to identify fixed sensor noise, and “flat frames” (taken against a uniform light source) to correct for dust and optical irregularities.
These frames are also processed and subtracted from the final image to produce the cleanest possible result.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love