Astrophotographer’s Calendar – 2022 featuring Astrophotography from a Plane Window
We present to you the Astrophotographer’s calendar for the year 2022. All images in this calendar have been clicked from the window of an aeroplane. Most of the images are clicked during a night flight, but there are a few images clicked during the day when the plane was flying over the Himalayan ranges.
Astrophotography from a plane window is quite a unique endeavour. Most of the times, the clouds are below the altitude of the plane and the sky above remains clear. There is no chance of pollution at that altitude. You can photograph many interesting phenomena in air, and especially since our platform is moving around the Earth. On a high latitude trans-Atlantic flight, bright aurora or at the least airglow is almost certain on night flights. You can see plenty of meteors on the shower nights. Venus and other planets are much brighter than what you see from the ground. You can easily see the Zodiacal Light.
With the plane flying over the earth there is always either elongation of the night time or shortening of the night time drastically. On one particular flight from New Delhi to New York, Venus was on the horizon at dawn for almost 4-5 hours and not rising, since the flight was moving in south-westerly direction before landing in to New York. Sometimes you experience two complete nights even on a 14 hour flight which is eastward bound.
When shooting the night sky from a plane window some very unique problems are presented. Internal cabin lights reflect brightly, composition possibilities are quite limited. You can only aim the camera perpendicular to the window. Wings of the aircraft have bright flashing strobe lights, which will be visible in all of your images. You are in an unstable platform. There are vibrations from the engines. If you are able to overcome all these problems, the results are quite interesting and exclusive.
As you can imagine, astrophotography from a plane window is full of difficulties but rewarding and satisfying endeavour.
This calendar has an extensive listing of all astronomical events throughout the year. Get to know and plan your astrophotos much in advance, and not after the media frenzy starts. Be prepared much in advance with equipment, location & plan appropriate for the future event. All kinds of astrophotography events, viz. landscape, deep sky, planetary, conjunctions, occultations are calculated and listed.
The Astrophotographer’s calendar is being published since many years now, and is a valuable year long companion. Emphasis is towards events happening in the night sky over India.
Best Wishes,
Neelam & Ajay Talwar
Wall calendar, size 19-inch x 13-inch, good quality printing. Cost per calendar is Rs 650, which includes shipping to any place in India.
To get your copy of the Calendar:
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