A common cliché among astrophotographers and its quite accurate cliché – You cannot photograph anything from overly light polluted cities.
Here is one person who is making this statement a misconception, meet Sameer Dhar.
- This event has passed.
Urbania Deep Sky Imaging
April 12 @ 17:00 - 21:00
Free
Sameer Dhar is an exceptional deep space astrophotographer, hails from one of the most polluted skies in the world. Yet he is acclaimed for his work in imaging dim, really dim nebulas hidden in the realm of our galaxy.
Our small community has seen him evolve and hone his skills, now he leads path for many new and upcoming urban sky astrophotographers, frequently consulted by other accomplished peers.
During the day Sameer works for an International Property consultant (IPC) and looks after sales for facilities and property management business for the firm, Father to an eight-year-old son, who he is nurturing to become an avid astronomer, Sameer brings unimaginable grit and perseverance to the art of deep sky astrophotography.
Breaking barriers with the skill he has acquired over short period of time, but tons of hours spent with his gears have paid off, winning an APOD from urban skies is a major accomplishment and makes the whole community admire the sheer passion with which he works.
Aperture Telescopes is organising a one day workshop with Sameer Dhar. He will reveal many of his secrets and in fact run his whole routine in the workshop. Sameer would be bringing his entire equipment inventory that he uses, to our Manesar Astro Facility.
Don’t miss this chance to learn from the champion of Urbania Deep Sky Imaging.
Glowing Region of Dust and Gas
In 2022, I upgraded my OTA from the absolutely fabulous William Optics Redcat 51 to the Askar FRA 600. I loaded this huge and heavy OTA on a measly GEM 28 without adequate balancing owing to the enthusiasm of a newbie astrophotographer eager to test out his new toy, pointed it towards Sagittarius and started shooting 10 min subs from the Bortle 9 skies of Noida. I persisted over 5 sessions (over several nights owing to the clouds and pollution) to finally come up with the image above. This image has 810 minutes of data using a triad ultra-filter. It is cropped to about 70% of the original frame and I deliberately removed the stars to focus on the angular sharpness of the core with its dust lanes and glowing hot has regions.
I hold this image dear to my heart as it was selected as the Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD) on 8th August 2022.
This image is testament that inadequate gear, bad skies and even a myriad of stars cannot hold back the passion of an astrophotographer.
Sameer Dhar