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Musk's Andromeda

Updated: Oct 20


Even as a kid I've always loved looking at the stars on crisp clear nights. The sparkle of distant worlds fills the mind with awe and inspires the imagination to wonder: What is out there? 50 years ago I first tried to capture images of our celestial neighbours with crude apparatus, like taking the lens off an old Kodak instamatic camera and taping the body to the optic of a telescope I'd bought for $40 from Consumer's Distributing. My results were poor, but I was proud that I had at least got pictures of the moon's craters. A half century later, I have finally acquired quality equipment that actually allows be to see and photograph distant galaxies like this one: Andromeda. This was a 30 second exposure with my Alpha 7s, a 600mm Chinese mirror lens, and a Star Adventurer 2i tracking unit.


There is however one problem with waiting 50 years to achieve this: Elon Musk has now polluted the skies with so many satellites you can no longer view the heavens in their natural splendor. In this teensy tiny section of the night sky (hold up you thumb to the sky and your thumbnail is the area I actually captured), you see three satellites interfering with my tranquil shot of a distant galaxy. It's like observing a delicate moth on a freeway.


I did however manage this image of the C2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan ATLAS) comet (Geez, is that the BEST name they could come up with ?!?) before it heads back into outer space for another 80,000 years. Not as spectacular as Hale-Bopp was 27 years ago, but not the dud Halley's comet was back in 1986 (I tried to shoot that one from a tiny little island off Panama but failed, perhaps due to the case of beer I brought along). The skies on New Brunswick's Atlantic coast are rarely clear enough to see stars in all their brilliance, but I lucked out last night.


As I complain about technology cluttering up the skies, I must also be thankful for the technology that allowed me to capture these images in the first place. All is not good, nor is it all bad. It's all about compromise, and perspective. SP


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