That one guy at the observatory open house who changed how I look at astrophotography

I was at the Griffith Observatory in L.A. last fall during their free public night. There was this older volunteer near the big refractor telescope, probably in his 70s, wearing a beat-up NASA hat. I showed him a picture I took of the Orion Nebula with my cheap DSLR and a tripod. He didn't say it was good or bad, just pointed at a faint wisp I had barely processed out. He said, 'You know that tiny blur is actually a whole cloud of baby stars being born, right?' Then he spent 10 minutes explaining how that wisp was probably older than our sun. No lecture on gear or technique. Just made me realize every little speck in my photos has a wild story. Has anyone else had a moment like that with a stranger at a star party?

3 comments

3 Comments

sanchez.mary29d ago

My buddy went to a star party near Tucson and an old timer showed him Saturn through a homemade scope, said it took him 40 years to build.

tyler49229d ago

Had nearly the same thing happen at a star party out in the desert last year. This old guy with a beat up dob telescope saw me struggling with my little tracker and just walked over. He didn't even look at my setup, just pointed at the sky and started telling me about how the light from Andromeda left that galaxy before humans even existed. Blew my mind. I was so caught up in getting the perfect exposure I forgot to actually look up and think about what I was photographing. Now I always take a minute after I get a shot to just sit there and think about how old that light really is. Makes the noise and blur in my pictures feel way less important lol.

kevin_martin21d ago

Ha, @sanchez.mary probably met that guy's retired buddy who just wanted to flex on everyone with his telescope.