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Astrophotography Image Arcade

Walking down the Surkanda Peak, on the Holi Full Moon night. Orion in the sky. Huawei P30 phone shot.

Three Planets and Milky Way panorama, shot from Surkanda Devi Temple Peak in the Uttarakhand Himalaya.In this panorama Venus is just rising on the horizon, Jupiter is the brightest and Saturn in the middle of these two.

24 years of astrophotos.

Aurora and a meteorite crater, CanadaHere is an image shot over the Reindeer Lake and Deep Bay Meteorite Crater on 31 December 2018. The image was shot flying 33,000 feet over Saskatchewan Manitoba border.Deep Bay, located at the south end of Reindeer lake and measuring about 13 km wide and 220 m deep, is the site of a large meteorite impact dating about 140 million years ago. According to local legend, it is also the location of a monster which pulls animals through the ice in winter.

Polar Trails over Collesseum, Rome

Qutub Tree Startrails
last night through Delhi's smog.

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2021-03-15-Windswept

2021-03-14-The-Rock-Sargakhet-Polar-Trails

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Shadow of Earth

Aurora and Glory over Canada

Colours of Our Atmosphere

Venus Meteor Mercury

Sirius on Norway

One People - One Skybut divided by the brightly lit line!Bahawal Nagar on the right and Ganga Nagar on the left.

Aurora and Leonid Meteor

One of the lakes in Lake District of India

Meteor over Naukuchiya Taal

Orionids in the Himalayas

Krittika, Subaru, Rosary or Pleiades, the poetic cluster in the night sky.

Anatomy of the Zodiacal Light

Lockdown sky - full of stars

Lockdown night sky full of stars

Three Planets above Gurgaon Little Planet

Gurugram All Sky

Little Planet Gurgaon

30th March 2020, three planets close together at dawn

Vertigo, Lockdown clear sky above Gurgaon

All Sky Trails from Gurgaon

Hesperus meets Krittika

Nyhavn Copenhagen Blue Hour

No longer a church

ISS on a Galactic Path

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Annual motion of the Sun, along with the Solstice Annular Eclipse of 21 June 2020.

The annual motion of the Sun - a figure of 8

24-Years-of-Astrophotography

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Devasthal-Panorama

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Lake-Meteor

Lotus-Moonset

Manhattan-Moonrise

Moonrise-on-Trishul

Nova-Sgr

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SFO-Fog

SFO-Skylines

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Streets-of-Manhattan

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Sydney-South-Pole-Trails

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Trisul-Lunar-Eclipse

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Svenska Akademien Polar Trails

Streets of Gamla Stan, Stockholm
The narrow, winding cobblestone streets, with their buildings in different colors, give Gamla Stan its unique character. The streets of Gamla Stan may be packed with tourists but they are equally packed with history and lined with extraordinarily beautiful buildings, its remarkable that it has survived to the modern day in such a well preserved condition.
Neelam and Me spend a couple of cold February nights, roaming the cobbled streets with no one around, looking at the fantastic architecture with pastel colours and leading lines of this small island.
And of course with both of us carrying our tripods and camera, and shooting trails at every juncture and opportunity.

Oldest square in Stockholm - Stortorget, Trails of Square of Pegasus.
This was the clear night that we got at Stockholm, one clear night out of three, that we were there. The temperatures are low, at the time of this photo, 6 pm in the evening, the temperature was -2° C. You can bear the low temperature for some time, but since star trail photography is boring, the camera is working on its own, and you just have to stand and wait around doing nothing, and it is a long wait, 60-90 minutes just for one star trail. Soon the temperatures start to trouble you. Neelam's fingers were getting numb, even inside the gloves. My toes started paining and legs got extremely cold after some time. Luckily the hotel room was close by, we went back to the room for half an hour to get warmed up and went out again. We could do this three times, and then at 11pm it got unbearable, and we returned for the night.

Stortorget Panorama Little Sky

Stortorget Panorama Little Planet

Stockholm -
In the front is the outer courtyard of the Stockholm Palace, the parade ground. and behind you can see the Storkyrkan or The Great Church, officially named Sankt Nikolai kyrka (Church of St. Nicholas) and informally called Stockholms domkyrka (Stockholm Cathedral), is the oldest church in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden.
Intrestingly, the church also contains a copy of the oldest known landscape image of Stockholm, the painting Vädersolstavlan - The Sun Dog Painting, called Vädersolstavlan, Swedish for 'The Sun Painting' depicts a Sun halo display, an atmospheric optical phenomenon, observed over Stockholm on 20 April 1535. It is the oldest depiction of Stockholm and the oldest depiction of 22° halo and sun dogs, with accurate relative brightnesses.
Behind the church you can see the bright star trails of Orion constellation, towards the southern direction.

Karl XIV Johans statue,
near Stockholm Palace

Riddarholmen Church, Stockholm,
First Quarter Moon and clear blue sky

Stockholm Evening
From the era when travel was possible ??
February 2020, it was quite cold this evening here, and the restaurants had lit small fires on their doorsteps to welcome people. Seems that it is an old custom in Sweden.

Stockholm palace Royal Guards

The Skeppsholmen Church is a former church on the islet of Skeppsholmen.
Since May 2009, the building has been a concert hall called Eric Ericsonhallen. It was named after the Swedish conductor and choral conductor Eric Ericson.
The trail of Arcturus is prominent in the sky.

A clear night at Stockholm.
Amazing to see so many stars captured within the city!

Tyska Kyrkan, German Church spire -
If you visit Stockholm, you are bound to see the German Church or at least its spire, which dominates the Gamla Stan skyline.
The brick steeple and the copper covered spire, together 96 metres tall (1878), designed by a Berliner - Julius Carl Raschdorff. For the commission he chose Neogothic gargoyles featuring grotesque animals, indeed unusual in Swedish architectural history but today recognized as 'natural features' of the old town.

Mount Hamilton,
Home of Lick Observatory (Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California)
In this image you can see the Crocker dome (left), which seems to be currently empty inside, and on the right is the newest telescope on the peak, the Automated Planet Finder, commissioned in 2012 to find planets around stars.

Nickel Telescope Dome, Lick Observatory.
The 40 inch reflector is also known as 'spare parts telescope'

$Lick Observatory Star Trails You can see the main building with 36" Refractor Dome (near), 40" Reflector (far) and on the right 120" Shane Telescope.$

Conjunction of Venus & Mercury
This image is made from Lick Observatory on the evening of 24 October, when the planets were little less than 6° apart. Below you can see the lights of silicon valley city of San Jose, California.

Hyades and a tree on the San Francisco Bay, Anza area.

San Francisco Skyline at night
102 minutes of startrails towards the north. The location of imaging is near the SFO airport, and none of the 1000 photos is without an aeroplane, in fact some of the images have a dozen planes recorded. Many images have two planes taking off or landing simultaneously. All the planes have been removed from the individual frames to show the skyline of San Francisco clearly.

Balconies on the Bay
This is a 45 minute duration star trail clicked from a balcony overlooking the San Francisco Bay near the airport.
The direction of the star trail of north-east and you can see trails of Auriga, Taurus, Lynx and Ursa Major. Trails of Pleiades can be seen on the top right corner. Lots of planes crisscrossing the area constantly.

Astro-Photos from all the Septembers!
The middle of September has been traditionally the start of the clear season in north India. I have had many a productive astrophotography trips in September. Some with my family, like the one to Hatu in 2014. We had camped on top of Hatu peak for three nights continuously.
Another 4 night trip to the same location of Hatu earlier in 2009 was also extremely productive. The trip was with Pankaj Sharma.
I remember a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse in September 2016.
There was also a trip to the Astronomy Island of La Palma in September 2015 for the Total Lunar Eclipse from the location of World's largest single mirror telescope - Gran Telescopio Canarias.
Recently in September 2018 there was an exceptionally productive Sky Photo Trip - Astrophotography Workshop to Leh.
Memories from September in a mosaic.

Captivating Star Trails captured over Stockholm SkyDome, from the Old Town Square of Stortorget. Nothing to do with the famous syndrome from this capital city.
Legwork by Neelam & deskwork by Aja

Grand Hotel and National Museum, Stockholm, as seen from Gamla Stan.

Stockholm is at a latitude of about 60°N. When you look northwards in the night sky, the pole star is very high up, two-thirds to the zenith. There is a lot of space between the pole star and the horizon below. Coming from the tropics, this seems a little out of place.Here are some polar star trails looking northwards from the vantage point of Skinnarviksberget. There is a small hillock, high standing rock at this location. You can look till far beyond the Riddarfjärden. You can see the tall tower of the Stockholm Town Hall, and the typical pastel coloured copper painted buildings.

Altair of Aquila Constellation on the left,
Saturn, shy behind the pine tree,
Jupiter shining bright riding on the Dark Horse of the Milky Way (top right)This image was shot in the small hours of 7 April 2019 from Ranikhet Golf Course.Standing at the Himalayan dark location of Ranikhet Golf, with no lights in the vicinity, a summer moonless night, we can trace the path of the Milky Way across the entire heavens, as a wide glowing band, from the Perseus-Cassiopeia region, through the bright star clouds of Cygnus, and then southwards through Aquila and Scutum, to the culminating splendour of the Sagittarius cloud above the southern horizon. We can follow the course of the "Great Rift" which divides the Milky Way into two parallel streams all the way. The Rift, of course, is nothing more than the dark band of dust clouds, not illuminated by any star.From the Earth we are looking at our own Galaxy - up close.

Northern Constellations in the Nordic city of Stockholm

Khas Mahal, Red Fort, Delhi.So many fantastic details to see, admire and inspire yourself. This mahal is really 'Khas'. In the night-sky there's Moon, Jupiter and Antares in this image clicked on 9th August 2019.

The Diwan-i-Am, or Hall of Audience, is a room in the Red Fort of Delhi where the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1628-1656) and his successors received members of the general public and heard their grievances.

The Arena in front of the Rang Mahal, Red Fort, Delhi.
The night sky hosts a gibbous Moon with a colourful halo because of the clouds, as well as Jupiter nearby and Saturn a little further to the left.
A few stars of Sagittarius are also visible among the monsoon clouds.

Manhattan Moonrise

Naini Tal at night.
(Imaged on 1 June 2019)

Saragthal Polar Trails, lower transit of the Pole Star

From the vantage point of Surkhanda Devi in Saklana Range, foothills of the Himalaya, looking towards south (heading ~200°) you can see the area of Jolly Grant and Doiwala. In this image Dehradun lies towards the right, just outside of the frame, though you can see the shining lights from the capital.
Beyond the lights of Doiwala and Jolly Grant (middle of the image) you can see the darkish Shivalik Range. Follow the Shivalik towards the left, and where the hills end, the Ganga flows southwards, that's Haridwar.
Lights from the towns of Roorkee and Saharanpur can be seen beyond.

Walking down the Surkanda Peak, on the Holi Full Moon night. Orion in the sky. Huawei P30 phone shot.

Three Planets and Milky Way panorama, shot from Surkanda Devi Temple Peak in the Uttarakhand Himalaya.In this panorama Venus is just rising on the horizon, Jupiter is the brightest and Saturn in the middle of these two.

24 years of astrophotos.

Aurora and a meteorite crater, CanadaHere is an image shot over the Reindeer Lake and Deep Bay Meteorite Crater on 31 December 2018. The image was shot flying 33,000 feet over Saskatchewan Manitoba border.Deep Bay, located at the south end of Reindeer lake and measuring about 13 km wide and 220 m deep, is the site of a large meteorite impact dating about 140 million years ago. According to local legend, it is also the location of a monster which pulls animals through the ice in winter.

Polar Trails over Collesseum, Rome

Qutub Tree Startrails
last night through Delhi's smog.

Hyades and a tree on the San Francisco Bay, Anza area.

Hyades and a tree on the San Francisco Bay, Anza area.

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Hyades and a tree on the San Francisco Bay, Anza area.

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