AAA Astrophotographers Hard at Work in the Field

AAA Astrophotography members were busy the last few months.

Maggie Machinsky had her beautiful photo of star trails in Madagascar featured on Your Shot page of NatGeo.com  (scroll down to star trails photo).

Chirag Upreti had an exhibit of 18 night sky photos in a gallery in New Delhi in mid-February. Chirag describes it best in an email he sent as he was headed to the airport:

“My pleasure to share with you my upcoming maiden photo exhibition. I was invited to present my work in a National Gallery in New Delhi, the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (http://ignca.gov.in). The exhibition is titled Anubhuti, which in Hindi means to experience an emotion or an evocative feeling will showcase a wonderful collection of paintings, photographs, folk music and dance from a variety of artists.

“It’s also a privilege to showcase the night sky work alongside “Padma Shri” awardees in different fields. This is one of the highest civilian honors given by the President of India to people for distinguished service in their field. Details on the award here: https://padmaawards.gov.in/AboutAwards.aspx

“Some of the prominent Padma Shri recipients are musician Zakir Hussain and Ustad Bismillah Khan, former world number one in badminton Saina Nehwal and actor Amitabh Bachchan.

“I understand this is a short notice, things worked out last minute…even my pictures reached there only earlier this week.

“Anyway, long story short, I thrilled to share this with you all as your enthusiasm and critique have been crucial in my growth as a photographer. My first experience in any form of exhibition, so I am mostly winging it thus far. But should be an interesting experience and lots to learn from it.”

Several trips were made to the UACNJ facility at Jenny Jump State Park by members doing deep sky imaging. In particular, Jeff Williams, Gowrishankar L. and Samir Patel worked alongside UACNJ folks also braving the cold.