For centuries, we humans have been looking up at the night sky
and drawing what we've seen.
First, just using the naked eye,
then, by using telescopes.
The detail and skill in some of these drawings is outstanding.
Like this one, taken of an observation
here at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh.
It's a piece of art.
However, our scientific knowledge was totally transformed
when we could photograph what we could see.
There's something about a photograph that can make you feel
that you're right there. Up close to the Moon,
a planet such as this one,
a star, a galaxy, whatever you're looking at.
But it's the information contained within that picture
which is really important.
Having the light from those distant objects fixed in an image
like this one has allowed astronomers to analyse
and understand the beautiful universe around us.
So tonight, we're visiting the wonderful world
of astrophotography.
ALL: Welcome to The Sky At Night.
Astrophotography is both visually stunning
and scientifically important.
NASA's latest space telescope has started sending back
incredible pictures of the cosmos.
And, of course, there are also thousands of amateur astronomers
all around the world regularly photographing the night sky.
In this episode of The Sky at Night,
we're going to take a trip down memory lane...
I've actually brought some clips with us.
You point up at exactly the time it's going to happen.
And the guests think you're doing magic because this amazing flare
will appear in the sky.
..take a look at the future...
We have three cameras here, three different channels, that allow us
to cover the spectra continuously, the entire wavelength range,
going from the visible all the way to the H band in the infrared.
That's the Orion Nebula!
..and see what you can do with the latest technology today.
Wow! And that was with a smartphone.
But first, Chris has been looking at some photographs
which have changed the world.
Well, the world of astrophysics, at least!
Ever since the early days of astrophotography,
pictures have played an important part in our understanding
of the cosmos and our place within it.
I'm meeting Dr Jen Gupta from Portsmouth University
to talk about some of the images that have inspired her.
Hey, Jen! How are you? Good, thanks. Yeah.
Nice to see you.
I can see we've got plenty of photographs to talk about.
Before we get into those,
why is astrophotography useful in your work?
Well, my job is all about getting people excited about space.
And using photos like this is such an important part of it.
For me, you can't give a talk about astronomy without using
these images, and they're absolutely stunning.
And when you can then get into the science of what's
behind those images, I think is where their beauty
really comes in. Where shall we start?
Start over on this side if you want to bring those over.
OK. So this is a galaxy.
I recognise this much, but it's a special image.
This is an image that was taken by Edwin Hubble.
So not Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope, the actual person,
Hubble, back in 1923.
It was a photograph taken at Mount Wilson of the Andromeda Galaxy, M31.
And the thing to notice here is this little marking here
where there's an N that's been crossed out and VAR
with an exclamation mark. Very excited.
So what does VAR mean? So this is Edwin Hubble realising
that this little dot there is not a nova but is a variable star,
a particular kind of variable star called a cepheid variable,
which meant that he was able to use these photographs of Andromeda
to actually calculate the distance to the galaxy.
Because these stars change brightness in a regular way.
Exactly. Work out the distance.
And it actually turned out that Andromeda is way outside
of our Milky Way.
So it's kind of solved the problem of what galaxies were.
Right, and sort of increased the size of the universe
by a factor of millions!
Yeah. Just from one set of observations.
Where next? We're going to come... jump another 30 years or so.
OK. I recognise some of these. Yeah.
There's a galaxy for you.
So this is all images from the Hubble Space Telescope,
named after Edwin Hubble, of our Andromeda photo.
And, you know, when we look at these images, these ones kind of here
at the top are the ones that you always think about.
That was my computer background. I had a phone case with this on.
Exactly. Yeah. This is the star-forming region.
This is famous, right?
This is what people think space looks like.
Yeah, but the one I want to focus on is this one
which doesn't look as impressive, maybe doesn't look as pretty,
but this has just revolutionised our understanding of the universe.
So this is the Hubble Deep Field.
It's an image that was taken by pointing the Hubble Space Telescope
at a tiny patch of the sky that looked completely empty.
And just focusing the telescope there again and again over about,
I think, 100 hours over the course of ten consecutive days,
and then stacking all those images up, processing them,
and seeing what happened. And this is what happened.
And this image contains nearly 3,000 galaxies.
So almost all of these dots are galaxies. Yeah.
There aren't many stars. There's a handful of stars.
You can see them with their little diffractions spiking,
any of them with a with a crossover.
But almost every blob of light in this is an entire different
galaxy, which is just mind-blowing.
What about our last set of images?
Well, I've got something a little bit different for the last ones.
I thought I would bring us closer to home,
so less about kind of the science behind it
and a bit more about thinking about, kind of, our place in the universe.
So we've got, you know, this is the Blue Marble,
the photograph taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts, December 1972.
I always show this whenever I give a public talk because, you know,
everyone who was alive at that point is in this photograph,
apart from those three astronauts.
Right. There's something about the fact it was taken by people...
Exactly. ..that makes that one special. Yeah. I think.
Because we now are used to seeing this image from satellites
and so on but this is...
Yeah. I think this was literally camera to the eye, point and click
out of the... It's basically the world's best holiday photo!
LAUGHTER
And this is just a small sample of the amazing array
that Jen had to show me.
Now, we've talked about photos taken with the largest telescopes
in the world, and with satellites launched by space agencies.
But astrophotography also belongs in your back garden.
So I've been into astronomy since I was a small boy.
But it wasn't until I became a teenager that I actually
tried my hand at film photography.
That was a bit of a disaster because I ended up
flooding my bedroom.
So I gave up on that.
And it wasn't until a number of years later
that I got a digital camera
and I can remember looking through the telescope
at a really bright Moon and wondering what would happen
if I put the digital camera to the eyepiece of the telescope
and take a picture?
That's what I did, and I got a great shot of the Moon,
and that got me hooked into digital astrophotography.
Now, some 18 years later from that,
I find myself making a living out of astronomy,
and I feel really privileged for that.
But there has been somebody that has been with me throughout.
So I've invited him to my house
and we're going to have a little chat
about how things have developed over the years.
Hey!
Hello, Chris! How are you?
Very well, thank you. And you? Yeah. Good, good.
It's really lovely to be in your garden, which I've seen on telly!
You're very welcome, Chris.
Now, I thought we'd talk about your time on The Sky At Night.
I've actually brought some clips with us, so shall we just play? OK.
On October 28th, there was a total eclipse of the Moon.
I didn't see it. I was clouded out.
Oh, I remember this.
It was completely cloudy in London, as well.
OFF CAMERA: My God!
We have had some nice photos from people who were luckier, though.
This one from Pete Lawrence, just a mile down the road
from you here in Selsey. A mile from me.
He got a clear sky and I was clouded out. The way things go.
Do you remember that? I DO remember that.
I think that was that was possibly my first photo on The Sky At Night.
But actually, there's a very important tip
for any astrophotographer out there in that because it was completely
cloudy for that event, apart from one tiny gap which appeared.
So I stayed out for the entire thing, looking at cloud for most
of the time, and it's tenacity.
If you actually make the effort and you stay there,
that's when you'll get the shot.
And it was always thrilling, obviously, to have a photograph
on The Sky At Night, so...
Yeah, well, you must have made an impression because it was only
a few months later that we invited you to our first
Sky At Night Star Party. I remember that very well.
I think I've got a clip of that now. Yeah, let's pull that up.
Just an hour ago, it was completely cloudy, but the skies have cleared,
and behind me, you can see the young crescent moon
and nearby, the planet Mercury.
A great shot for our astrophotographers.
We left Chris outside with some cloud trouble.
I wonder is there anything better there now?
It's 1.30, it's raining, and the satellite photo shows cloud
for the rest of the night.
So all we can do is shrug and hope for better luck tomorrow.
There have been highlights though.
I enjoyed seeing the Moon and Mercury from the beach.
OFF CAMERA: One of yours. I remember that photo well!
It's fully dark now and it's a crisp, clear,
if a little cold, night.
We're looking at Comet Machholz. Deep sky objects are being imaged.
Saturn is well placed, I could just see Jupiter rising.
So far, night two couldn't be any more different from night one.
OFF CAMERA: I remember this!
It's dawn and I can see Scorpius fading into the brightening sky.
OFF CAMERA: I do.
I remember brushing the frost off my charts, actually.
OFF CAMERA: And you're still there.
It's just the two of us!
Well, that was our Star Party.
A definite success, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Well, there's some interesting things there.
I remember the photograph of the thin crescent moon and Mercury
because I set up on the on the beach itself, on the sand.
And because of the time it takes things to happen in television,
the tide had come in and it was actually lapping up
around the tripod legs!
But we managed to get a good shot of it.
The thing I remember about the Star Parties, apart from the fact
that they were great fun with people camping in Patrick's garden,
you didn't quite know who you were going to run into.
I remember Terry Pratchett turning up to one with a bat detector, for
some reason. But the variety of things that people were looking at
and taking pictures of is astonishing. Absolutely right.
There's all sorts of targets that people go for, so it's not
just about creating beautiful images.
I think this one's excellent. This must be from,
oh, 10, 12 years ago now, I think. OK.
Good evening.
We meant to devote this programme entirely to the eclipse of the Sun.
But something else very interesting has happened.
A comet or asteroid or something
has hit Jupiter and left obvious traces.
With me, Pete Lawrence, Chris Lintott.
Pete, you've actually photographed this? I have, Patrick.
I mean, this is an incredible feature in Jupiter's atmosphere.
It was first discovered by Anthony Wesley in Australia
who imaged it on the 19th of July,
and after his announcement, I managed to capture it myself,
and there it was, this incredibly dark region
towards the southern part of the disc.
Yes, this is something which has hit the planet and left this dark scar
on the planet's gaseous atmosphere.
As amateurs are looking at it and they've had a lot of interest in it
and announced its existence, we're monitoring it and finding out
how the thing is changing over time. Yes. And as you say, Pete,
it's not... The amateurs have done a great job in discovering and
monitoring this, but the professionals have been paying attention as well.
It's a really good example because we wouldn't have known
that had happened if it hadn't been for amateur astrophotographers,
though, I jump in with the professionals at the end.
We're still reliant on people with the kind of telescopes
that are behind you to tell us what's happening.
Well, it's the early warning system, isn't it, really,
that these are happening.
And the beauty of the amateur network is that it's working
all the time.
And people are obsessed with taking pictures of Jupiter constantly.
So if anything like this does happen, then the alert goes out
and everybody looks for it.
But yeah, no, there have been several impacts
which have been picked up.
And, erm, it's a new thing, isn't it, really?
Because we weren't sure what the frequency of these impacts were.
And it's a great thing to study.
I've got one clip which I think is my favourite Pete Lawrence clip.
This is how to use astronomy to impress people.
Now, I think the next most famous class of satellite
would be the iridium flares, at least from an observer's point of view.
What are they? Well, the iridium constellation
is a group of satellites
which was put up there as a global communications network.
And once you've seen an iridium flare, it's almost impossible
to believe you've missed them
because they are absolutely fantastic.
And it's actually quite a neat party trick.
If you know one's happening and you happen to be at a party,
you can point up at exactly the time it's going to happen.
And the guests think you're doing magic because this amazing flare
will appear in the sky.
Now, have you ever actually done that?
Possibly.
I think I did it once. Yeah. I mean, it works.
People are impressed.
It's better if it's the Space Station. But it's interesting.
I went back and looked.
We made that whole programme about observing artificial satellites.
We did. And I think you'd speak differently about it now.
There are so many more satellites
and they're basically a nuisance now.
I'll be perfectly honest. I've never been a big fan
of observing artificial satellites because for me, the pleasure
is looking at natural stuff and trying to work stuff out about it.
And we know a lot about the satellites which are up there,
so they are a curiosity.
I'm quite happy to go out and take a photograph of the ISS
going across the sky or across the Moon or the Sun
because it's a technical achievement to do it.
So how has the technology changed?
How is your setup different from what you had 15 years ago?
That's a really interesting question because it hasn't changed that much
in terms of the hardware.
I've bought new cameras, lots, lots of new cameras,
but the actual telescopes themselves are still the same.
And I do think the variety of images that we see, I think people have got
more, perhaps more artistic?
Yeah, partially driven by astrophotography competitions,
of course - the technical aspect of trying to take a photograph
of a planet will result in something which a planetary scientist
will drool over. Yeah.
But of course, from a photographic perspective,
it just looks like a planet in a dark sky surround. Right.
Yeah, well, that's plenty to see.
And it's been fun to look back at the past with you.
But while we've been looking at the past,
Maggie's been up in Scotland looking at the future.
The Very Large Telescope, or VLT for short,
is the most productive ground-based telescope here on Earth.
Located in Chile,
it consists of four individual telescopes that can work
on their own or in unison.
And to date, it has produced a vast array of fantastic data.
From the last breath of a dying star
to amazing infrared images of neighbouring Jupiter,
as well as many, many galaxies in incredible detail,
the Very Large Telescope has captured it all.
But our engineering capabilities are always improving.
And the latest upgrade is being assembled here
at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh.
I am meeting Dr Oscar Gonzalez, lead scientist, to tell me more.
Oscar, lovely to meet you. And you're introducing me to MOONS?
Now, with most of these instruments, MOONS is an acronym, I assume?
So MOONS stands for
the Multi Object Optical and Near-Infrared Spectrograph.
OK! So what sort of information are we talking?
So say, for example, from a star
when we're observing the spectrum of a star,
what we're actually looking at is the...
..what chemical elements
are in the atmosphere of this star.
So the light comes in from the fibres.
And as I said, they are ordered in this line in what we call a slit.
So then we have all the fibres ordered that way.
They go down into a collimator that orders the beam
of the light into the right angles, and then it goes into a set
of dichroic filters that is in charge of splitting the light,
either reflecting the light or letting the correct wavelengths
of light passing through.
So when taking an image of, say, a star,
MOONS analyses all the light
of the different wavelengths, which enables astronomers
to understand the chemical composition of the target object.
So when you say "dichroic", that's a filter that will let some
wavelengths pass through and reflect other wavelengths so that you can
split it into the three different bands. Exactly.
We have three cameras here, three different channels, that allow us
to cover the spectra continuously, the entire wavelength range,
going from the visible all the way to the H band in the infrared
in the system you have above.
Is there one camera missing? There is one camera missing.
The camera is actually sitting in a clean room at the moment
being worked on.
Then it will be brought up here, closed up, and do another
set of tests. But now we've talked about the light arriving and going
through the system. But how do we get the light in?
This fibre placement system? Yes, of course.
So if you come with me, I'll introduce you to my colleague
who will show you how this is done. Fantastic. Thank you.
Each large camera will be capturing images
that are 4,000 by 4,000 pixels,
which is needed for the amount of light coming in
from the optical fibres.
Hi, Steve, lovely to meet you.
I've just been finding out about the instrument,
but this is the way you're getting light into the instrument.
So the fibre positioning module. Yes.
And I must admit, it looks quite complicated. Oh, yes, yes!
So eventually this will have 1,000, what we call fibre positioning
units, which is each one of these.
At the moment, we have 655 on the plate.
So we're in the partial state. You're working on it?
We're working on it, yes.
Now, you've got one of these. Can you talk me through it?
So it has a fibre attached to it. As you can see. Yes.
The light enters the fibre at the tip of the fibre
positioning unit here.
So that little tiny hole. There's a tiny aperture there.
And this moves on an image plane that's generated from the telescope,
and the light from whatever the galaxy or the star
that you want to look at is collected into here.
There's a small lens that focuses it into the fibre.
This then positions that within its own little patrol field
and because you have two arms, that are different lengths,
it doesn't move in a circle.
It moves within like a doughnut shape.
But doughnuts don't seem that useful because there's a bit in the middle
which you're missing then. Absolutely.
So each position cannot reach its own central axis.
It relies on one of its neighbours to do that. OK.
So that means your next door neighbour can get to the centre
of yours even if you can't? Yes.
Can we see it in action?
Yeah, you absolutely can. Yes.
Each of the 1,000 units will move independently
to capture the light coming from their own specified target.
Tightly packed together, it takes precision engineering to ensure
they avoid collision.
So it's been wonderful seeing it here in the lab and lovely see
how it's progressing, as well.
But I can't wait till we get first light on the telescope and start
getting that wonderful data.
Look forward to that. Yeah, me too. Thank you.
Thank you.
Astronomers around the world will be looking forward
to getting their hands on the data from the MOONS' cameras
when it's installed next year.
But you don't need expensive, complicated instruments to capture
images of the stars and planets.
Anyone with a smartphone can give it a go,
and it's a great introduction to the hobby.
I invited Peter Lewis to discover how he photographs the sky at night.
So, Peter, welcome to my garden. A great name, by the way.
Thank you. So what got you into astrophotography?
Well, when I retired about seven years ago, my family decided
that I needed a hobby or an interest, and they bought me my
very first telescope. I started looking through and I thought,
that's really great,
but wouldn't it be great to be able to capture what I could see
with the naked eye? Yeah.
And that's where I started, really, to try and work out how am
I going to actually do some proper photography?
I didn't have a real expensive camera to do it, so I decided
to use my phone, which I was able to share across the Internet
with people and learn how I could do better. Fantastic.
Well, that is actually one of the joys of astrophotography,
that you can actually take these pictures and share them
with everybody else. So can I have a look at some of yours?
Of course you can. Yeah? Yeah.
This one is a photo of Saturn and Jupiter when they reached
the great conjunction in December 2020.
I remember that very well. Yes. Fantastic.
So when you took the photograph
of them without a telescope,
did you just hand hold it or did you put it in some sort of mount?
No, hand-held.
Inevitably, if I was taking a photograph with a long exposure,
then I would put it on a stand or a tripod.
Or sometimes, what I have done is just balanced it on the edge
of my telescope. Or just rest up against something so you're not
wobbling as you're taking the shot. Exactly.
In fact, in the past, I've literally balanced the phone on the car roof
to take the photograph using a timer, because inevitably,
you need to use a timer because you're going to knock it over
soon as you press the button.
That's the problem, isn't it?
As you press the button, you're actually physically touching
the camera, and that introduces a wobble.
So have you got any advice on settings to use?
Most of the time I use a night sky facility
which allows a sort of two or three-second exposure.
That's built into the phone rather than an app? Yeah.
OK. So what else have you got?
OK. So in this particular photo... That's the Orion Nebula!
Quite a familiar sight through a telescope during the winter sky.
Wow! And that was with a smartphone.
So it's just using this smartphone, just connected again to the eyepiece
or the telescope and that was used in a three-second elapsed time.
Wow! So the idea obviously was to try and capture more light and some
of the colour that you get through the nebula itself.
That's an amazing shot. I mean, what we've spoken about so far
have been taking pictures of dots which are planets, which are sharp,
pinpoint sources of light, but that's a diffuse object
and that has come out really well.
Well, thank you very much.
That's been very enlightening.
And I'm amazed at the photographs you're taking.
And it's a great privilege to meet you.
Thank you very much. Thank you for asking me.
As Peter has shown, there's plenty that can be done using your phone.
And as you develop your skills, you can take ever more amazing
pictures like these.
There are a number of interesting events coming up
over the following month, and some of those will be of interest
to visual observers, and some will be of interest if you're trying
to get into astrophotography.
We start with a very special event on the 14th of September
when the 77% lit waning gibbous Moon
will pass in front of the planet Uranus.
Now Uranus is pretty dim.
It's right on the threshold of naked-eye visibility,
so you'll need at least binoculars to see it.
The event starts with Uranus being hidden by the bright edge
of the Moon at about 10.30 BST
and Uranus reappears from behind the Moon at 11.20 or so.
Now, those times will vary slightly with locations,
so it pays to get out 10, 15, 20 minutes earlier
than the times I've stated.
On the 17th of September,
the Moon will have reduced in phase
to 58% lit and it will be really
close to the planet Mars.
Now, this is a great opportunity,
if you have a phone camera, to try
and snap both objects in the sky.
Give it a go, see what you get back.
On the 24th of September,
Io and its shadow can be seen
transiting Jupiter's disc
if you've got a telescope.
So look at Jupiter from about
three o'clock in the morning
through to about five o'clock in the morning,
and you'll see this moon and its shadow
crossing Jupiter's disc.
Now, they'll be really close together, actually,
the moon and shadow.
And the reason for that is that Jupiter is near to a point
in the sky, which is called opposition,
when it's opposite the Sun.
When that happens, then Io's shadow
drops almost behind it,
directly onto Jupiter's disc.
Jupiter's opposition occurs on the 26th of September.
On the 28th of September,
there's a chance to see Ganymede
and its shadow transiting Jupiter.
This is from five o'clock in the morning.
Ganymede is the largest
of Jupiter's four Galilean moons.
In fact, it's the largest moon
in the entire solar system.
So it's quite a sight.
Finally, on the 8th of October,
if you can find the bright Moon
in the evening, shouldn't have any trouble with that,
then bright Jupiter
will be right next to it.
And this is another great
opportunity to try and get
a photograph of this pair
if you have a phone
with a camera attached to it.
So go outside, see what you can get.
And if you're new to astrophotography, good luck.
If you love finding out more about our universe
there's lots of other ways to get involved this coming month.
The annual Astronomy Photographer Of The Year competition
will be announcing this year's winner on the 15th of September
with photos on display at the National Maritime Museum
from the 17th of September.
For those of you who prefer the outdoors, then the
Our Place In Space trail will let you explore
our very own solar system.
Upcoming locations and dates to be announced shortly.
And finally, the Exmoor Dark Skies Festival will run from the 13th
to the 30th of October in Somerset.
Featuring over 50 events, there'll be plenty to get involved in.
For more information on these and other events,
go to The Sky At Night website.
So whether you're taking photographs,
attending an event,
or just taking the time to stop, look up and enjoy the night sky,
there's always something to discover.
Next month is our Question Time special, where, with the help
of our expert panellists, we'll be answering your questions.
So until then, goodnight!