jack fusco
Professional Astrophysicist Jack Fusco Have traveled to North America to capture the most unforgettable evening scenes with your camera. The two distinct occupational hazards of his job are sleepless nights and months of determination – all to get that perfect shot.,
“I’ll have ideas for photos that I can’t take for the next four or five months, and I’m trying to figure out a way to get there,” explains Fusco, who lives in Pennsylvania. While his work often requires him to travel hours away from the light pollution of a big city, he says part of the joy is finding unexpected sights and new places.
Fusco uses a variety of gear, but its main camera is the Sony A7RII, along with several lenses. But he believes you don’t need a lot of fancy photo equipment to delve into astrophotography. With the continuous improvement of mobile technology, these dark-sky places are getting easier and easier to find and capture with your phone.
“I think one of the best things about it now is that it’s a lot more accessible than it was when I first started,” he says. “Earthsky.org has been a great resource on the astronomy side of things. I read about celestial phenomena on their site and then head [out] To try and take pictures of them,” he says, he also uses a variety of apps like Photopills to plan his shots or track celestial events.
If you’re interested in experimenting with night-sky photography, Fusco recommends starting on the next new moon. “When there is no moon in the sky, this will ensure that it is not washing away any stars,” he explains. “But then do your best to stay away from light pollution. That could mean stopping in a car to drive. Sometimes it can be as little as an hour, and it’s like the stars you can see.” Quantity can make a huge difference.”
Inyo National Forest, California
Fusco took this image of the Milky Way from under a bristlecone pine tree, which had roots in Inyo National Forest in California’s eastern Sierra, in 2016.
These trees are the oldest living non-clonal organisms on the planet and can only be found growing between 9,000 and 11,000 feet above sea level, Fusco says. Non-clonal organisms, such as the trees that inhabit this ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, are not genetic duplicates of the original organism, but the original organism.
“The night sky is incredible,” Fusco says. “It’s also a really incredible feeling to be standing under these trees, just knowing that it’s been around for 5,000 years.”
Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, was designated a dark-sky preserve in 2011, meaning it controls light pollution to allow optimal views of the night sky. In fact, the park hosts an annual Jasper Dark Sky Festival in October, which includes a variety of events and speakers on stargazing, astronomy, and the arts.
“It’s really exciting because it’s a mix of people who love to do it all the time, and then every year there are new people in it,” says Fusco, referring to annual visitors and novice stargazers to the Jasper Dark Sky Festival. Happened. “And everyone’s excited to be out under the stars.”
“This is another photo that took a few years to take because I go to the festival every October, and it was just one that I didn’t have any luck with,” says Fusco. “Every time I went to that place, it was just cloudy in that specific direction.”
“It’s lit entirely by moonlight and long exposures from the camera,” he says. In photography, exposure refers to the amount of light reaching your camera’s sensor. A longer exposure is achieved by leaving your camera’s shutter open longer to allow more light into the photo. “So it’s three eight-second exposures that were stitched together in post-processing to make panoramic and then cropped to a normal aspect ratio.”
Leo Carrillo State Park, California
Fusco timed this shot of Leo Carrillo State Park based on the position of the moon. “That bright light at the edge of the image is just like the moon slowly setting behind the edge of the cave and the last bit of sunset fading into twilight,” he says.
He took this photo during “Blue Hour”. As its name suggests, it occurs when the Sun is so deep below the horizon that it produces a rich shade of blue light.
“It’s that transitional time where it’s not quite dark, but it’s not really light,” Fusco explains. “It’s a magical time, isn’t it? You just start looking with the stars, one by one and then all of a sudden, just tons of stars.”
Leo Carrillo State Park, California
To create this dreamy image, also taken at Malibu’s Leo Carrillo State Park, Fusco took a picture with his camera attached to an anchored tripod, half underwater and half out. He then used the timer to take another picture of himself standing on the rocks. He put these photos together to form the final image. Leading to a final image that layers up the shots. “That bright light is actually the Moon being re-established, and a small part of the Milky Way,” he says.
Monhagen Lighthouse, Maine
Monhagen is a small rocky island just 10 miles off the coast of Maine, accessible only by boat. “There aren’t many people on the island,” Fusco said of the island, which reported only 64 residents in the 2020 decadal census. Fusco was on the island to photograph the night sky, but he was lucky enough to encounter the northern lights as well. ,[I was] Walking across the island with a camera on my tripod,” he recalls.
While the northern lights usually appear green, they can also appear pink, red, yellow or blue. “The color that is visible is dependent on the altitude that the solar particles are colliding with different gases in our atmosphere,” explains Fusco. “People often don’t see a lot of color with the Northern Lights when you’re farther south.” They only lasted about 10 minutes, but enough time to grab this shot of the Monhegan Lighthouse, built in 1850.
Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
In the middle of a two-week night sky timelapse project in Jasper National Park, Fusco found himself at Medicine Lake, which drains and freezes in winter to create a landscape quite different than in warmer climates. The project involved visiting six different Dark Sky parks in Alberta with his friend and fellow photographer Jeff Bartlett to shoot timelapses in each.
“We were driving to a different location, and all of a sudden, the colors started to pop,” he says of this photo taken at sunrise. “So we ran in the snow, trying not to fall. I don’t often take daytime photos, but this is one of those beautiful photos where I really didn’t have much choice.
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California
At Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, about a 90-minute drive from San Diego, Calif., Fusco captured the sky using an instrument called a star tracker. “So these instruments, in their simplest terms, rotate too slowly to the left” to compensate for Earth’s rotation, he explains.
A friend of his climbed the cliff and took the first picture. But as the Milky Way continues to move across the sky, for the next 20 minutes, he took several separate photos and then stacked them together in post-processing to extract the details.
Solana Beach, California
At Solana Beach, a coastal city in Southern California, Fusco takes a self-timed family portrait to coincide with the Space X Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on October 7, 2018. He is with his wife, Rachel and dog. , corner. “He does a surprisingly good job of staying steady for a very energetic boxer,” he adds.
“They happen very often,” says Fusco of Rocket Launch, which he tracks by following base social media channels. “But because it was a bit after sunset, there is still enough residual sunlight that would light up the plume from different stages of launch.”
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada
“I think it was like negative 37″ [degrees] While I was shooting it,” says Fusco, who captured this moonlit image in Yellowknife, Canada. “At a certain point, your gear needs to warm up… I’m swinging a camera in the car. was staying in and bringing it out, and when that stopped working, just swapping back and forth.”
Fusco says Yellowknife is one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights. “After all the planning that goes into it, you have this adrenaline when you first start taking [a photo] And it is all coming together,” he added. “You forget about the cold a little bit until you finally slow down and you’re like, oh, wow, my fingers are starting to go numb.”
Mount Laguna, California
Comet NEOWISE, pictured here, was visible for a few weeks in 2020. “Comets are super unpredictable,” says Fusco, who took this shot of the comet on Mount Laguna in Southern California at sunrise. “As they get closer to the sun, there is a chance that they will either survive and shine, or very often break into pieces and pass out.”
This photo, about an hour from downtown San Diego, shows that night sky photography doesn’t always require running across rocks or swooping down in sub-zero temperatures.
El Matador Beach, California
Fusco captured this shot of the Milky Way at El Matador Beach in July 2018 – a photo that took two years to recover. “Malibu [has] A really beautiful beach and just tons of sea caves,” says Fusco. “One of my favorite things about it was, it’s so close to Los Angeles, and yet you still have an awesome view of the stars, despite Los Angeles having a huge population and an awful amount of light pollution. Is.”
This meant careful planning to know the exact time of year when the galactic core would rise over the east-southeast horizon. “If you look in the lower-left of that picture, there’s a little yellow haze,” he says. “It’s just a tiny bit of the light pollution that’s bleeding into that part of the sky.” In addition to following the movements of the stars, the weather is another tricky part of the equation. For example, Fusco risks being trapped in a low tide or a sea cave. The blue bioluminescence (the release of light by living organisms) was just a nice bonus.
Ultimately, one of Fusco’s goals is to get people out to see the glory of this dark sky for themselves. “I hope I can find different ways to get people interested in stargazing or even taking their night sky photos,” Fusco says. In addition to giving workshops, he provides tips and guidance, reviews gear, and shares his process on his website and social channels. “I think it really has to do with how I feel when I stare at a sky full of stars. It’s not something that’s easy to describe, but the moment is full of peace and wonder. I guess I hope other people feel the same way.”
Watch Jack Fusco’s full TEDxUIUC talk now:
