It’s been an oddly clear-skied year in the Northeast, with ample sunshine and the most vibrant night sky-scapes. A few weeks ago, the aurora borealis was visible to the naked eye from the center of campus, an amazing sight. The clear night skies this fall have allowed students in Matthew Saveliev’s astrophotography class to spend evenings in the Perkin Observatory photographing different stellar and planetary formations. They’ve begun to capture some amazing images, like this one, which was processed and produced by Kodai G. ‘25.

Mr. Saveliev shared a bit more about what his class has been up to this fall, and how they’ve been utilizing our astrophotography facilities. 

“The Dumbbell Nebula, the first planetary nebula ever discovered, is an apt first target for students in Dublin's astrophotography class. After learning to operate the Perkin Observatory's computer-controlled half-meter Corrected Dall-Kirkham astrograph, students use image processing software to create detailed astrophotographs.”

More than a classroom, the Perkin Observatory is also home to Dublin School’s Astronomy Club, which serves as a springboard for students interested in astrophotography. The club is led by senior J.J. J-S, who recently shared some of her astrophotography work with the Dublin Quad, and spoke to the niceties of imaging the night sky. 

J.J. is currently immersed in the study of exoplanets, or planets located outside of our solar system. Leveraging the imaging capabilities of the Perkin Observatory, J.J. has been able to contribute actual findings to our understanding of space.

“I mostly work with the exoplanet survey, confirming their presence. There’s this database called the Swarthmore Transit Finder where you can input your data, where you are, what time zone you're in, information like that, and it gives you all of these transits that you’ll be able to see on a given night. A transit is when the exoplanet moves in front of the star. The database gives you coordinates, and then you take pictures of the transit. You have to calibrate and align the images, then you stick it in a code that is run by NASA. If everything runs properly you get out a bunch of data on the transit, and then you can send it into what’s called the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and they use that information to confirm the exoplanet is there and the transit is correct.”

J.J. also told the Quad that taking photos of the night sky is not like snapping the casual iPhone image. It’s a throwback to those times where you actually had to produce an image. 

“Anytime you see an astrophoto, that photo comes from anywhere from 30 to 100 photos. They’re usually taken in three to four different filters; you’ve got the regular photos which are luminants, which are just all light, and then red, green, and blue. And then you have Narrowband filters that admit hydrogen-alpha, oxygen, and sulfur, using specific wavelengths and spectrums that elements give off to locate the body. I mostly work with the regular light. So you’ve got four filters, and you get sections for each. You have maybe 20 pictures in red, so you have to calibrate and align and stack then, and repeat for each filter, then you stack the stacked images. On top of that, there’s a bunch of artistic stuff. Even if you know what you’re doing and already have the raw images, producing just one image can take a few hours.”