Vladimir Schmidt — Astrophotographer/Amateur Astronomer

I have been always fascinated by space, had tons of books about astronomy, solar system and spacecrafts, been excited about every rocket launch, spaceshuttle and Voyager program. After I bought my first 90/900mm achromatic refractor scope in february 2020, I finally pushed my interest forward and a lot of “firsts” followed shortly. First time seeing stars through it, first time seeing Great Orion nebula, Venus, first time seeing our Moon - and first time taking a photo of it, which eventually lead me directly into astrophotography.

But perhaps the strongest “first” was seeing Jupiter. It was rising late, reaching observable height around midnight. I aimed my scope at it, looked into eyepiece, and saw very bright disc with four small dots beside it. Four jovian moons, same as described by Galileo Galilei 400 years ago, floating around giant planet that was bit squashed on poles. When my sight accomodated a bit, I began to distinguish also some details on the disc itself - typical stripes in atmosphere of the Jupiter. It was all there, just as I saw it in my astronomy books, and now I saw it all with my own eyes. I ran inside to see if dad was still up - and I called him out to look at it. He was as amazed as me, and we watched it for a while together, fascinated how far away from the planet were the moons orbiting. Then I attached phone on the eyepiece and took a shot. This were my first steps into planetary astrophotography - I only shot Moon before - and slowly I began to learn how to take videos of planets and process them, to get better pictures and squeeze the maximum out of my equipment. I was using manual mount, refractor and iPhone back then.

In the next months I upgraded my rig, later bought better and faster newtonian telescope and equipment, so I could dive (down the astronomy rabbit hole) into deep sky astrophotography, acquire and process images of distant nebulae and galaxies. Went quite a path since my first shots of planets, but I still love to watch the sky through my first scope, while I take pictures with my astrophotography rig.

Because there is one thing that image on screen acquired by astrocamera cannot possibly give you - and it’s that experience of seeing space with your own eyes, perception of depth, sizes and distances you feel when you look at space through the eyepiece of your telescope, feel your connection and bond with universe.

Editor Note: Vladimir is an architect by day, amateur astronomer and astrophotographer by night. With a love for coffee and a passion for design, his creativity also comes through his passion for the night skies and his love for astronomy.