Saturday, January 3, 2009

A Visit to the Lowell Observatory

Alvan Clark Telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff ArizonaIn an effort to find something a little different to do during winter break, I decided to head up to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ with my son Shannon. This is a very cool place if you are a science-y type of person.

During the visit we looked through a few telescopes and were able to view a constellation, a galaxy, and a nebula.

The photo to the left is of the Alvan Clark telescope. It is over 100 years old and was used to discover Pluto.

Strobist Info:
None - this was shot all ambient. The key light on the left side of the telescope is from the sunlight filtering in through the door of the observatory while the dome is lit by tungsten bulbs.

To see more of my work visit my commercial photography website.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love that building. I did a shoot there in 1996, amazing space.

Rob (www.fotovandenatuur.nl) said...

Hello Darren,
On the linkedin Nikon-site I saw that this photograph was taken iso3200 and you used Nikon Capture NX for noise reduction. It seems like a great result. Did you use other programs before - like Lightroom or Noise Ninja - with less result?

Rob
the netherlands

Poppa-D said...

Rob - I used all the noise reduction horsepower that Capture had to offer during the RAW conversion process. I then finished editing in PS (and my have applied a bit more noise reduction there but don't remember for sure). I hope that helps.