sky

This Sharpness-Boosting Process is Used by Hubble Telescope Editors

Picture Instruments, a Germany-based software company known best for its plugins for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, has released a new plugin that promises to create clean, detailed, ultra-sharp images with incredible depth by employing a technique used by the Hubble Space Telescope team.

Photographer Catches the ISS Crossing the Sun and Moon

Photographer Andrew McCarthy is known for shooting incredible astrophotography images from his backyard in Sacramento, California. He recently added two more jaw-dropping images to his portfolio: ultra-clear views of the International Space Station (ISS) crossing the Sun and Moon.

Comparing the Sony a7 III and Canon 5D Mark IV for Astrophotography

I’m an avid night sky photographer that cut my teeth capturing the stars using the original Canon 6D. I shot with that camera for years until purchasing the Sony a7S (Mark I) after reading about how it could essentially “see in the dark.”

How to Do a Realistic Sky Swap in a Photo Using Photoshop

In this 9-minute video tutorial from Serge Ramelli, learn how to easily swap out an unattractive white sky from a photo for a more dramatic one using Photoshop. Utilizing the power of the multiply blend mode, it's possible to convincingly change the sky in the shot in minutes.

Transforming a Boring Photo Into a Dramatic One With Photoshop

The mere mention of image manipulation may make some photographers cringe, but there’s no denying that some skill with Photoshop can enable you to completely transform an image. In this 20 minute tutorial, Serge Ramelli walks through the process of manipulating a ‘boring’ image and turning it in to a dramatic one by transforming the lighting and sky in the scene.

How to Turn the Sky Into Pyramids by Rotating Your Camera

My latest photo series, Pyramids In The Sky, was inspired when my wife and I visited the Mayan Ruins of Chacchoben while on a cruise in 2015. I have always been intrigued by ancient civilizations and how they were able to build these massive structures, seeing the pyramids in person was an inspiring experience.

Photographer Captures Light Pillars in the Icy Night Sky

Photographer Timothy Joseph Elzinga was woken up by his 2-year-old at 1:30 a.m. last Friday when he noticed what looked like colorful auroras dancing in the night sky. After shooting a beautiful set of photos of what he saw, he learned that it was actually a phenomenon called "light pillars."

Photograph Earth’s Shadow in the Sky at Sunrise and Sunset

I never get tired of seeing our closest star set below the horizon, and seeing how the landscape changes as the warm light gets fainter by the minute. Every sunset has its personality depending each location, weather and season. One beautiful thing about a sunset is what happens right after the Sun has set. If turn around, you can slowly see the Earth shadow rising from the horizon.

How I Photographed the ISS Transiting the Moon

A while back I shared an article that explained how I photographed a plane flying "across" the moon during a supermoon event. Over the weekend I’ve been out chasing another similar type of image: one of the International Space Station transiting the moon.

Bright Sun Dogs Seen Over the Mountains of Austria

When ice crystals in the atmosphere interact with sunlight in a certain way, a beautiful weather phenomenon known as sun dogs (formally called "parhelia") can appear. From observers on Earth, it shows up as bright spots on either side of the sun, and often a bright glowing ring around the sun, called a 22° halo.

Jeroen Schrage of Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, was skiing in the mountains of Muhlbach am Hochkonig in Austria last year when he was treated to a beautiful sun dogs display in the sky.

This Photo Shows a Halo Created by Both the Sun and the Moon

This unique and beautiful image shows sun and moon haloes side by side. There was perfect halo conditions in the sky yesterday in Östersund, Sweden, so Swedish astrophotographer Göran Strand went out and shot a photo of the 22° solar halo.

10 hours later, after day had turned to night, Strand returned to the exact same location and photographed the moon with its 22° lunar halo. The image above is a photo that blends the day and night images together with the halos perfectly matching.

What Outdoor Photos Would Look Like with Other Stars and Planets as Our Sun and Moon

The photo illustration above shows what a photo of a sunset here on Earth would look like if the sun were replaced with Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in our "neighborhood."

The Russian Federal Space Agency recently released a couple of "Alternative History" videos that imagine what the sky would look like if the Sun were replaced with other stars and if the moon were replaced with planets in our solar system.

Dark Sky Finder Helps Nighttime Photographers Find the Least Light Polluted Spots

For those of you who partake in any sort of nighttime photography, it’s no secret that light pollution can be the bane of your existence. Thankfully, there’s a neat, simple online resource that can help you better prepare to avoid this enemy of great Milky Way photography.

It’s called Dark Sky Finder, and it’s an easy-to-use website that gives you an up-to-date, radar-style view of what light pollution across the United States looks like.

Camera & Sky Move as One in This Twisted Time-Lapse

It’s safe to say we’ve all seen our fair share of night-sky time-lapses. Most often, they tend to show off grandiose views of mother nature as the stars (seemingly) rotate in the background. But the truth of the matter is, we’re the ones rotating, not the stars.

So what would happen if a night-sky time-lapse photographer used the stars – or more precisely a star – as a fixed axis, instead of Earth? Well, you would end up with a trippy time-lapse like the one you see above.

Nighttime Photos Capture the Jersey Shore Like You’ve Never Seen it Before

When you think of the Jersey Shore what are the first things that come to mind? The beach? The ocean? The amusement park rides? Summer? But there is one sight that goes completely unnoticed by so many shore goers each and every year in the town of Cape May. That sight is the night sky!

Photographer Captures Incredible Aerial Shots While Paragliding

Alexandre Buisse is a professional mountain photographer who also has a huge passion for paragliding. Beautiful things happen when those two interests come together. Buisse has captured some remarkable aerial photographs of landscapes in France and Italy while soaring high above the ground.

Photographer Captures the ISS Looking Like the USS Enterprise

Dumitrana, Romania-based astrophotographer Maximilian Teodorescu recently got his hands on an 1800mm f/12 Maksutov telescope and decided to put it through its paces this past weekend. He decided to test out the imaging quality by using it to photograph the International Space Station passing in front of the moon in broad daylight. The beautiful photograph above is what he ended up capturing.

Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 Captured in a Gorgeous Time-lapse Video

On Friday, February 15th, 2013, near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14 did a flyby of our planet -- the closest approach ever of an object of its size (30 meters in diameter). Photographer Colin Legg of Western Australia decided to capture the close pass in a time-lapse video, and set up his cameras after midnight around 220 miles east of Perth.

He ended up capturing the amazing video above, while captures a shooting star burning a trail across the sky while DA14 slowly travels through the shot. The video also shows how much random stuff in the sky you can see if you have eyes/cameras sensitive enough to see it.

The Moon and Venus Captured in a Single Photograph

Behold, a photograph of the moon. Can you see it? No, it's not that tiny bright crescent you see... The moon is that faint giant crescent. That tiny one to its left is Venus. Hungarian astrophotographer Iván Éder captured this beautiful photograph back in 2004 from Budapest, Hungary.

What Night Sky Photographs Will Look Like Over the Next 7 Billion Years

NASA astronomers announced today that they are certain that our galaxy is on an unavoidable collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to us. Don't worry though, it won't be happening for another 3.5 billion years or so. What's interesting is that the collision will drastically change what our night sky looks like, and the astronomers released a series of photo illustrations showing what future astrophotographers will be shooting when they point their cameras at the heavens.

Beautiful Photographs of Patterns Seen from a Helicopter

Aerial photographer Stephan Zirwes shoots amazing images of patterns and repetition seen in landscapes while looking straight down from a helicopter. From his perspective, things like cars, shipping containers, and people blend together into abstract designs.