Sharjah: Zakia Kurdi
A large telescope and a black wall covered by various astronomical images, humbly and calmly sharing its enchanting presence, but it does not tell its secrets except for those who are curious and passionate. It does not care to open the box of the many stories that each image carried except for lovers of the sky, and those looking for the secrets that the universe hides behind the borders of our world. Away from light pollution and the noise of daily life. It is a special story presented by the exhibition «Emirates Astronomy Society» in «Exposure».
About the story of his photo, “The Twins Meteor Shower,” Youssef Ahmed, an astrophotographer, says: I took it last month in the Razin Desert, and it is considered the strongest shower of the year. To take this picture, we went to a special place in the desert, away from light pollution, and we installed cameras equipped with special light sensitivity that were able to capture a picture of only 7 meteors, which we see in the picture. For two seconds, we saw a single meteor that descended north of Abu Dhabi, and it is said that it fell into the sea.
As for the story of Muhammad Al-Mazmi, an amateur astrophotographer, with astronomical images, it began in 2018, and it includes news of the equipment that the photographer needs in this specialty, as he has special telescopes for photographing planets and others for galaxies and nebulae. Regarding his participation in the exhibition, he says: I participated with two pictures, one of the Andromeda galaxy, which I photographed from the UAE desert, and the other of the moon.
He explains that filming planets does not need to go far from the city to get rid of light pollution, while photographing galaxies and nebulae needs to go away to be able to capture the details of the targets he is photographing.
Tamim Al-Tamimi, an astrophotography photographer, points out that the aim of the association’s exhibition is to give a general picture of this specialization, and to show that astrophotography is available to everyone and is not limited to certain parties. And he says: We wanted to communicate this information through the exhibition, and simplify the concepts of astronomy for the public.
As for his participation in the exhibition, it is a picture of the “Elephant’s Trunk Nebula”, which is about 5 thousand light years away from us, and it took 5 hours to photograph it because it needed special treatment to capture this very faint light of the nebula.