Jean-François Bax (FR)

Jean-François Bax, a 52-year-old French amateur astronomer, started his astronomical adventure with the capture of Halley's Comet on Reunion Island, using a simple film camera in 1986. Armed with a background in Generalist Engineering, he developed a deep passion for astrophotography. Over the years, Jean-François transitioned from crafting telescopes to specializing in image acquisition and processing, producing stunning deep-sky images. Residing in southwest France, he operates his 14-inch Newtonian telescope under a Bortle 4 sky. Beyond his personal observatory, Jean-François has access to the C2PU 1-meter deltagraph, a privilege that allows him to explore the cosmos in greater depth. As a member of Team Omicron, he has received many awards for his work in astrophotogrpahy, including 4 APOD's.

Yuri Beletsky (CL)

Yuri Beletsky is a professional astronomer and an award winning nightscape photographer based in Chile. He received his PhD degree in astronomy from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and now he conducts scientific research and deals with modern astronomical instrumentation at one of the biggest optical telescopes located in Atacama desert. Yuri is an expert in astronomical photography and panoramic imaging of the night sky in particular. His images are known world wide and have been featured in various books, magazines (Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, The Times magazine, etc..), popular websites, and on TV. He is one of active contributors to NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), having more than 50 featured images on the NASA website. When not at the observatory you can find him traveling around the world and sharing his passion for astrophotography and nightscape photography through lectures, private lessons, and workshops.

Stefan Berg (DE)

Stefan Berg is a 37 year old professional software engineer with over 10 years of experience. In 2016 Stefan started to create N.I.N.A. - Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy, a popular open source project that helps astrophotographers take stunning images of the night sky. Stefan is also an astrophotographer himself and is well versed in the intricacies of automation both from a developer and a user perspective.

Remus Chua (SG)

Remus Chua has been an avid astronomy enthusiast since the early 1990s, helping to first lead the National University of Singapore Astronomical Society, and mentored many other institutional groups in the rest of Southeast Asia. He also founded Singastro, a local astronomy forum back in 1997 (with current subscribership of over 18,000). Having been educated in satellite/cellular engineering, the geospatial technologist by day, has been helping to organize many large scale national astronomy events in his country, to spread astronomy awareness. Personally, Remus has taken an avid interest spanning 3 decades in the various fields of astronomical imaging, ranging from early emulsion-based, to digital astrophotography, cumulatively resulting in image publications in internationally renowned astronomy magazines, as well as local and Asian media publications.

Russell Croman (US)

Russell Croman is a freelance engineer and software developer. He currently works full time on image processing solutions for astrophotography from his home near Austin, Texas. He was previously Vice President of R and D Engineering at Silicon Laboratories, and is the inventor or co-inventor of 29 patents. He earned a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State university in 1993. Though trained as an engineer, he is an artist at heart, and enjoys combining art and science to create beautiful astrophotography of his own and the tools to help others do the same. Russell has been photographing the deep sky since 2002, producing award-winning work that has appeared in online and print publications such as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (16 photos) and National Geographic. He won the Advanced Imaging Conference’s Hubble Award in 2010 for significant and sustained contributions to the astrophotography community. You can see more work on his website at: https://www.rc-astro.com

Péter Feltóti (HU)

Péter Feltóti has been dealing with amateur astronomy since 2012 and astrophotography since 2014. Due to his passionate love of nature, he strengthens the side of traveling for astrophotography. His goal is to promote astronomy and science through astrophotography, and to share his own experiences with the general public. Péter's main area of interest is deep-sky photography with a Newtonian telescope. Between 2017 and 2019, he was a member of the photo selection committee of the largest international astrophoto portal, astrobin.com. The largest international astrophoto contest - Astronomy Photographer of the Year - in London has so far chosen his photos as shortlisted 4 times. In 2022, he won 3rd place in the Stars and Nebula category at this competition. Furthermore, he is a founding member and vice chairman of the Association of Hungarian Astrophotographers.

Peter Goodhew (UK)

Peter is part of an international team of amateurs collaborating in searching the cosmos for planetary nebula. His role in the team is to take deep images of potential discoveries. He does this using a remotely-operated dual rig located at a dark site in Spain. His images are frequently published in Astronomy Now magazine and many have received awards. He is a member of the British Astronomical Association, and has been elected as a Fellow of The Royal Astronomical Society.

Christoph Malin (AT)

Christoph Malin, an avid mountain sports filmmaker and photographer, co-founder of the Austrian Summit Clubs Federal Mountainbike Guide Teaching Team, took up landscape astrophotography and mountain timelapse photography professionally in 2010, when he met TWAN photographer Babak Tafreshi. Christoph became Austrian TWAN member, and after several timelapse expeditions to the ESO observatories, ESO Photo Ambassador as well. He has combined his outdoor time-lapse photography skills with his mountaineering knowledge, to create some of the finest astrophotography time-lapses from dark places throughout the Alps and other remarkable mountain and desert landscapes. In the last years Christoph has expanded his knowledge on RAW filming and post-processing, be it with cinematic drones or expensive cinema cameras. He works for the internationally reknown Angelbird GmbH within their R&D department on the forefront of the development of the most innovative storage media available for the professional industry

Kevin Morefield (US)

After a life-long interest in astronomy, Kevin began imaging from his Los Angeles, California backyard in 2014. Wanting to escape the limitations of city-based astrophotography, he acquired a pier at Sierra Remote Observatories (SRO) in 2016. This move required simultaneously learning to use all new long focal length equipment, robotic telescope control, scripting programs, and advanced processing techniques (with all of the predictable struggles)! In 2022 he installed a dual scope setup at El Sauce Observatory in Chile. His accomplishments to-date include a cover shot with Sky and Telescope magazine, 31 Astrobin images of the day, shortlist for the 2023 Royal Greenwich Astrophotographer of the year, runner-up in the Deep Sky category of the Australian Photographic Prize, and a continued peaceful marriage.

Vicent Peris (ES)

Vicent is a professional astrophotographer working at the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Valencia in Spain, where he operates the observatory telescopes and does his photographic work. Since 2007, he has been a member of the PixInsight Development Team, making the development of new image-processing techniques his main field. Vicent has also a strong teaching activity, now being part of the WeDoArt team, the company producing the official learning resources of PixInsight.

Edoardo Luca Radice (IT)

Edoardo Luca Radice is an amateur astronomer from Castenedolo, a little town near Brescia, Italy. Born on July 20th 1969 (15 minutes before the first Moon landing), he is an astronomy enthusiast since he was a child. He holds a degree in Physics from the Milano University. Edoardo began photographing the sky when he was 13. He "rediscovered" astrophotography in 2008 with a digital DSLR. Today Edoardo is one of the most skilled Italian amateurs in PixInsight and holds lessons and workshops in Italy; Since 2021 he collaborates with Pleiades Astrophoto for PixInsight documentation development and beta testing. His website is http://www.arciereceleste.it (mostly in Italian) and he is the Admin of the PixInsight Italia Facebook Group (with almost 2000 members).

Gerald Rhemann (AT)

Gerald's interest in amateur astronomy began at a young age, but he really took off in 1987. As the owner of a photo shop with a darkroom and a photo studio, it was obvious to start with astrophotography immediately. Soon after, a friendship developed with the famous comet photographer Michael Jäger, which continues to this day. Because of a shared interest in comets, comet photography quickly became the focus of Gerald's work. His comet images have been widely published and awarded. Gerald Rhemann has been named the overall winner of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 of the Royal Museums Greenwich.

Gabriel Rodrigues Santos (BR)

Gabriel Rodrigues Santos, 24 years old, has been a passionate astrophotographer since high-school, after buying his first DSLR camera in 2012. Professionally an Industrial Engineer, currently a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of São Paulo, Brazil and RWTH Aachen, Germany. Specialized on broadband images and mosaics of deep sky objects, especially shooting different, challenging or seldom imaged targets, or presenting known objects with a unique perspective, always pushing the boundaries with all available equipment. Although also a traveller astrophotographer, he mostly images from his dark rural site in Southeastern Brazil, where after years of hauling equipment, he also designed and built his personal do-it-yourself remote observatory from 2020 to 2022. His work was awarded 5 NASA APODs, is featured on his online gallery and as the backdrop of his astronomy outreach talks, and has also been published by specialized websites, magazines and books.

Sebastian Voltmer (DE)

Sebastian Voltmer is an internationally acclaimed astrophotographer. In 2000, he became a Federal prize winner in the youth STEM contest 'Jugend forscht'. From 2002 - 2003 his film 'The Face of the Sky' was shown in the 'Space Night' by the Bavarian television. Sebastian studied in Vienna, London and at the university of Kassel in the departments of photography as well as filmmaking and graduated in 2009 with his awarded film 'The Return of Mars'. Sebastian was the main winner of the category 'Power of Nature' by the 'Windland Smith Rice International Awards' in 2014 and became an 'Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year' in 2015 by the Royal Museums Greenwich. In 2020 he defended his doctoral thesis with examiners in media theory and astrophysics in Vienna. Meanwhile Sebastian got several APODs and is now a jury member of the 'IAU Office of Astronomy for Education'.

Mirko Wust (DE)

Mirko Wust is a 49 year old professional software engineer and solution architect with over 25 years of experience. He started his astronomical adventure as a child with a DIY-Teleskop made of a rain pipe. Over the years he moved from astrophotography to time-lapse photography and filming movements in the nature in generell. In 2021, he and a friend started the open-source project "HERai" to automatically film and analyze meteor videos with artificial intelligence. His aim is to get people interested in the project and encourage them to take part.

Urban astrophotography: Transforming sun & moon into cityscape masterpieces

In this focused presentation, we'll explore the techniques needed to photograph the Moon and Sun effectively against urban landscapes. Using dedicated planning apps like PlanIt Pro, you'll learn how to calculate the best times and alignments for your images. We'll also delve into the camera settings and lens choices optimal for capturing celestial bodies in challenging lighting conditions. The course will conclude with an overview of post-processing strategies to enhance your final images. Join us to merge the worlds of astronomy and urban photography through a scientific lens.

Speaker: Yuri Beletsky

PixInsight - GAIA Synergy: the potential of star catalogs in modern astrophotography

GAIA Data Release 3 (DR3) represents the state-of-the-art space-based star catalog today, containing a fantastic amount of astrometric, photometric, and spectrophotometric data. Its integration with PixInsight has brought exciting new possibilities to modern astrophotography, such as high-precision astrometry, accurate color calibration, and access to professional-level data to an amateur audience. We have only begun to scratch the surface of the potential that this synergy can bring in the future.

Speaker: Edoardo Luca Radice

Acquisition and processing techniques for imaging with a fast 1-meter telescope

Based on images taken with the C2PU 1-meter telescope, this lecture will cover some key elements for optimizing image acquisition and processing. Topics like infrared filtering, low surface brightness objects, superflats, and multiple stacking based on the FWHM will be covered. The software used is mainly SIRIL for data analysis and pre-processing and then Photoshop for post-processing.

Speaker: Jean-François Bax

How Remote Imaging Works: From Setup to Daily Workflows

For imagers used to a hands-on experience, remote imaging can seem risky and scary. In reality, one of the most certain problems we face with remote imagine is how to deal with the large volume of good data to process! In this session we will cover considerations when selecting a remote site, safely operating your equipment, what can go wrong, and how to manage your day-to-day workflow.

Speaker: Kevin Morefield

Imaging under extremely light polluted skies

Photographing the night sky in light polluted environments can be challenging but also a rewarding experience, revealing the spectacular beauty of nature and wonders of the universe. The speaker/author will take us on an insightful workflow of capturing deep sky objects from the heart of the city, through modest instruments but in challenging conditions.

Speaker: Remus Chua

Planning and organizing an astrophotography trip to Namibia

Why travel to the southern hemisphere? Why is Namibia an ideal place for an astrophotography expedition? When to travel? How to travel? What are the most important factors to deal with when planning an expedition and the photography sessions. Overview of the country, weather, geology, economy, tourism, astro guest farms, and what shall we do at daylight? These are the questions that Péter tries to answer.

Speaker: Péter Feltóti

Precision AI for Astrophotography

Artificial Intelligence has arrived in the world for many applications, including astrophotography, but not all AI is created equal. How do we know if the results are believable and faithful to reality? What are the capabilities and limitations of AI-based tools for precision applications, and what care must be taken in their use? Russ will pull back the curtain on the differences between popular generative AI tools that can dream up new content and precision solutions that maximize adherence to fundamental physics, optics, and mathematics

Speaker: Russell Croman

Deep-Sky Widefield Mosaics: the Fundamentals of Going Deeper, Wider and Larger

Blending deep sky images into expansive wide field mosaics is no straightforward process. Behind the impressive depth, expansive field of view and unique presentation capabilities of deep-sky mosaics, lies no shortage of technical challenges. This lecture presents an introduction to this topic, highlighting some of the key challenges and current tools to tackle them, from mosaic planning with NINA to post-processing using AstroPixelProcessor, PixInsight and other softwares. The approach can be applied with several setups: from camera lenses to wide-field telescope setups, emphasizing broadband color mosaics. Based on examples by the author, it seeks to help astrophotographers understand fundamental concepts and techniques to improve their images and enjoy the benefits of making deep-sky mosaics.

Speaker: Gabriel Rodrigues Santos

HERai: Meteors and beyond - capture videos and automatically analyze them with AI

We all know meteors, they are fascinating and sometimes breathtaking. In this session we will see how to capture and automatically analyse 24x7 high frame rate video streams from the local hemisphere. What hardware can be used and how to use the software of the HERai project. Topics such as cameras, network, recording, analysis methods, AI model and ease of use will be covered. And finally - the possibilities beyond: northern lights, creating time-lapses, startrails, thunderstorms and more.

Speaker: Mirko Wust

Searching The Cosmos For Planetary Nebulae

Peter will describe how the team go about discovering planetary nebula. He will explain some of the challenges in conducting such research, and how new discoveries become recognised and confirmed by the professional community. He will present some of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries made by the team - including several that turned out to be not what was expected!

Speaker: Peter Goodhew

Sodium Tail of Mercury

Mercury is not a comet, but the solar wind and micro-meteorites eject sodium atoms from Mercury’s surface. This creates a tail of sodium gas that is around 24 million kilometers long. Scientists first predicted its existence in the 1980s. It took a long time before it was actually detected. Nowadays, astrophotographers here on the Earth can capture shots of Mercury’s tail. Sebastian Voltmer explains how this can be achieved.

Speaker: Sebastian Voltmer

Fascination comet photography

Why is comet photography so exciting and what is the difference in planning and image processing compared to deep sky photography? How can moving comets and the star field be displayed sharply at the same time? What you should consider when photographing comets and image processing the data.

Speaker: Gerald Rhemann

From Timelapse to 8K RAW Video

With this workshop Christoph Malin span the spectrum from classic high-end timelapse recording and post-production, to the world of modern RAW video and camera technology and post processing. As well, we look at current storage workflow technologies and storage media for data backup, processing and archiving of extensive amounts of RAW data.

Speaker: Christoph Malin

Mastering Astrophotography with N.I.N.A. - Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy: A Comprehensive Workshop on Sequencing and Automation

This workshop is designed to take your astrophotography skills to the next level by harnessing the full potential of the powerful N.I.N.A. - Nighttime Imaging 'N' Astronomy application. During this workshop, you'll learn the ins and outs of using N.I.N.A. to capture stunning astro images with ease. We'll dive deep into the application's features, from basic setup and configuration to advanced image acquisition techniques. The highlight of the workshop will be a comprehensive exploration of N.I.N.A.'s sequencing capabilities, allowing you to automate the majority of your astrophotography tasks, streamlining your workflow, and reducing imaging session stress. Whether you're a beginner looking to start your astrophotography journey or an experienced astrophotographer wanting to optimize your workflow, this workshop is your gateway to achieving breathtaking results under the night sky. Don't miss this opportunity to unlock the full potential of N.I.N.A. and revolutionize your astrophotography experience.

Speaker: Stefan Berg

Gradient correction techniques in PixInsight

The next generation of gradient correction tools in PixInsight is here. They offer a paradigm based on pure algorithmic and observational methods that offer a more objective correction than sample-based solutions. Vicent Peris will give us a perspective view of the past, present and future tools and techniques, focusing on the use of the new GradientCorrection and the upcoming MARS-based modules.

Speaker: Vicent Peris

Precision Astrophotography

Astrophotography is one of the most technically demanding hobbies in existence. A thousand things have to go right to produce a final photograph that not only looks great but is also faithful to reality. Rather than providing a "cookbook" approach to processing, Russ will cover the "why" behind many of the choices to be made in capturing and manipulating astronomical data while remaining a good steward of it. These reasons are rooted solidly in fundamental physics and mathematics, but they can be understood in relatively simple, plain-language terms that don’t require a degree in engineering or mathematics to grasp.

Speaker: Russell Croman