From the December 2023 issue

Meet one of the fastest growing astroimaging communities

India is home to Astronomads Bangla, the imaging group is at the movement’s leading edge.
By | Published: December 5, 2023
Located near the bright star Rigel, IC 2118 is a faint reflection nebula spanning almost 70 light-years and is popularly known as the Witch Head Nebula. Mukherjee used Telescope Live to acquire 12 hours of data from Australia with a Takahashi FSQ106ED, FLI PL16083, Paramount MX+, and Astrodon LRGB filters.
Located near the bright star Rigel, IC 2118 is a faint reflection nebula spanning almost 70 light-years and is popularly known as the Witch Head Nebula. Mukherjee used Telescope Live to acquire 12 hours of data from Australia with a Takahashi FSQ106ED, FLI PL16083, Paramount MX+, and Astrodon LRGB filters. (Credit: Soumyadeep Mukherjee)

The sky never fails to AMAZE us with its beauty. An astrophotographer has the joyful job of photographing and documenting it.

But just as exciting is what comes next: sharing this beauty with others.

Astronomads Bangla, a group of amateur astrophotographers based in Kolkata, India, has been doing both for the last three years. And as a founding member of this group, I have experienced the joy of learning and sharing astrophotography not just with its members, but also the people of India.

An astroimaging journey

Toward the end of 2020, the world was suffering from one of the deadliest plagues that the modern age has ever experienced: the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with physical health concerns, for many, mental health was also suffering. People were fighting with the disruption of their daily routines. Everyone needed some sort of relief valve.

At an altitude of 13,862 feet (4,225 m), Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh is one of the highest lakes in India. This photo shows the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way over the Heritage Camp tents where the group stayed for the night. Mukherjee used a Nikon Z6 II mirrorless camera and Tokina 16–28mm lens for the single shot.
At an altitude of 13,862 feet (4,225 m), Pangong Tso in eastern Ladakh is one of the highest lakes in India. This photo shows the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way over the Heritage Camp tents where the group stayed for the night. Mukherjee used a Nikon Z6 II mirrorless camera and Tokina 16–28mm lens for the single shot. (Credit: Soumyadeep Mukherjee)

For some of us, this came in the form of astrophotography. Around November 2020, four like-minded people who shared passions for astronomy and photography got to know each other via social media. In December 2020, we formed a group: Astronomads Bangla. The four of us — Basudeb Chakrabarti, Goutam Dey, Samit Saha, and I — were united by our love of the night sky. The formation of the group was a blessing for each one of us. We learned together, photographed the sky together, and most importantly, became friends.

Our progress was slow but definite. Like learning any new skill, it wasn’t easy in the beginning. With a lack of local workshops and equipment dealers, we struggled to gather information and to acquire gear. But with patience and endurance, no obstacles seemed insurmountable. We spread our efforts across genres, from nightscapes to solar, planetary, deep-sky, and atmospheric phenomena.

We began our astroimaging journey with a few entry-level cameras, camera lenses, and portable trackers. In recent years, we have gotten our hands on dedicated astronomical cameras, small and large telescopes, and larger equatorial mounts. Recently, we invested in some full-frame cameras and lots of additional lenses, especially for nightscape imaging.

That said, our hometown of Kolkata doesn’t offer a good view of the night sky, to put it mildly. The light and air pollution from the metropolis’ population of 15 million is immense. To combat this, we began taking advantage of remote astrophotography via observatories situated in different regions of the world including Chile, Australia, and Spain.

Over the years, we have striven to improve our photography skills. Our images have won prizes in international competitions including the Royal Museums Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year, the Polish science center Hevelianum’s AstroCamera contest, and the Nottingham Precision Astro Engineering (nPAE) competition. Our photos have been published in over 30 different astronomy-related magazines (including this one) and books all over the world. Many of our images have been chosen as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day and Earth Science Picture of the Day. We have also had the honor of our images appearing on websites including those of National Geographic, Forbes, SpaceWeather, EarthSky, and many more.

This image captures the moment when Venus reappeared from behind the Moon after an occultation. Mukherjee captured this with a Nikon D5600 DSLR and a Sigma 150–600mm lens.
This image captures the moment when Venus reappeared from behind the Moon after an occultation. Mukherjee captured this with a Nikon D5600 DSLR and a Sigma 150–600mm lens. (Credit: Soumyadeep Mukherjee)

Sharing the joy

At first, all the knowledge we gained remained among ourselves. But after a year of working together, we began to think about sharing it with other people in India who were trying to get into astrophotography. Our first dark-sky workshop took place in November 2021, when we traveled with some of our friends to a site with Bortle class 2 skies in northern West Bengal.

Since then, we have gained the experience and skills to share the theoretical and practical knowledge of astrophotography with the people of our country. Starting in mid-2022, we arranged a number of online and offline workshops on astroimaging. We conducted our first public workshop in Singalila National Park, at the border of India and Nepal. We have since conducted workshops in Nepal and India, including in Ladakh at the first Indian dark-sky reserve.

People with vastly different levels of knowledge and skillsets join us — from absolute beginners in photography to people with rich experience in astrophotography. We have tried our best to serve their varying needs. Their joyful reactions when they first capture the Milky Way and see it on the back of their cameras are priceless, and their excitement fuels our own goals and ambitions.

Also in 2022, we organized an astrophotography competition for Indian nationals, which saw more than 160 participants and some unforgettable images. In early 2023, we arranged an exhibition in the heart of Kolkata with around 100 images. The excitement that people have when they first learn about astrophotography — especially that this hobby can be pursued without any professional equipment — is what motivates us to keep sharing the knowledge.

Some of the best and most emotional moments that we experienced during our exhibition were the reactions of children as they took in the images. They seemed more excited than their parents. One little boy, after seeing an image of a galaxy, asked me, “One day, I will also take such photographs, won’t I?” My reply was, “Of course, you will.” This must be one of the best feelings that one could ever achieve as an astrophotographer.

The Belt of Venus, or the anti-twilight arch, is an optical phenomenon caused by the backscattering of sunlight reflected off the dense atmosphere. It’s seen as a pink band above the shadow of the rising or setting Earth. This photo was taken from Sadhutar, Nepal, by Mukherjee with a Nikon D5600 and Sigma 50mm lens and shows the Belt of Venus above Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain.
The Belt of Venus, or the anti-twilight arch, is an optical phenomenon caused by the backscattering of sunlight reflected off the dense atmosphere. It’s seen as a pink band above the shadow of the rising or setting Earth. This photo was taken from Sadhutar, Nepal, by Mukherjee with a Nikon D5600 and Sigma 50mm lens and shows the Belt of Venus above Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. (Credit: Soumyadeep Mukherjee)

What lies ahead

With India’s population of more than 1.4 billion, it is not an easy task to debunk myths related to astroimaging. We aim to spread the truth — that one does not always require large telescopes or professional gear to photograph nebulae and galaxies. A simple mobile phone or an entry-level DSLR is enough to get started.

The journey, we believe, has only begun. With the wonderful and growing community that we have, the task of spreading the joy of astrophotography is a long one — but exciting nonetheless.

The interstellar clouds surrounding the star system Rho Ophiuchi compose one of the closest and most colorful star-forming regions. Basudeb Chakrabarti captured this image with 24 hours of integration time from Telescope Live’s remote facility in Australia using a Takahashi FSQ106ED, FLI PL16083, Paramount MX+, and Astrodon LRGB filters.
Our nearest major galaxy, Andromeda (M31), appears 6 times larger than a Full Moon in the night sky. Goutam Dey and Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured this skyscape with a 50mm lens attached to a Nikon Z6 II in the pre-dawn hours from Ladakh.
The James Webb Space Telescope launches to space aboard its Ariane V rocket, passing the Sculptor Galaxy, in this once-in-a-lifetime image. The image was captured by Samit Saha and Soumyadeep Mukherjee from Sukna, India with a Nikon D5600 DSLR and Samyang 135mm lens.
The umbral shadow of a lunar eclipse on the right engulfs the Moon in this high-dynamic range composition captured by Soumyadeep Mukherjee. The colored bands separating the lit and shadowed portions of the Moon are due to light scattering as it passes through Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Blue jet lightning and red sprites are rare forms of upper atmosphere lightning — and both are captured in this image against the backdrop of the Milky Way. Basudeb Chakrabarti, Samit Saha, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured this from Singalila National Park in Nepal with a Nikon D5600 DSLR and Tokina 11–16mm.
Samit Saha captured this star trail shot with his Redmi Note 10 mobile phone at the Sukna train station on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. The image consists of more than 10 hours of exposure.
Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured this image of a Full Moon rising behind a distant mobile tower from Kolkata with a Nikon D5600 and Sigma 150–600mm lens.
The cometary globule CG4 is located 1300 light-years away in the constellation Puppis. Using Telescope Live’s ASA 500N 20-inch scope and FLI PL 16083 CCD camera, Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured 3.5 hours of data from Chile.
The image captures a green segment on the top-left limb of the Sun. A green rim is an optical phenomenon visible due to the refraction of sunlight through air of increasing density near the horizon. The refraction of green light is stronger and thus a green sun can be visible higher than the red sun, creating a green rim on the upper limb. Green rims do not last long and unlike green flashes, they are not visible to unaided eyes. In this image, however, such refraction is caused by the heat and dust coming out from the turbine of the airliner engine when the Sun is relatively high in the sky, creating a green rim. Soumyadeep captured this with his Nikon D5600 DSLR and Sigma 150–600mm lens from Kolkata.
Earthshine is the faint glow on the shadowed Moon due to sunlight reflected from Earth. It is best viewed a few days before or after New Moon. This image was captured with a Nikon D5600 and Sigma 150-600mm lens on an iOptron Skyguider Pro mount by Soumyadeep Mukherjee.
The Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way is the closest to Earth and appears the brightest in the sky. Basudeb Chakrabarti captured this image of it from Singalila National Park in Nepal with a Sony a7 IV mirrorless camera and a Samyang 14mm lens on a Skyguider Pro mount.
NGC 6744 (also known as Caldwell 101) is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation Pavo. Basudeb Chakrabarti used Telescope Live’s remote observatory in Chile to capture this image with a Planewave CDK24, FLI PL09000, and Astrodon LRGB filters. The image has a total integration time of 21 hours.
The image captures a 22° and a 9° lunar halo around the moon. Lunar halos are created due to the diffraction of sunlight or moonlight due to ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. This wide-field image was captured from Kolkata by Soumyadeep Mukherjee with a Nikon D5600 DSLR and a Tokina 11–16mm lens.
Captured from India’s first dark sky reserve, Hanle, this image captures the gorgeous panoramic arch of the Milky Way. The foreground was captured during blue hour. Basudeb Chakrabarti and Soumyadeep Mukherjee used a Nikon Z6 II mirrorless camera and Tokina 16–28mm lens for this image.
Iridescent clouds are an optical phenomenon observed in the proximity of the Sun or Moon caused by the diffraction of light by small water droplets or ice crystals in the atmosphere. Soumyadeep captured this from Kolkata with his Nikon D5600 DSLR and Sigma 150–600mm lens.
Capturing the heart of the Milky Way’s Sagittarius Arm, this two-panel mosaic contains several emission and dark nebulae. Avronil Chatterjee, Goutam Dey, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee combined their data to create the final image. A Nikon Z6 II mirrorless camera and Samyang 135mm lens were used to capture this image from Ladakh.
Due to its elliptical orbit, the distance between Earth and the Moon is constant varying. At its closest (perigee), the Moon appears around 15 percent larger than at its farthest position (apogee). The composite contains two such Full Moons. Soumyadeep Mukherjee captured each shot with the same equipment to present a true comparison between the apparent sizes of the Moon.
The sun rises behind a tower crane in this image taken from Kanpur, India. The large sunspot regions AR12975, AR12976 and AR12978 can be seen on the solar disk. Soumyadeep used a Nikon D5600 DSLR and Sigma 150–600m lens.

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