California amateur astronomer Tony Hallas is one of the top celestial photographers on Earth. Starting with Astronomy’s September 2010 issue, he’ll share his expertise with our readers in a monthly column called “Astroimaging with Tony Hallas.”
Tony, a self-taught photographer, has captured celestial objects, first on film and then with CCD cameras, since 1987. Along the way, he’s maintained a successful business selling prints of his deep-sky images. In 1992, Tony formed Astro Photo, a small print lab specifically for astrophotographers. Through this outlet, he offered his high-quality processing techniques to others who didn’t have the time to do it themselves. His specialty is making large display prints.
A few months ago, he released a 3-volume set of video lectures on DVD called E-Z CCD. This past November, at the annual Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC) in San Diego, the AIC board of directors presented its Hubble Award to Tony. The award goes to those individuals who have demonstrated significant and sustained contributions to the astrophotography community over a period of years. And in our September issue, Tony won Astronomy’s 2009 Astroimaging Contest with a stunning image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) that required more than 200 exposures that totaled some 19 hours.
Some of you reading this might think, “OK, hang on. This guy’s way above my level.” Not so fast. Although Tony produces top-notch images, the majority of what he’ll be writing about will be applicable even to beginning astrophotographers. That’s because much of Tony’s success comes after he acquires the image.
So whether you collect light through a tripod-mounted camera, a 3-inch refractor, or a 24-inch reflector, Tony’s post-processing techniques will make your final product better. As Tony said in a story he wrote for our February 2004 issue, “Don’t expect the CCD to produce a good image by itself. Half the work occurs after you obtain the image.” Indeed, he refers to post-processing as the “art” component of CCD imaging.
I’m as excited as I know many of you are about learning a lot more about astroimaging from Tony’s column. He and I have been friends for years, but when I see him at conferences, our conversations are short because other astroimagers also want time with him. Soon, however, we’ll all be able to read his column, follow his advice, and — bottom line — produce better celestial images.