astrophotography by Ron berard

The following nightscapes have very kindly been sent to me by Ron Berard. As Ron writes: "All of my pics are minimally manipulated in Photoshop, ie adjusting contrast and brighness, airbrushing artifacts etc. I use lighting of foreground objects during the exposure to "paint" the objects subtly onto the film. This process can be very challenging in knee deep snow at -35*C! The results are sometimes worth it. Well, Ron...............I certainly think so!! Well as of January 2003, Ron has his own excellent website at http://www.mts.net/~rcberard/ Please do check it out! Enjoy, everyone!

Ron writes: "Both this one and the first were taken in Sept 99 when Saturn and Jupitor were in conjunction between the Hyades and Pleiades. This was one of the most beautiful arangements of bright objects I have ever seen and I took plenty of shots.

Ron writes: "This one was taken this past November during the Leonid showers. This is Superia 800 and I'm very glad I used it registered the meteorites much better than the e200 my friends used. Most of my leonid shots were 3 - 6 mins. That all the sky would allow that night.

Ron writes: "This is another shot spoiled by the wrong film, PPF 400. Still the results were close to what I was after. I have a much better image of another friend looking through his Mak directly into Sagittarius that is more subtly lit. Unfortunately, I haven't had the neg scanned yet.

Another great image, Ron! Thank you for sharing them with us!

Ron writes: Comet Ikeya Zhang passing by M31, April 5, 2002. Fuji Superia 800, 200 mm lens on Nikon F3 @ f3.5. 5 min exposure, Piggy backed on Vixon GP mount.

Another great shot with the same set up!

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