Reading books and watching videos about the night sky 20 years ago, Scottsdale resident Kenneth Naiff considered himself to be an “armchair astronomer.”
Today, Naiff is an accomplished astrophotographer, producing stunning photographs of celestial nebulae, galaxies and spacescapes, each of which can take up to a year to create. His work has been featured in the Astronomy Magazine’s “50 Greatest Cosmic Scenes of Our Time.”
His journey with astrophotography began with a camera and a telescope and a general interest in long-exposure photography which has led to nearly two decades of capturing celestial bodies.
“I sort of gave myself a 10-year apprenticeship,” Naiff said, who in 2006, began researching and acquiring equipment and specialized software, learning algorithms and attending workshops on photographing deep space.
Eventually, Naiff felt his work was good enough to start seriously considering the idea of selling his images.
“It was accidental,” Naiff’s wife and business partner June said of their first sale. “I was at the dermatologist and he asked where Ken was, and I said he was in the desert shooting. He said, ‘Animals?’ and I said, ‘No, stars.’”
June showed her dermatologist Naiff’s image of the Andromeda Galaxy who said he would be happy to purchase a copy. Soon after, the dermatologist’s wife also bought a photograph, marking the first two sales for the Naiffs. Since then, they have sold several more photographs including to one of the sons of former Astronaut Neil Armstrong.
“We spend a lot of time talking to people and helping them understand that it is science, but it is also beautiful art,” June said.
Process
Naiff uses a black-and-white camera mounted on his telescope to capture his images. He uses a filter wheel to control the colors like green, red and blue along with a scientific pallet of filters that expose elements like hydrogen, sulfur and oxygen.
Each image is a composition of roughly 200 images stacked on top of each other and perfectly aligned to create one remarkable photograph.
The total average exposure time is roughly 20 to 30 hours.
“Each image has noise and grain so when you stack the images together perfectly, all that randomness disappears and you get a beautifully smooth background of space itself and the object that you’re imaging becomes more and more contrast,” Naiff said.
Sometimes Naiff has to get creative with his images. For example, when shooting the Andromeda Galaxy which was larger than his camera’s field of view, Naiff created a multi-frame mosaic that weaved four frames together which encompassed nearly a thousand photographs.
The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae. (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Images Astrophotography)
The Whirlpool Galaxy. (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Images Astrophotography)
The Rho Ophiuchus Cloud Complex photographed by Kenneth Naiff. (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Images Astrophotography)
Kenneth Naiff in the desert. (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Images Astrophotography)
Previous Next Nocturnal hobby
As an astrophotographer, Naiff would often take camping trips into the desert where there is little light pollution to take his photographs. While camping, Naiff would clean his equipment and sleep during the day and stay up at night to capture his images.
“We would take generators, water, batteries and head to the desert for six nights at a time,” Naiff said.
Now Naiff works from the comfort of his home office, controlling a remote telescope located inside a small observatory at a telescope farm in Benson, Ariz.
“From home, I can roll off the roof and write a little script that will control the telescope and the camera all evening and all night,” he said. “The next morning, I’ve got all my images and meantime, I’ve been having dinner, watching TV and drinking wine.”
From armchair expert to seasoned astrophotographer, Naiff offers astrophotography presentations throughout the Valley from universities to fourth-grade classrooms.
And while astrophotography is not cheap, Naiff says anyone can do it with a telescope and a smartphone attachment.
“The nice thing about astrophotography is you don’t need a large telescope. You can get satisfying results with a four- or five-inch telescope with longer exposures,” Naiff said. “If people are interested in what the deep sky or deep space has to offer, I tell them to get into astrophotography as soon as they can.”
Naiff’s work can be found online at darkskyimagesbyken.com , at On The Edge gallery in Scottsdale or at the upcoming Hidden in the Hills Artist Studio Tour in November.
For questions, to join the Dark Sky Images Astrophotography newsletter or to schedule a presentation from Kenneth Naiff, visit darkskyimagesbyken.com/contact .
We invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Cyrus Guccione can be reached at cguccione@iniusa.org.
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