Reaching for the Stars

Have you ever wondered what a future Mars base may look like? For me, the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur on the Plateau de Calern is the perfect model for such a station.

The futuristic looking buildings in the foreground are the working quarters of the Grand Interferometer of 2 Telescopes (GI2T) and the cupolas in the background on far right belong to the Soirdete Infrared Interferometer. The green laser is emitted from the 1.5m telescope of the MéO laser ranging observatory, which is able to track low earth orbit satellites and can measure the distance to the moon to a precision of under 1cm.

The sky above the observatory suffers from light pollution from the brightly lit Côte d’Azur and the nearby city of Nice, but still proves that the dimmer side of the Milky Way with its red Hydrogen emission nebulas, countless open clusters, dark interstellar dust lanes is sparkling with celestial wonders. The bright Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy are sharing the same region of the sky.

EXIF

Canon EOS 6D, astro-modified

Samyang 24mm f/1.4 @ f/2

iOptron SkyTracker Pro

Sky:

Vertical panorama of 3 panels, each a stack of 5 x 30s @ ISO1600, tracked

Foreground:

Stack of 5 x 60s @ISO1600

Copyright: Ralf Rohner