Jan 8 2012

House Moon

The first Full Moon of 2012 looked pretty big as rising above a hilltop house in Serralunga d’Alba (some 60 km from Turin, Italy).

Tech det: Canon Eos 5D MkII; 100-5oo Sigma lens @ 500 + 1.4x teleconverter; Exp: 1/20 sec. ; F/9; ISO 100

Jan 1 2012

2011 – A year of astrophotography in summary

To kick off the New Year, I’d like to summarise my past “365 astrophotography days”:

Blogging

2011 has been the second full year for my blog and I had very good time in sharing my images, thoughts and ideas with people around the world :-) . Here are some stats:

  • Visits: the blog was viewed about 46,000 times in 2011 with more than 100,000 visitors since its start;
  • In 2011 there were 332 pictures uploaded — That’s about 6 pictures per week.
  • The busiest day of the year was September 16th , thanks to my third APOD featured on the NASA web site, with 1,746 views!
  • The top referring sites in 2011 were: facebook.com, apod.nasa.gov, us.peeplo.com , in.peeplo.com, twitter.com.
  • The most visited pages has been: “MOON” with 2,694 visits, “TORINO“ with 2,113 visits and “BEST OF “with 1,493 visits.
  • How to follow the blog – you can subscribe to the site and receive new posts via email by clicking the “Sign me up!” button on the right side bar.

Astrophotography

This year has been very productive and I really enjoyed taking picures of terrestrial and sky wonders ;-)   Below are the hilights of my year of astrophotography:

  • “Astronomy Picture of the Day” on the NASA web site for my image ”September Harvest Moon”.
  •  Astronomy Picture of the Day” on the NASA web site (on my birthday!) for my image “Conjunction at sunset“.
  • “Moon and Monviso” image featured in the “Daily Dozen” section of National Geographic International.
  • “Reflecting basilica” image published on National Geographic Italy web site.
  •  A personal exhibition of my images has been running at the Planetarium of Turin from June to August 2011.
  • I got two of my images included on the special issues “Spectacular Universe” of the Astronomy magazine.
  • The image of “The Moon rising next the Basilica” has been published on the March issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.
  • Several publications on other national and international magazines and websites.

Continue reading →

Dec 30 2011

Birthday’s NASA APOD

Yesterday NASA gave me a great present for my birthday: my 4th Astronomy Picture of the Day :-) The featured image is a shot of the day after Christmas Moon-Venus conjunction I took few days ago at the Viverone Lake. It is also a splendid way to conclude a very productive, under an astrophotography prospective, year 2011 that recently brought another APOD: “September’s Harvest Moon“.

In particular, I wanted to thank:

  • Jerry Bonnell @NASA for having picked my image up and made my birthday so special;
  • Ann that posted a spectacular long comment on my image on the APOD forum;
  • All those that supported and gave great feedback to my work through e-mails, social networks and forums.

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Ieri la NASA mi ha fatto un bellissimo regalo per il mio compleanno: il mio 4° Astronomy Picture of the Day :-) L’ immagine pubblicata è quella della congiunzione Luna-Venere scattata pochi giorni fa al lago di Viverone. Ho chiuso così in bellezza un 2011 molto produttivo dal punto di vista astrofotografico che di recente ha portato un altro APOD: “September’s Harvest Moon“.

Links to previous NASA APOD’s are below:

Thanks again for looking and for you support ;-)

Dec 25 2011

Christmas Crescent

The pictures show a superthin 21 hours and 45 min. old crescent Moon setting behind the Italian Alps. In the second image on the left is also visible the pyramid-like shape of Monviso (3,841 m – 12,602 ft). What a splendid Christmas present!