MY (PHOTOGRAPHIC) NEWS SECTION:

Welcome to my news photo-blog! Below there is a selection of images, related to my trips, work and other activities that I have carried out or participated in, either in Chile or abroad. All photographs have been taken by myself (© R. Demarco, 2014-2022), unless explicitly stated otherwise.

November 26th, 2016: Observing facilities at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) near La Serena in Chile. Top: CTIO summit at sunset seen from the catwalk of the Blanco Telescope's dome. Middle: the 4-m diameter Blanco Telescope with DECam installed at its primary focus. Bottom: the 1.5-m diameter telescope during an observatory tour for the general public.





November 25th, 2016: The sky from the Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, in the direction of the South Celestial Pole. These fish-eye lens photographs were obtained at nearly the same time of the night, but with two different integrations: 30 minutes (top) and 30 seconds (bottom). Notable features are the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. The green-colored glow toward the south horizon is produced by atmospheric emission.





October 27th, 2016: The Gemini South Observatory moonlit just few moments before morning twilight. This photograph, showing star trails towards the South Celestial Pole, was obtained with an 8-mm lens and a 30-minute integration. In addition to a section of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds can be seen near the telescope dome.





October 25th, 2016: The 8m-diameter Gemini South telescope on Cerro Pachón, Chile, at startup. Pretty amazing sight!





October 24th, 2016: The Milky Way and the Gemini South Observatory from Cerro Pachón. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds can also be seen to the left of the image. This is the first night of the GOGREEN campaign in the semester 2016B with GMOS South.





October 23rd, 2016: An afternoon on Cerro Pachón, Chile. After two years, I am back to observe (starting tomorrow) with Gemini South as part of the GOGREEN Survey. The images below were obtained during a visit to the SOAR Observatory that is next to Gemini. Top: The SOAR 4-m telescope right before starting the afternoon calibrations. Bottom: the construction of a giant - the 8m-diameter LSST on Cerro El Peñon (the Gemini Observatory is to the left and closer, just outside the photograph).





October 10th-12th, 2016: The ESO Very Large Telescope on Paranal, Atacama Desert, Chile. Top: the two observers, Alessandro Rettura (right) and myself, posing with UT-4 (YEPUN; Venus), one of the four 8-m-diameter telescopes of the observatory. The enormous size of this amazing machine, equiped with 4 powerful lasers, is evident. Photograph taken with a 8 mm lens by Jose Antonio Abad (ESO). Bottom: UT-1 (ANTU; The Sun), "our telescope", in full action just after morning twilight started. The outer part of our Galaxy's disk displays itself as a beautiful arch of light above the telescope dome, while Orion and Sirius can clearly be seen, all that in superb seeing conditions.





September 9th, 2016: The Milky Way Galaxy and the Moon from the Magellan telescopes at Carnegie's Las Campanas in Northern Chile. This image, captured with a 8 mm fisheye lens, shows both Baade (left) and Clay telescopes actively scrutinizing the universe. Right above Baade, the tail of the Scorpion and the center of our Galaxy can be seen (to the left of the Moon). Also to the left of that telescope and near the horizon, the Southern Cross and Eta Carinae are visible.





June 27th, 2016: A second visit to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum in Oregon, home to the famous Spruce Goose. Two noteworthy aircraft are shown in the photographs below. Top: one (N947NA) of the four Shuttle Training Aircrafts used by NASA to train astronauts to land the Space Shuttle. The four training aircrafts were retired soon after the Space Shuttle Program came to an end in 2011. Bottom: my favorite combat airplane of all times: the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. In this particular case, the aircraft shown corresponds to an F-14D "Super Tomcat" that flew combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom as part of the VF-31 squadron based at the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier. In the background, inside the large building, the nose of the Spruce Goose can be seen.





June 22nd, 2016: The 'Akaka Falls near Hilo, Hawai'i. This beautiful fall of natural water is about 135 meters in height, twice as tall as the well-known Niagara Falls. It is located in the 'Akaka Falls State Park, a magestic forest composed by a number of amazing species of trees and plants, as well as small creeks.





June 21st, 2016: The beginning of the summer at night from the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. The photograph shows current activity at the Halema'uma'u crater seen from the Jaggar Museum's overlook at the edge of the much larger Kilauea Caldera that contains the crater. The Southern Cross and Centaurus constellations can be seen in the moonlit sky.





June 17th, 2016: Top: The Canada-France-Hawai'i telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea, Hawai'i, getting ready for another night of exploration. It is near sunset, and the telescope with its 3.6-m diameter main mirror is pointing to the Zenith. This photograph was obtained with a 8-mm fisheye lens. Bottom: A moonlit view of a part of the top of Mauna Kea (about 4,200 meters of elevation) to the North-West from the CFHT's catwalk. From left to right, the following observatories can be seen: CSO, JCMT, SMA, Subaru, Keck, and IRTF. A few stars can be seen through the fast-coming clouds.





June 16th, 2016: Snorkeling in Hawai'i! After an hour of a nice boat trip from Keauhou Bay to the Cook Point (Kealakekua area), we had about 1.5 hours to enjoy the wonderful, beautiful underwater flora and fauna of the reef. In this photograph, taken by Lisa Wells (astronomer from CFHT), I am giving the OK sign to start my exploration. One of the amazing creatures in the Hawaiian waters is the State fish: the Humuhumunukunukuapua'a! (a.k.a. Reef Trigger Fish.)





June 13th, 2016: Astrophotography with a Nikon D7000 attached to the Cassegrain focus of a portable 12-inch, f/10 Schmidth-Cassegrain telescope at Pine Mountain observatory. From top to bottom the subjects are: the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn. In the case of Jupiter, some of the belt clouds in the planet's atmosphere can be seen.





June 12th, 2016: One of the students from the University of Oregon is in the prcess of setting up a 12-inch portable telescope to do some astrophotography. The Moon and Jupiter can clearly be seen in the photograph, as well as the dome of the 24-inch telescope.





June 11th, 2016: Observing the wonders of the sky from the Pine Mountain Observatory. Top: these photographs at different intensity levels, and taken with a cellphone camera right in contact with the eyepiece of a solar telescope using an H-alpha filter, show some remarkable features of our Sun: large prominences and filaments, active regions and spots. The prominences, seen mainly at the bottom edge of the Photosphere, are several times larger than our planet. Also note the presence of some fringing in the images. Middle: observer at the 24-inch telescope. Bottom: the center of the Milky Way galaxy rising above the 32-inch telescope's dome.





May 13th, 2016: Observing at the Pine Mountain Observatory of the University of Oregon. This observatory is nearly as old as some of the observatories in the north of Chile, such as Cerro Tololo. It is located about 42 kilometers from the city of Bend, Oregon, and is emplaced in the Deschutes National Forest at an elevation of about 2000 meters. In the photograph, undregraduate students from the University of Oregon's Physics Department conduct observations with the 15-inch telescope on the mountain.





May 7th, 2016: A short but memorable visit to Multnomah Falls, one the most famous waterfalls in Oregon, at only about half-an-hour drive East from Portland and on the south side of the Columbia Gorge, where the Columbia river devides the state of Oregon from that of Washington. The cascade is about 186 meters tall, and the bautiful Benson Bridge (seen in the photograph) gives people the opportunity to enjoy this wonderful gift from mother nature from up close.





April 9th, 2016: My close encounter with Dr. Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot of the Apollo 11 mission and one of the first humans to walk on the Moon. Dr. Aldrin signed for me one copy of his latest book, "No Dream Is Too High", at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in Los Angeles, California. I had him just a few centimeters away in front of me. It was the greatest honor to meet him in person: the closest to the Moon that I will ever be (even as a professional astronomer).





March 22nd, 2016: A visit to Paine Field and the Boeing Factory at Everett, Washington, the "maternity" of Boeing's 747, 767, 777 and 787 passenger aircrafts. The top photograph shows the main assembly building, the largest construction in the world by volume, with its 6 giant bay doors through which some of the largest airliners in the world are rolled out after being "born". The picture in the middle shows some of the brand-new airplanes, still to be fully completed, in front of the assembly building. The bottom photograph (taken by Isabel Rivera) shows me in the cockpit of a Boeing 727 airplane in the Future of Flight Museum, next to the Boeing's factory.





January 14th, 2016: A visit to the Statue of Liberty island, with its very famous inhabitant. The Statue of Liberty is a neoclassical statue, made out of copper, whose green pigmentation is due to the oxidation with time (really fast, from 1900 to 1906) of this metal. It was designed by F. A. Bartholdi and built by G. Eiffel. It was a gift from the people of France to the U.S.A. and dedicated in 1886.





January 13th, 2016: New York, New York! The top photograph is a panoramic view of mid-town Manhattan at sunset from the flight deck of USS Intrepid Museum. The bottom photograph is a view of lower Manhattan's skyline at night from the Empire State Building observatory. A truly fantastic sight! Very windy and very cold up there as well.





January 10th, 2016: Magic Kingdom, Orlando, Florida. Sinderalla's castle minutes before the Disney's Electric Parade made its entrance as a prelude to the 8 pm firework show. This one included an audiovisual display with images projected onto the castle itself. Really nice and impressive!





January 7th, 2016: A visit to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. The image at the top shows an actual fly-worthy Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), LM-9. This lunar module was originally intended to fly on the Apollo 15 mission as the last H-Class Mission. However, NASA decided to change the Apollo 15 mission to an Extended J-Class Mission to use instead an upgraded Extended Lunar Module (ELM) for longer stays on the moon and larger payloads, thus grounding LM-9. The image at the bottom is the actual Apollo 14 command module, Kitty Hawk, that flew to the moon in January 1971 with astronauts Alan Shepard (CDR), Stuart Roosa (CMP) and Edgard Mitchell (LMP). Both spacecrafts are on display at the Saturn V Center at KSC.





January 6th, 2016: Stormtroopers guarding the entrance to the Star Wars Launch Bay Exhibit at Disneys's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida. Inside the exhibit, I had the opportunity to meet and talk directly to Lord Darth Vader.