This photo won the finals of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022 competition - learn more.
Intrigued by the frequent media reports about the return of Halley´s Comet, Gerald Rhemann started his interest in Astrophotography 1987. He bought his first telescope and mount. As a photo shop owner, he always had access to all the other things he needed to get started with astrophotography - cameras, darkroom and experience.
He soon developed into one of the best astrophotographers in the world. Remarkable pictures were taken with his Schmidt camera. Many of these images are still used on the NASA website today. To date, his images have been published more than a thousand times in magazines and books, and graced the cover of Sky & Tel three times, an accomplishment only a handful of amateurs have achieved.
His specialty is wide field photography and in this context, his main interest is comet photography.
Gerald Rhemann chases comets in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Because most comets are moving very fast, within several minutes of expose time, the comet stretched into a blurry streak. Otherwise, to track the comet´s apparent motion rather than the stars produce photos with a sharp comet but a field of trailed stars.
Generating comet images in which both the comet and the surrounding star field are in focus is one of the most difficult tasks in astrophotography. Rhemann has developed a sophisticated processing in order to optimally solve the problems that arise.
