Photographing the World at Night: First of NOIRLab’s Ambassadors Program

Cameras have changed greatly since Babak Tafreshi first began photographing the Moon in 1991. The early 1990s saw the beginning of the digital revolution, with cameras boasting CCD sensors beginning to enter the market, but for a steep price. Professional astronomers adopted this revolutionary technology a few years earlier — the first astronomical CCD images were taken in 1976 by JPL’s Jim Janesick and Brad Smith of the University of Arizona. Prior to this, astronomical images were taken on film or photographic plates. Today, digital imaging sensors are ubiquitous.

It took just one look at the Moon to change Babak Tafreshi’s life.

The astrophotographer, famous for his nightscape photographs of landmarks below the stars and soon to be the inaugural NOIRLab Photo Ambassador, cut his astronomical teeth at the age of 13 when he peered through a relative’s small telescope from atop his family’s apartment in Tehran, Iran, in the early 1990s. High above, seen through the eyepiece of that borrowed telescope, was the silver Moon.

I gradually noticed a universal message of the sky in these photos. The same sky was seen above various symbols of civilization: a temple, church or a mosque. This eternal roof above all of us makes us one family of humanity

The Milky Way is a river of stars, interspersed between dark clouds of interstellar dust, climbing high over NOIRLab’s telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the Schuk Toak District on the Tohono O'odham Nation in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafreshi.

“I’ll remember that scene forever,” he says.

Shortly afterward, he bought a bulky Russian Zenit SLR camera with a lens for $40 and began pointing it at the sky — first revisiting the Moon and then exploring other wonders of the night sky photographically, from meteor showers and eclipses to the occasional cometary visitor. In 1997, Comet Hale-Bopp graced the sky magnificently, clearly visible to the naked eye. Tafreshi received his first professional job as an astrophotographer, snapping Hale-Bopp for the cover of the Iranian astronomy magazine Nojum, where he went on to become editor for ten years.

Babak Tafreshi’s photography takes him all across the world. In Chile he took this photograph of the mountains at Cerro Tololo, above which, in a twilight sky, stars whirl across the sky. The telescope on the peak in the foreground is the 4-meter Victor M. Blanco telescope.

Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafreshi.

Tafreshi is perhaps most well known for the The World at Night (TWAN) project, which invites some of the world’s best nightscape photographers to capture the night sky above landmarks in all kinds of locations around the world. Tafreshi partnered with Mike Simmons, founder of Astronomers Without Borders, which aims to bring astronomy outreach to a diverse international community irrespective of national borders and which mirrors TWAN’s aim of promoting how we all share the same night sky, whatever our creed or culture.

“My passion was to bring Earth and sky together in one frame,” he says, “And how that connection has been appreciated by humans for many eras. I gradually noticed a universal message of the sky in these photos. The same sky was seen above various symbols of civilization: a temple, church or a mosque. This eternal roof above all of us makes us one family of humanity. One People, One Sky!”

TWAN got a further boost when it was selected as a Special Project of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009. And while the project is still going strong today, Tafreshi is able to flex his photographic muscles in other ways too, as a collaborating photographer for National Geographic.

The Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope on the right, and the UArizona Bok telescope to its left, at Kitt Peak National Observatory, photographed by Babak Tafreshi.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafreshi.

His job at NOIRLab is to photograph the observatory sites every few years to provide new public outreach images. But which of NOIRLab’s locations does he like to shoot at the best? “My personal favorite NOIRLab site is Cerro Tololo, in Chile,” he says. Cerro Tololo houses one of NOIRLab’s largest collections of instruments, including the four-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope.

Tafreshi’s photographic career has taken him to most corners of the world, from the Milky Way over Sierra Nevada to the stars over Kilimanjaro, and from the aurora over Iceland to a solar eclipse over Indonesia. What impact have these scenes, at these locations, left on him?

His assignment for NOIRLab is to photograph the observatory sites every few years to provide new public outreach images. But which of NOIRLab’s locations does he like to shoot at the best? “My personal favorite NOIRLab site is Cerro Tololo, in Chile,” he says

Babak Tafreshi captures atmospheric phenomena in his photographs too, such as this 22-degree lunar halo above the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Tafreshi.

“After years of photographing the stars, the night sky has become my second home,” he muses. “I feel peace, enjoyment and eternity under the starry sky. Exploring the stars is not only about science. It leads you to a life of adventures. Like the explorers of new worlds, you are gifted by unique experiences to share with others.”