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Mürren
The peace in Mürren is almost intrusive. It is not disturbed by traffic noise. Only the occasional buzzing of the cable cars is reminiscent of normal life. The starry sky is great because at night very few lamps illuminate the village.
Jupiter Moon Saturn over Alps (Mürren) © Julian Köpke Autumn is already more advanced in Central Switzerland thanin Ticino. Temperatures in the shade are well below 10 degrees Celsius. The sun has a lot of power at 1600m, you can easily sweat when walking.
While searching for a location for my tripod slowly upwards, I meet individual hikers or groups of two. The large groups take the cable car to the summit and do not appear on the hiking trails. Surprisingly many fly into the valley by paragliding.
Early autumn in the Alps © Julian Köpke -
Earthlight, Jupiter and Saturn
The sun is setting in the west. The Moon moves east and setting in the west, too. If one compares the position of the Moon relative to the prominent planets Saturn and Jupiter, because they appear close to each other, it is no longer below the two, but to the east next to them.
Yesterday, crescent moon right below Saturn and Jupiter © Julian Köpke 
Today, Moon east of Saturn and Jupiter © Julian Köpke Temporarily there was much less haze today, so that the earthlight (in german: aschfahles Mondlicht) of the moon in the right hand image is very well visible. Yesterday you could only guess. With the spotting scope the crescent moon shows up well detailed.
Waxing crescent moon, 72h old © Julian Köpke The spotting scope allows to photograph the two planets Saturn and Jupiter with a full frame camera in a single field of view at lowest magnification (x30, which is about 800mm focal length). The structure of the planets ist better outlined with short exposure times (see insets), the Galilean moons of Jupiter need a longer one.
Saturn and Jupiter, 4d before Great Conjunction © Julian Köpke -
About me
Julian Köpke
What am I doing ?
Sometimes I answer: I’m making every day black and white images to earn my life. I’m a radiologist by profession, a physicist and physician by graduation.
Beside scientific research I always felt attracted by music, literature, painting and art.
After times of painting in watercolor, oil and sketching I restarted photography in 2005 with my first digital SLR, a Canon 350D. After a couple of years of poking around in the dark I discovered astrophotography in 2010.
Physical properties of lenses, telescopes and of sensors had to be understood. I became familiar with technical details of image acquisition and editing under a cosmos of conditions.
And I found a way back to the light at daytime. Only recent with a friend we combined digital images of photo sensors and x-ray sensors to get beautiful results.
The sky is the limit.
Julian Köpke
Heidelberg, November 2018
- email me: koepke (at) himmelslandschaften.de
Lighthouses
You learn the benefit of a lighthouse easily on a sailing boat.
Flowers
There are different approaches to photograph flowers.
World at night
Colors and moods are vivid after sunset. Digital sensors catch it, when our eyes see only grey.
What's important to me
Ever since I undertook any image related efforts: there’s always something to show, the naked eye wouldn’t see without.
It’s just normal in my profession as a radiologist.
It’s likewise in astronomy.
And in good photographs, too.
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