Oregon hobbyists reach for the stars with backyard astrophotography

This story was written and reported by Noah Thomas, edited by Cassandra Profita and digitally produced by Winston Szeto, with photos and video by Cameron Nielsen and Jeff Kastner.

In the quiet darkness of his Mount Tabor backyard in Southeast Portland, Josh Romberg carefully points his 4-foot telescope at the North Star.

Unlike amateur astronomers of decades past, he isn’t fighting with massive equipment or calculating complex equations by hand. Instead, he monitors a sleek computer screen as his automated system tracks celestial objects with precision that would have astonished early pioneers of this craft.

Romberg appears lost in wonder as faint images of the North America Nebula begin to populate on his laptop screen. For him, the thrill of photographing an object so far from Earth never gets old.

“How incredible it is that this light has been traveling towards us for hundreds of thousands of light years,” Romberg explained. “And then it lands in my telescope.”

The dawn of cosmic photography

Astrophotography’s origins stretch back to 1850 when the first successful photograph of a star was captured using an early refractory telescope — a technological marvel for its time but primitive by today’s standards. These early instruments — some as long as 40 feet — required dedicated observatories and considerable expertise to operate.

The journey from those pioneering images to today’s backyard astrophotography represents one of the most remarkable democratizations of a scientific pursuit in recent history. What was once the exclusive domain of professional astronomers and wealthy enthusiasts is now an accessible hobby that requires little more than enthusiasm and modest investment.

The automation revolution

Nico Ferguson, 15, wandered through his North Portland neighborhood of St. Johns last September, searching for the perfect spot to position his smart telescope. About the size of an iPad, this compact device houses both a telescope, camera and auto-tracker that syncs with the rotation of the Earth.

Using a smartphone app, Ferguson can browse for deep sky objects like galaxies and nebulae. Then, with a few taps he can have the telescope automatically locate and photograph them. Last fall, he photographed the Andromeda Galaxy.

“I think it’s really cool to be able to take pictures of these distant objects in space,” he said. “The results afterwards can be astounding.”

Ferguson represents a new generation of photographers who benefit from technology that automates many of the complex processes of capturing deep-space objects. His smart telescope only costs a few hundred dollars, a fraction of what would have been required 20 years ago, yet it produces images that would have impressed professionals from that era.

A smart telescope integrates three main components working in harmony: a telephoto lens that magnifies distant celestial objects, a sensitive digital camera sensor that captures faint light from deep space, and a computerized tracking mount that compensates for Earth’s rotation.

“It’s taking a whole bunch of exposures of the object, and then it’s going to use all those images and stack them together to get more light on the object,” Ferguson explained, describing a computational process that was once painstakingly done by hand but is now handled automatically by software.

Piercing the veil of light pollution

Perhaps the most revolutionary advancement for urban astronomers has been the development of narrow-band filters — specialized equipment that enables astronomers to observe celestial objects even from light-polluted cities like Portland.

“On a night like tonight where we have the moon just ripping behind us, you can still cut through all of the light pollution,” Romberg said, gesturing to the almost full moon that had just risen in the sky above his house.

The artificial glow from urban areas creates what astronomers call “sky glow”— essentially a haze that obscures all but the brightest stars. While our eyes can’t penetrate this veil, modern telescopes equipped with these specialized filters can isolate specific wavelengths of light emitted by cosmic objects, revealing nebulae and galaxies that would otherwise remain invisible.

This narrow-band imaging technique is what allows amateur astronomers like Romberg to capture incredible images of the cosmos mere steps from his back porch.

“The best site for astrophotography for me is the one that I can go to every night,” Romberg said. “And for a lot of us that’s our backyard.”

Mountaintop time lapse

While some enthusiasts focus on deep-space objects from their backyards, others like Grant Tandy take a different approach, specializing in wide-field time-lapse photography that showcases the night sky’s movement against dramatic landscapes.

“Enjoying the night sky and viewing it visually, but then also combining photography to capture what your eyes can’t see — it’s just the perfect pairing,” Tandy explained while setting up his camera at a scenic vista overlooking a lake with Mount Bachelor in the background.

His approach requires minimal equipment — just a camera and tripod — but considerable patience, as he captures hundreds of images throughout the night. The result is a mesmerizing visualization of Earth’s rotation against the backdrop of the cosmos.

“When you’re doing a time-lapse, you’re taking a bunch of longer exposures and then kind of stacking them together in post to have enough frames to do a short video,” he explained.

Cosmic connections

Beyond the technical aspects, many photographers describe a profound philosophical experience that comes with capturing images of distant cosmic objects.

“We’re on this tiny little globe. That’s one little aspect of this universe that we’re a part of,” Tandy said. “It’s just this really humbling feeling to be out here under the sky.”

This sentiment — a connection to something vastly larger than oneself — is likely an important aspect of astrophotography’s growing popularity. As the technical barriers fall away, more people can experience this perspective-shifting hobby.

What once demanded years of study, significant financial investment and dedicated equipment can now be accomplished with a smartphone app and a telescope you can fit in your backpack. The stars, it seems, are finally within everyone’s reach.