Intriguing Hungarian photo as NASA’s Picture of the Day

An amazing shot depicting the journey of the Sun on the solstice sky had been chosen as the ‘Astronomical Picture of the Day’ by NASA. The shot was taken by a Hungarian photographer, Csaba Kovács, who used a very simple device: a pinhole camera, reports origo.hu.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and an astronomer of Michigan University of Technology provide the visitors of the space center’s website with the most interesting pictures in the ‘Astronomical Picture of the Day’ section day by day, selecting the most praiseworthy astronomical photos.

Csaba Kovács has been taking pictures with pinholes for years. These simple constructions consist of a box with a hole on it and a light-perceptive material which records the light that shines through the hole of the box, creating extraordinary images. Although the process seems quite easy, this method takes time. Especially in the case of solargraphy, the most time-consuming way of pinhole photography: the exposition time ranges from a few hours to months. The Hungarian photographer’s picture was shot for 45 days during the winter of 2013, at Dunakeszi Airport.

The photo captures the rising and the setting of the Sun with an Antonov AN-2 airplane in the foreground. The movement of the Sun draws a beautiful, bright line on the sky that reaches higher as the passing the winter solstice effects the movement of the celestial body, writes origo.hu.

If you want to try solargraphy, you will need a material with very low light-perceptivity – explains Csaba – this way the orb of the Sun can almost burn in the paper. However the photo paper is black and white, after the digital development, the picture becomes colourful. And why is this photographical technique exciting? Solargraphy depicts the effects of the solstice nicely, when we get closer to the summer solstice, the Sun’s orb reaches higher, while closer to the winter solstice, the orb is lower, says the photographer.

Csaba Kovács’ photo has been chosen as ‘Astronomical Picture of the Day’ on February 21, Saturday. You can watch other photos selected on APOD HERE, and you can also visit Csaba’s website HERE.

based on article by origo.hu
translated by Laura Kocsis

Photo: Csaba Kovacs

Source: http://www.origo.hu