Starship Asterisk*

The Ruins of Nógrád Castle Copyright: György Soponyai Castle of Nógrád is one of the oldest castle in Hungary, the first hillfort was built in the age of Barbarian Invasions. In the 1400s the fortress was restored and a four-level renaissance castle was also added/built. Between 1544-1594 and from ...

yaW ykliM remmuS ehT Copyright: György Soponyai This picture is the result of a photo experiment where I wanted to capture the "inverse" Milky Way arc facing towards Northern direction (from the Northern Hemisphere) . I have seen thousands of wonderful nightscape photos where the main sub...

High Beta Angle Copyright: György Soponyai Maybe this photo is rather interesting than spectacular. :) The International Space Station orbits the Earth with an average altitude of 420 km and inclination of 51.6°. Due to this high inclination, four times every year during a less-than-a-week-long per...

Analemma of the Sun Copyright: György Soponyai The previous eight years I completed numerous analemma projects in order to record and present the famous "Celestial Eight". With this newest (and probably the last) photo I would like to present a new aspect of this wonderful astronomical ph...

May of Mercury Copyright: György Soponyai This photo presents the evening visibility of the innermost planet of our Solar System on the Western Sky captured near Mogyoród, Hungary. The pictures were taken at the time when the Sun was located exactly ten degrees below the horizon. I slightly had to ...

Yet another moonset pic Copyright: György Soponyai The lockdown of COVID-19 pandemic let me discover lots of new photo locations in walking distances near my home. For example: I just realized that despite the 13 km distance, I don't need to travel for capturing great shots about Megyeri bridge, th...

Moonset above Megyeri bridge Copyright: György Soponyai The lockdown of COVID-19 pandemic let me discover lots of new photo locations in walking distances near my home. For example: I just realized that despite the 13 km distance, I don't need to travel for capturing great shots about Megyeri bridg...

Between Solstices Copyright: György Soponyai This photo was taken near Mogyoród, Hungary on the day of Autumnal equinox and three days after Summer- and Winter solstices. On 47.6° Northern latitude, the length of daylight changes between 15 hours 58 minutes and 8 hours 26 minutes. https://live.stat...

Lunar and Solar Extremities 2020 Copyright: György Soponyai This overlapped photo sequence presents the biggest and smallest Lunar and Solar disks in a year taken with the same telescope and camera. However the bottom right part of the image was taken in 2021 as last January there were no spots on ...

The Morning Star Copyright: György Soponyai This photo presents the celestial path of planet Venus on the Eastern sky between end of June and the middle of December capturing with a wide-field and a telephoto lens near Mogyoród, Hungary. The pictures were taken at the time when the Sun was located ...

Lunar and Solar Extremities Copyright: György Soponyai This photo sequence presents the the biggest and smallest visible Lunar and Solar disks taken with the same telescope and camera. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50565856262_14cdd06ef6_z.jpg Canon EOS 5D Mark II + SkyWatcher 254/1200 Dobson

Hortobágy Copyright: György Soponyai Last week I planned to capture the Perseid meteor shower at Hortobágy National Park, below one of the darkest Hungarian skies with the hope the double T-shaped sweep wells would act as a nice foreground of the scene. This kind of old wells are the symbol of the ...

Comet NEOWISE and NLC Copyright: György Soponyai Today early dawn I observed the most wonderful NLC-s I've ever seen. The clouds started to form at the time comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) was rising on the Northeastern horizon. I have never experienced such a wonder: the phenomena of the clouds quickly ...

C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
Copyright: György Soponyai



2020.07.05. Mogyoród, Hungary
Canon EOS 5D Mark II + Canon EF 200/2.8 L
1/3 sec, f/2.8 ISO 640

Solstice Comparison Copyright: György Soponyai The first picture was taken atop Storsteinen mountain near Tromsø, Norway in June, 2019. The city lies 350 kilometres North of the Northern Polar Circle so the Sun does not set there between 20th May and 22nd July. Standing at a mountaintop 24 hours fo...

Solstice Comparison Copyright: György Soponyai The first picture was taken atop Storsteinen mountain near Tromsø, Norway in June, 2019. The city lies 350 kilometres North of the Northern Polar Circle so the Sun does not set there between 20th May and 22nd July. Standing at a mountaintop 24 hours fo...

Analemma of the Moon Copyright: György Soponyai If we observe the Sun the from day to day the same time (e.g.: 8 AM. or at noon or 4 PM.) we may spot it nearly the same direction. However its position in Winter is lower in the sky, in Summer it's higher and there are some periodic movements towards...

Highway to Heaven Copyright: György Soponyai Due to the quarantine of the current COVID-19 epidemic I had to find a quickly, easily accessible place that might act as astrophoto foreground so I chose this overcrossing bridge atop highway M3 that lies only 160 meters away from my home. Mogyoród is a...

Inverse Startrails (a.k.a Starlink goes to Big Dipper) Copyright: György Soponyai On Tuesday evening, a "massive" transit of ~50 Starlink satellites was visible in front of Big Dipper. I'm afraid this is the future of wide-field nightscape photography.. :-/ https://live.staticflickr.com/6...

A division by zero Copyright: György Soponyai The photos were taken on Budapest, Hungary standing on and near Margaret Bridge and looking to Southern direction. The wonderful foreground including the building of Hungarian Parliament, the Chain Bridge, the Castle of Buda and the riverbank of Danube ...

Grapevine startrails Copyright: György Soponyai Szekszárd (the city where I was born) is the center of Szekszárd-Tolna Wine Region is famous of the "Bull's Blood" , a dry red wine. Thus no wonder the lookout tower above the city resembles grapevines. Pointing my all-sky camera directly up...

Dobogó-kő Startrails Copyright: György Soponyai Dobogó-kő is the highest peak of the Visegrád Mountains (700 meter) in Hungary. The peak has a wonderful outlook towards Northern direction with the Danube Bend as it flows between Börzsöny and Visegrád Mountains. Hungary has a terrible astro climate:...

Shadow of the Earth Copyright: György Soponyai Three eclipses that draw the form of the shadow of the Earth. The middle of the penumbral photo squence is quite blurry due to the thin cloud layer. In the partial photo sequence the change of Lunar disk color and brightness is caused by the different ...

Lunar Eclipse Variations Copyright: György Soponyai Within one year I was able to capture all three types of Lunar eclipses with the same equipment. Thus the appearance of the events can be compared. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49364637898_4c694277e9_z.jpg Details: 2019.01.21. total eclipse...

Flat Moonset during Midnight Sun Copyright: György Soponyai This photo sequence was taken at the middle of Tromsø Bridge depicts the one-hour-long path of the setting Moon when the snow of the mountains was being painted to pale pink by the Midnight Sun above the Northern horizon. https://live.stat...