Dennis Mammana

When you add 2 things you are passionate about, you actually get Passion*Passion instead of Passion+Passion. That is what happened when I started venturing in to AstroPhotography. The photos of planets I had posted earlier were taken by trial and error. I never had any formal training.

In January, I was delighted to learn that one of my favorite Astrophotographer, Dennis Mammana is offering a training session on "Night Sky Photography" in Anza Borrego desert which is an hour's drive from SD. Dennis Mammana is known world wide. He lives in Anza  Borrego during the Winter months (summer time temps rise above 112 degrees in the desert and only few folks stay in town).

I signed up for the course, hoping to learn some fundamentals.  I was expecting a big crowd for the course but was delighted to see only 6 people in the class. That means lot of personal one-on-one interactions.  The course was scheduled between 12 & 5. After dinner, the plan was to go out to the field and take photos of the sky with Dennis helping us.

When we broke for dinner at 5, I asked Dennis to suggest a good restaurant. To my surprise,  Dennis invited me to join him and his friend Ted for dinner. At dinner Dennis talked about his experiences around the world Dennis had visited for sky photography sessions. He appreciated that I am a volunteer coach for Astronomy at our middle school, making young kids interested in Astronomy.  We went back to the field and spent another 2 hours shooting the Sky, putting into practice all the lessons we learned.

with Dennis Mammana @ Anza Borrego Desert

The following photos were taken in our backyard.

Orion over the house.

In the photo below, you could see my favorite swing and hammock. It is pure bliss to just lie on the hammock and enjoy the blue skies during the day as well as watch the stars during the night :)

Ursa Major (சப்தரிஷி) rising over the swing

Checkout: Dennis Mamman's Website