It’s safe to say that astrophotography and amateur astronomy has been blooming in Lebanon. On every new moon, astrophotographers relocate their heavy artillery to dark spots for a recurrent date with the stars.
Clouds known for being astronomers' enemies at the gates and just before summer moves on and winter clouds roll in, we decided to bid summer farewell in a special way. Twenty Astrophotographers from across Lebanon gathered with their telescopes and Star Trackers under the same epic sky. During that night, they imaged the universe, showed off their gear, exchanged techniques and nagged about their everlasting unsolved issues.
People of very diverse backgrounds participated. The meeting was one of the first of its kind in Lebanon and draws inspiration from international gatherings and star parties. It’s still a first step, but we are aiming on organizing more events more frequently and on a bigger scale in the near future.
Experienced and beginners alike shared their passion and helped each other improve their methods to take even better photos. It was a harmonious mix of cutting edge technology in service of probing the vast frontiers of space. For a moment, Technology was not destroying nature but helping us understand it and appreciate its beauty even better.
Being an astrophotographer in Lebanon ships with a package full of struggles:
1- Light pollution
Like technicalities aren't challenging enough, like air, water and ground pollution in our country aren’t suffocating us every single day, light pollution nibbling our dark spots left us with very limited options. Unplanned and dispersed light sources such as open ended street lamps, resorts blatantly and aimlessly pointing their projectors at the skies, shops and centers leaving their lights on even after closure are a huge source of light pollution and are effectively stealing what is left of our dark skies, we will unfortunately have to part ways with astrophotography and stargazing at the end of 2020 according to our estimations. Kfardebian is currently one of the very last refuges, we hope the municipality preserves the area and claim it a light-free zone.
2- We are living on an island
Lebanon is a tiny country, living there is like residing on an desolate island. We only have very limited choices regarding our hobby. We can't go beyond the borders of Lebanon, either for safety reasons or due to complicated relationships with neighboring countries, our 3rd choice would be the sea.
Finale
We would like to thank Kfardebian Municipality for granting us permission to use this special location, and while it is the only relatively nearby light pollution free region, we wish for other municipalities to take part in the initiative and provide us with a new space, a breather from the heavy levels of noise and pollution where everyone can take part of something harmonious and wonderful.
If you are interested in deep sky astrophotography or want to dive into this field, join our community "Lebanese Astrophotographers"
While if you care more about landscape astrophotography, drop by this group "Creatures of the Night" and show us the goods!
Finally, we will be celebrating World Space Week between the 4th and the 10th of October, astronomy and astronomy-flavored events will be held across the country, join and follow this page to know more about the schedule and the events.
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