Galaxy puts photographer on map
Distant clusters, unusual galaxies and exotic space objects are the penchant of an Aucklandbased photographer who has just won an international award.
Rolf Olsen, who lives near the Waita¯ kere Ranges, said he had been entering the international Astronomy Photographer of the Year award since 2012 and had been shortlisted every time.
Olsen said his favourite thing to photograph was galaxies, especially oddly shaped ones.
‘‘I am really interested in quite obscure images, like a quasar that’s quite far away,’’ he said.
‘‘I like these sort of off the beaten path photos.’’
Olsen said he enjoyed taking images that were unusual, particularly of rarely captured objects and obscure targets.
Using a permanent observatory in his backyard, Olsen captured the awardwinning image of Galaxy NGC 3923 – a galaxy about 90 million light years from Earth.
It required a long exposure and a single image could be created from more than 40 hours of telescope data, Olsen said.
‘‘I think it’s nice that in a competition like this, there’s recognition for an image of an obscure galaxy.
‘‘It’s really different to the nebula that people are used to looking at.’’
Olsen, who works in IT, also enjoyed landscape photography. He had been doing astrophotography since 2003, and thought of it as a long-time hobby.
‘‘I can just keep getting new data from my backyard every day. If you have a set-up like this in your backyard then you can just let it run at night . . . and on a rainy day I’ll look at the data.’’
Olsen’s prize was £1500 (NZ$2992).
‘‘The quality of the pictures is getting better each year . . . It’s quite satisfying for me to win first place.’’