The Star Chaser
The Star Chaser BY DAY, TANJA SUND IS A PUBLISHER AND AN EDITOR. BY NIGHT, SHE IS ASTROTANJA, THE ONLY FEMALE ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER IN AFRICA. BY IGA MOTYLSKA | PHOTO TANJA SUND
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any are mesmerized by the flickering night sky that makes Earth minute in comparison. A few may recognize Venus, the morning star, and one or two other planets, but almost all are overcome by acatalepsy – the inability to fully comprehend – when it comes to the vastness of the universe. Perhaps this is why the unknown that confounds us, and simultaneously fascinates, is often accompanied by a deep-seated desire to unfurl mysteries. Tanja Sund juggles three South African fitness publications, her two-and-ahalf-year-old daughter Sienna, the planets, stars and the galaxy’s wonders all in a day’s – and night’s – work. Granted, it is an unusual combination, but this entrepreneur has modelled her business to allow her to work half-days so that she can pursue her passions.
The Astrophotographer As An Entrepreneur
Sund studied graphic design and animation at art school in Johannesburg. She ran her own design firm and did a lot of freelance agency work, before she met her fitness trainer, who would later become her husband and today is a close friend and business partner. “Business made a lot of sense to me, so we decided that we wanted to work together and there wasn’t a publication in SA for that niche… So the natural progression was because of my business sense and his passion for it, we were able to pull the magazine titles together.” It would not have been possible without the sacrifice of their weekends, holidays, social lives, and many a sunset and sunrise at the office. But it paid off. “Because I am a business owner it’s not just a position [that of editor] I will give to someone. I don’t think I’ll find someone who will look after it the way that I do. The whole team 66 | FORBES WOMAN AFRICA FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014
has control over the magazine but my function is business management because we have three titles now and we do merchandizing,” says Sund. Being an entrepreneur has allowed her to free up her time and choose her lifestyle. “I started hiring the right people for my team and now I have set up a team that is pretty much independent of me, so I can be a complete mom in the afternoons and I can do my own things at night and I have the freedom to travel.” Sund attributes her business prowess to The 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. “A lot of people do the normal 8-5 and get stuck in traffic for two hours a day and they don’t do the things they love, they do things because they have to get them done, but the thing is it’s all about the mindset,” she says. The business owner and fitness fanatic shines when she compares life to a gym workout.
Photo: Cindy Ellis
The Entrepreneur As An Astrophotographer
“It’s like gym, with anything in life, you don’t find the time, you make the time. You’re not going to get stuff served on a platter and everyone is going to dream ‘Oh, this would be so nice,’ well work for it, the only person who is going to give it to you, is you.” She finds herself applying many of the skills she utilizes in publishing to her astrophotography. “It’s a very deep rabbit hole but start somewhere and as soon as you get involved and see the possibilities, it opens up a whole new world. I like technical challenges and that’s why this mergers passion with the intellectual side of problem solving, astronomy and art,” says Sund.
“It started with my dad, we borrowed a Dobsonian telescope from a friend of his. It didn’t even have a stand, so we used to rest it on our braai [barbeque]. I remember many cold winter nights… With Haley’s comment, he woke me up in the middle of the night and carried me out of bed,” says Sund. An early childhood fascination in astronomy led to hours of watching Yoda and peering, with one eye shut and draped in blankets, through telescopes. “I was a Star Wars fan, growing up I watched it repeatedly. Just the whole concept of interstellar travel and other galaxies, life and adventure [intrigued me].” Astrotanja – as she is known in the online astrophotography community to fellow purveyors of the night sky – bought her first telescope, a Bushnell reflector sonutonian 3-inch, in 2007. Since then, her evenings, weekends and vacations are planned around the heavens. She has already photographed deep space from Africa, North America and Europe, and in late 2013 traveled to Iceland to photograph the Northern Lights. Astrophotography became her “professional hobby”, as she calls it, in early 2012. “I know of three other female [astrophotographers in the world]. I’m sure there are more females out there but they are not very active online,” she says. She is yet to meet, even virtually, another female, African astrophotographer. They seem to be as rare as alien sightings, which is one of the most common questions she is asked. “I believe that there is life elsewhere, I don’t know if it’s intelligent life but honestly if I was an alien, I wouldn’t want to come to earth, I don’t think our civilization is advanced enough. Being of a superior intelligence, being able to travel through space, they should know that if they reveal themselves to us there FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA | 67
will be anarchy. Just leave Earth alone. But I definitely think that there is other microbial and non-intelligent life out there, the universe is just too big. If you think about evolution or the age of man, we’ve only been here for such a short time of Earth’s lifespan, dinosaurs have come and gone, so exactly the same may have happened elsewhere, where there may have been intelligent life that may have been destroyed. I think it’s very narrow-minded to think that we’re the only living creatures, look at how many billions of stars are in our galaxy and then there are billions of galaxies out there. We’re not that unique.” The curious often ask her if she has managed to photograph a UFO. “I’ve seen one weird thing but I’m not sure if it was a UFO. I have to think about this intelligently. I’m sure it was Chinese lanterns but it was like the three-point that a lot of people describe and they move together. I ran into my home to get my camera but then they weren’t there anymore,” she says. Aliens or no aliens, Sund’s greatest love is deep sky photography because it is all about the editing technique and stacking principle. She has learnt to see the potential of a photograph in its pixels, long before she has edited or stacked it. Sund prefers deep sky photography to star trails – those long-exposure photographs that illustrate the apparent movement of the stars, which is actually due to the Earth’s rotation – as it is more challenging. Her best advice to aspiring astrophotographers is: “As with anything, if you’re passionate about it, if you’re persistent and you just educate yourself, and the education is out there, [you can do it]. Everything I do in my life is like that: I let my passion drive me.” But astrophotography will never be her fulltime job because, in her opinion, relying on it financially will kill the passion. Sund has already presented workshops at Africa’s biggest photography expo that is held annually in Johannesburg, but that is as far as it goes. “I’m not interested in that because financially I make more money with my publication, so why would I work hard to free up my time only to fill it in?” By using her background in publishing, she hopes to write a beginner’s guidebook to astrophotography and sell her photographs through an online gallery. While her head may be in the stars, this entrepreneur’s feet are firmly on the ground. FW 68 | FORBES WOMAN AFRICA FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014
Astrotanja’s Tips Wide field lens photography remains the most accessible form of astrophotography. Whether you’re shooting the Milky Way or star trails, the basics remain the same. 1. Dark location To escape light pollution and capture more stars, drive at least 100km from the city. 2. Know where to look Get a sky atlas or use planetarium software to plan your image session. Learn the constellations and objects that are in the sky at each time of year. 3. Equipment Tripod: Essential for long exposure photos and star trails. Shutter release cable: Minimizes unwanted vibrations on the camera and assists continuous exposures during star trails. Cameras and lenses: Use the fastest and widest lens (with the lowest f-stop). Learn manual mode and disable all automatic functions. Shoot in RAW format for best quality. 4. Camera settings Aperture: As wide as your lens allows to gather more light, usually F/2.8 - F/4. If you see ‘halos’ around the photographed zoomed in stars, stop down the aperture by one.
20-second exposures. Increasing to 30 seconds allows the camera to gather more light but will also increase the amount of star trails. Experiment with your lens. Focusing: Switch off all autofocus and image stabilization functions. Manually focus the lens near its infinity mark. Take a series of photos while slightly moving the focus ring forward and back between shots. Compare them when zoomed in 100% on your LCD display to see which position produces the clearest stars. 5. Shooting star trails Compose your photo by including the celestial pole (due north or south, depending on your hemisphere) and some interesting foreground objects. Settings: a.) Shoot star trails with the same settings as single night sky photos and switch off the ‘in camera noise reduction’. b.) Use a 30-seconds exposure time and turn on the continuous shooting setting with the shutter release locked in to ensure continuous photos are taken with minimal or no delay between them. Editing software: Once you have a series of night sky photos, a number of hours worth, use StarStax to layer and combine images into one photo that reveals the earth’s rotation.
ISO: Dependant on your location and camera sensor, use ISO 800, 1600 or 3200, but the higher the ISO, the greater the noise. When shooting single exposures activate ‘in camera noise reduction’.
6. Helpful astronomy software Stellarium: Free open source and cross-platform planetarium software.
Exposure time: This is dependent on the lens’ focal length. For wide field photos, less than 35mm, use
StarStax: Free cross-platform software that layers and combines images for star trails.
SkySafari: A portable planetarium for smartphones.
FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA | 69
M
any are mesmerized by the flickering night sky that makes Earth minute in comparison. A few may recognize Venus, the morning star, and one or two other planets, but almost all are overcome by acatalepsy – the inability to fully comprehend – when it comes to the vastness of the universe. Perhaps this is why the unknown that confounds us, and simultaneously fascinates, is often accompanied by a deep-seated desire to unfurl mysteries. Tanja Sund juggles three South African fitness publications, her two-and-ahalf-year-old daughter Sienna, the planets, stars and the galaxy’s wonders all in a day’s – and night’s – work. Granted, it is an unusual combination, but this entrepreneur has modelled her business to allow her to work half-days so that she can pursue her passions.
The Astrophotographer As An Entrepreneur
Sund studied graphic design and animation at art school in Johannesburg. She ran her own design firm and did a lot of freelance agency work, before she met her fitness trainer, who would later become her husband and today is a close friend and business partner. “Business made a lot of sense to me, so we decided that we wanted to work together and there wasn’t a publication in SA for that niche… So the natural progression was because of my business sense and his passion for it, we were able to pull the magazine titles together.” It would not have been possible without the sacrifice of their weekends, holidays, social lives, and many a sunset and sunrise at the office. But it paid off. “Because I am a business owner it’s not just a position [that of editor] I will give to someone. I don’t think I’ll find someone who will look after it the way that I do. The whole team 66 | FORBES WOMAN AFRICA FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014
has control over the magazine but my function is business management because we have three titles now and we do merchandizing,” says Sund. Being an entrepreneur has allowed her to free up her time and choose her lifestyle. “I started hiring the right people for my team and now I have set up a team that is pretty much independent of me, so I can be a complete mom in the afternoons and I can do my own things at night and I have the freedom to travel.” Sund attributes her business prowess to The 4-hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. “A lot of people do the normal 8-5 and get stuck in traffic for two hours a day and they don’t do the things they love, they do things because they have to get them done, but the thing is it’s all about the mindset,” she says. The business owner and fitness fanatic shines when she compares life to a gym workout.
Photo: Cindy Ellis
The Entrepreneur As An Astrophotographer
“It’s like gym, with anything in life, you don’t find the time, you make the time. You’re not going to get stuff served on a platter and everyone is going to dream ‘Oh, this would be so nice,’ well work for it, the only person who is going to give it to you, is you.” She finds herself applying many of the skills she utilizes in publishing to her astrophotography. “It’s a very deep rabbit hole but start somewhere and as soon as you get involved and see the possibilities, it opens up a whole new world. I like technical challenges and that’s why this mergers passion with the intellectual side of problem solving, astronomy and art,” says Sund.
“It started with my dad, we borrowed a Dobsonian telescope from a friend of his. It didn’t even have a stand, so we used to rest it on our braai [barbeque]. I remember many cold winter nights… With Haley’s comment, he woke me up in the middle of the night and carried me out of bed,” says Sund. An early childhood fascination in astronomy led to hours of watching Yoda and peering, with one eye shut and draped in blankets, through telescopes. “I was a Star Wars fan, growing up I watched it repeatedly. Just the whole concept of interstellar travel and other galaxies, life and adventure [intrigued me].” Astrotanja – as she is known in the online astrophotography community to fellow purveyors of the night sky – bought her first telescope, a Bushnell reflector sonutonian 3-inch, in 2007. Since then, her evenings, weekends and vacations are planned around the heavens. She has already photographed deep space from Africa, North America and Europe, and in late 2013 traveled to Iceland to photograph the Northern Lights. Astrophotography became her “professional hobby”, as she calls it, in early 2012. “I know of three other female [astrophotographers in the world]. I’m sure there are more females out there but they are not very active online,” she says. She is yet to meet, even virtually, another female, African astrophotographer. They seem to be as rare as alien sightings, which is one of the most common questions she is asked. “I believe that there is life elsewhere, I don’t know if it’s intelligent life but honestly if I was an alien, I wouldn’t want to come to earth, I don’t think our civilization is advanced enough. Being of a superior intelligence, being able to travel through space, they should know that if they reveal themselves to us there FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA | 67
will be anarchy. Just leave Earth alone. But I definitely think that there is other microbial and non-intelligent life out there, the universe is just too big. If you think about evolution or the age of man, we’ve only been here for such a short time of Earth’s lifespan, dinosaurs have come and gone, so exactly the same may have happened elsewhere, where there may have been intelligent life that may have been destroyed. I think it’s very narrow-minded to think that we’re the only living creatures, look at how many billions of stars are in our galaxy and then there are billions of galaxies out there. We’re not that unique.” The curious often ask her if she has managed to photograph a UFO. “I’ve seen one weird thing but I’m not sure if it was a UFO. I have to think about this intelligently. I’m sure it was Chinese lanterns but it was like the three-point that a lot of people describe and they move together. I ran into my home to get my camera but then they weren’t there anymore,” she says. Aliens or no aliens, Sund’s greatest love is deep sky photography because it is all about the editing technique and stacking principle. She has learnt to see the potential of a photograph in its pixels, long before she has edited or stacked it. Sund prefers deep sky photography to star trails – those long-exposure photographs that illustrate the apparent movement of the stars, which is actually due to the Earth’s rotation – as it is more challenging. Her best advice to aspiring astrophotographers is: “As with anything, if you’re passionate about it, if you’re persistent and you just educate yourself, and the education is out there, [you can do it]. Everything I do in my life is like that: I let my passion drive me.” But astrophotography will never be her fulltime job because, in her opinion, relying on it financially will kill the passion. Sund has already presented workshops at Africa’s biggest photography expo that is held annually in Johannesburg, but that is as far as it goes. “I’m not interested in that because financially I make more money with my publication, so why would I work hard to free up my time only to fill it in?” By using her background in publishing, she hopes to write a beginner’s guidebook to astrophotography and sell her photographs through an online gallery. While her head may be in the stars, this entrepreneur’s feet are firmly on the ground. FW 68 | FORBES WOMAN AFRICA FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014
Astrotanja’s Tips Wide field lens photography remains the most accessible form of astrophotography. Whether you’re shooting the Milky Way or star trails, the basics remain the same. 1. Dark location To escape light pollution and capture more stars, drive at least 100km from the city. 2. Know where to look Get a sky atlas or use planetarium software to plan your image session. Learn the constellations and objects that are in the sky at each time of year. 3. Equipment Tripod: Essential for long exposure photos and star trails. Shutter release cable: Minimizes unwanted vibrations on the camera and assists continuous exposures during star trails. Cameras and lenses: Use the fastest and widest lens (with the lowest f-stop). Learn manual mode and disable all automatic functions. Shoot in RAW format for best quality. 4. Camera settings Aperture: As wide as your lens allows to gather more light, usually F/2.8 - F/4. If you see ‘halos’ around the photographed zoomed in stars, stop down the aperture by one.
20-second exposures. Increasing to 30 seconds allows the camera to gather more light but will also increase the amount of star trails. Experiment with your lens. Focusing: Switch off all autofocus and image stabilization functions. Manually focus the lens near its infinity mark. Take a series of photos while slightly moving the focus ring forward and back between shots. Compare them when zoomed in 100% on your LCD display to see which position produces the clearest stars. 5. Shooting star trails Compose your photo by including the celestial pole (due north or south, depending on your hemisphere) and some interesting foreground objects. Settings: a.) Shoot star trails with the same settings as single night sky photos and switch off the ‘in camera noise reduction’. b.) Use a 30-seconds exposure time and turn on the continuous shooting setting with the shutter release locked in to ensure continuous photos are taken with minimal or no delay between them. Editing software: Once you have a series of night sky photos, a number of hours worth, use StarStax to layer and combine images into one photo that reveals the earth’s rotation.
ISO: Dependant on your location and camera sensor, use ISO 800, 1600 or 3200, but the higher the ISO, the greater the noise. When shooting single exposures activate ‘in camera noise reduction’.
6. Helpful astronomy software Stellarium: Free open source and cross-platform planetarium software.
Exposure time: This is dependent on the lens’ focal length. For wide field photos, less than 35mm, use
StarStax: Free cross-platform software that layers and combines images for star trails.
SkySafari: A portable planetarium for smartphones.
FEBRUARY - MARCH 2014 FORBES WOMAN AFRICA | 69
