Artist: Braxton Townsend | Location: Rock Hill, SC
Orion's Sword of Stars
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Braxton Townsend
Rock Hill, SC
Braxton Townsend is an astrophotographer from Rock Hill, South Carolina. He has always been fascinated by space, and first attempted to photograph the stars in 2022. Most of his pictures are taken in his neighbor's backyard in Rock Hill or at a dark sky observatory near Lancaster, SC. He is a Senior at South Pointe High School and plans to study Physics and Astronomy in college.
Most daytime photographs are taken by exposing a camera sensor to light for only fractions of a second. At night or in darker environments, exposure time can sometimes be as high as 5 to 10 seconds. Pictures of space require many hours of exposure time to properly bring out detail. A specialized mount and camera are used to take pictures with 3-20 minutes of exposure time each, which are then stacked together to create a single image with hours of exposure. After this, manual processing is required to bring out detail and color properly.