Christoph Malin's Blog

ESO Chile Trip to Paranal and Atacama Large mm Array

2011-11-28T13:56:00.000+01:00

Howdy,

I recently got back from an awesome photo expedition to Chile that took two weeks.

Image by: Babak Tafreshi / Twanight.org

Mission goal was to capture timelapse- as well as stills footage of the huge ESO projects / facilities Cerro Paranal and ALMA at the Atacama Desert, the words driest place.

Joining on that trip were friends Babak Tafreshi of Twanight.org and in the second week Stephane Guisard of Los Cielos de Americas (Head of Telescope Engineering at Paranal). It was a great experience travelling and photographing with these true masters of astrophotography!

The expedition was the most extreme assignment I have ever done, including

- two weeks of all night footage taking from 6:00 p.m. to 08:00 a.m., which was very demanding
- extreme heights with 5000+ m at the Chajnator Plateau
- extreme dry air, heat and cold, the Atacama desert is a non-forgiving place and zero-fault tolerant!
- very complicated logistics of bringing the huge equipment there and back

The TimeLapse footage is currently in processing both here and in Chile ;), it takes a while. about 50000+ images are being processed into timelapse movies.

During two nights off, we were able to visit Valle di Luna and some other great locations.

Looking forward to a new movie about our ESO adventures!

In the meantime enjoy a gallery here: http://gallery.me.com/vertrider#101679

Image by: Babak Tafreshi / Twanight.org

Cheers

"The Island" review on National Geographic

2011-08-16T14:10:00.000+02:00

My new TimeLapse Video "The Island" has just been reviewed on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - an awesome review, again very well written by Washington D.C. based NG author Victoria Jaggard.

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/15/new-astro-timelapse-video-the-island-showcases-astronomy-haven/

Sincerely

ESO uses footage of Black Hole Sun for their podcast "Under Chilenian Skies"

2011-08-15T17:21:00.000+02:00

Howdy,

I am happy to report, that world renown European Southern Observatory Organization ESO just used some of the footage of my video "Black Hole Sun" in their latest podcast to be found here:

http://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann11051/

If you watch the podcast you may find some well known mountain views from Tyrol in there.

Enjoy

"The Island" TimeLapse Video hits over 400000 loads on Vimeo...

2011-08-15T17:12:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone,

In the first week of August, I escaped the - so far - rather "English" Summer for a week of Mountain Adventure on my beloved Island La Palma with Tent and Sleeping Back as well as a truckload of Nikon- and astronomic TimeLapse Gear. And came back with my new TimeLapse Video "The Island".

Since it's introduction on Vimeo 10 days ago it was loaded incredible over 4000000 times from over 150 countries in the world, and viewed about 85000 times. Feedback is very nice and it is a great experience to share questions and ideas with viewers from all over the world!

This shows that our motto "One People, one Sky!" is true! Thank you all!

Thanks for everyone sharing this Video, this is awesome!

Teaser: "The Island" - La Palma Time Lapse Video from Christoph Malin on Vimeo.

The detailed description on how intense this production was as well as making of pictures can be found at the original link: http://vimeo.com/27539860

Cheers,

New Astronomic TimeLapse Video "Black Hole Sun" reviewed on National Geographic

2011-05-25T15:41:00.000+02:00

My TimeLapse Video "Black Hole Sun", filmed in Tyrol and on the Canary Island La Palma, is on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC!!!

Black Hole Sun - Astronomic Mountain Landscape TimeLapse from Christoph Malin on Vimeo.

Victoria Jaggard of National Geographic Online did an awesome rewiew of the video - many many thanks!

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/05/26/new-mountain-timelapse-a-soundgarden-of-night-lights/

Enjoy!

Nockspitze on TWAN Website

2011-03-18T23:18:00.000+01:00

Horay,

a picture of mine - from Innsbruck Nockspitze - made it to the TWAN Website. You can find it here.

The TWAN website is a ongoing project of "Astronomers without Borders", found by Babak Tafreshi, an Iranian Science Journalist and Astrophotographer in 2009.

All the best,

Ischgl.com Summer Website Bike part finished

2011-03-16T22:12:00.000+01:00

I recently finished all the research, editiing, texting and compiling of content for the ISCHGL.com Site's Mountainbike part.

This is part of a huge three level consulting assignment currently in works that includes GPS research and refinement, texting and imagery. Part two is to be finished this month.

Most of the images show the Vertriders.com Liteville Mountainbike Team!

Cheers

Spaceshuttle and ISS in one frame...

2011-03-16T19:32:00.000+01:00

During a astrophotography session I recently got both Spaceshuttle and ISS on one frame, or to be more precise on several frames.

The first object with some "haze" around it is the Discovery dumping excess water (weight) before returning to Earth. Discovery is "followed" by the ISS.

Further examples of this event can be seen here:

http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3003175

Some information regarding the water dump can be found here:
http://www.spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=09&month=03&year=2011

Cheers

Doing the Time Lapse Dance!

2011-03-16T19:28:00.000+01:00

Howdy,

together with Vinc over at One-Eye-Vision I have stepped into the interesting field of Astronomic-TimeLapse photography, which is a beautiful science on itself. "TimeLapse" means that still images made using a intervalometer with a Digital SLR, get combined into a movie using Adobe Premiere, AfterEffects, FCP or the like... Here photography merges with videography, and still images get moving.

You may ask why one doesn't use a Videocamera or the Movie function of a DSLR for that purpose? The reason is the lack of sensitivity of current Video Camera designs for Astronomic nightshots, that require a exposure time of 4-30 seconds (or more) due to the low light scene.

Well, you can find me a lot at TimeScapes.org and OpenMoco.org these days reading tons of tutorials and how-tows... Awesome community there!

With Timelapse I am deeply impressed with the works of Tom Lowe and German Master Bernd Proeschold... For a really cool feature about Bernd on German WDR TV, here we go... This is how a TL is done on a very clean base - the results are awesome...

Happy timelapsing!

Improve bike- and photographic skills @ the VauDe Bike Camp Ehrwald!

2011-03-15T20:26:00.000+01:00

Howdy,

planning for the VauDe BikeCamp at Ehrwald in May is finished, everything is scheduled. I am totally glad about the possibility of holding photographic courses as well as a course on how to avoid alpine dangers.

My dear Vertrider Liteville Team does some of the more technical riding Courses - which is cool. Will be as always lot's of fun and meeting nice people!

Guess who shot this picture??? :)

Ok, check it out and be fast - courses are nearly sold out!

With best regards,

Adventures in Deep Sky Astrophotography

2011-03-14T05:01:00.000+01:00

I've been quite busy last months with a lot of projects and of course our little daughter Elena :), so it was relatively silent here... But if you know me that doesn't mean that nothing's happening - the opposite is the case!

For example one of the assignments (for a well known German Nature Magazine) requires me doing astrophotographic images - I dubbed it "CSI Orion".

So I took a deep dive into this special kind of photography (a exciting new challenge anyway). And I have to say that Astrophotography totally rocks! It inherits both a STEEP learning curve and requires all my photographic and post processing skills.

The equipment used for Astro-images is also a new experience: I am using AstroTrac's TT320X-AG and a special modded astronomic Merlin controller head (which is also capable of GigaPixel Photography as a nice side effect due to the tweaks by the frenchies at Kolor). The Merlin Controller is completed by OpenMoco.org's legendary Stage Zero Dolly (another story) for a full programmable 4-Axis Camera rig. Amazing. Lot's of testing, testing, testing setups etc.

Furthermore the outdoor side of the project appeals to the adventurer in me: cold feet, drinking tons of hot tea from thermo bottles (if I do not forget them home), hanging out in dark remote mountain areas for the best possible clear and dark skies, long nights alone - which is very demanding. but one is busy: navigating the sky for galaxies and nebulae staying awake triggering camera shutters, changing batteries, programming intervalometers, managing external power supplies, controlling astrophotographic gear. Like back in the days...

I can only say: The first moment I saw the M108 spiral Galaxy appearing on the Monitor of my D700 was truly magic. But also hard work with hours of searching and adjusting the extremely narrow view of field one gets at 1500 mm lens, and tuning in exposure and ISO.

Check out the galleries here for some more Astrophoto samples...

At the set...

Classic Orion M42 with 1500 mm (D300 + TC2E-III + AF-S 500/4 IF ED)

M97 Owl Nebula and the M108 Spiral Galaxy. Hard work on those ones without GOTO and 1500 mm in front of the nose... I had to mess around with the ball-head...

Star Trails with AF-S 14-24/2.8, incredibly sharp even at f2.8...

Moon is fun @ 1500 mm...

Impressons...

Cheers

First "Youth Leadership Mountainbike Course" planned/implemented for Austrian Summitclub!

2010-06-24T02:47:00.001+02:00

Howdy!

Mountaineering Guide Paul from mc2alpin.at and me have completed the first OEAV "Übungsleiter Mountainbike" Kurs (SPOT Seminar) of the Austrian Summit Club in July. We designed and planned this new course on behalf of the OeAV. So I am now in the Instructors Team of the OeAV - which is awesome! A welcome opportunity to take all my skills of 20 years as a Mountainbike (Test)-Editor, Industry-Photographer, Bicycle Distributor Marketing Guy, Extreme Mountainbiker and Founder of Vertriders.com and Co-Founder of the Nordpark Singletrail. This is AWESOME and a great opportunity to shape a modern Mountainbike Course program for the Austrian Summit Club - it was about time!

See how much fun we packed into this course after all!

1. OEAV Übungsleiter Ausbildung in Steinach am Brenner from Christoph Malin on Vimeo.

In total 12 participants from all over Austria attended. Most of them had already done courses of the Summit Club on youth guidance.
I teached my knowledge in the fields of Tour/Route-planning and Orientation, GPS, current Bike- and Suspension Technologies, Riding techniques as well as Bike trail ethics.

Course core focus was:

Guiding- and Leadership competence at Mountainbiking. Leadership and management skills in mountain biking.
These include increasing the personal level as well as orientation awareness, route planning, technical know how and expertise in physiology and training theories.

• Fundamentals of sport biology, sports medicine and sports psychology
• Riding skills and economy of movement
• Knowledge on current mountainbike equipment (full suspension, damper/fork, setup, frame, disk brakes, ergonomics etc)
• Legal knowledge
• Bike ethics, best practice
• Alpine dangers of mountain biking and how to minimize risk
• Route planning and guidance
• Organization and implementation of guided mountain bike rides, crossing the Alps (Transalp) and mountain bike courses
• Support of youth groups with mountain biking (logistics, limits, difficulty)
• Exams

The Austrian Summitclub’s youth leadership course "Übungsleiter Mountainbike" is as of now precursor to the Austrian State’s “Mountain bike instructor”.

See a complete Gallery here...

The new Dates for 2011 are fixed! See SCHEDULE to the right.

All the best...