Astrophotography Archives

The Door is Open

By Simone Lipscomb | October 27, 2025

My hound often sits outside the pet door and barks to come inside….when the door has the solid panel removed. I’ll say, “Come on Vernon, the door is open!” And after a few minutes of thought, or something akin to thought, he comes through and climbs into his purple leather recliner.

This morning, one of my cats did Vernon’s version of ‘the door is locked and I can’t get in.’ So I told her, “The door is open!” And she came inside.

This was an unusual behavior as Tawanda is super-smart (not saying Vernon isn’t super-smart…his nose is beyond intelligent). Any time something unusual happens, I stop and pay attention. Especially after the contemplation I had this morning.

I kept hearing: The door is open. Walk through! So I wrote it down and put the paper beside my computer. As I begin the work day, the paper kept staring at me and I remembered a story I shared at a book event this weekend.

I was hiking with a friend up Alum Cave trail to LeConte Lodge. There is a point where the trail flattens out after nearly five miles of climbing. The higher altitude forest opens up and it’s pure magic. Thick carpets of green moss, the smell of balsam fir, beautiful spruce and fir trees create a wonderland of beauty. On our way back from the lodge, I stopped and pulled out a flute and stood in the forest and said… ‘this is for you…thank you.’

As I played the melody, I felt my heart open and then a rush of energy move through me that brought me to tears. There was such connection with the forest. I felt it on a cellular level.

As we hiked down, I contemplated the experience and realized the only thing keeping us from being in such profound harmony with life is ourselves. The forest is always there…open, strong, beautiful. We simply have to open our hearts to feel that Oneness.

In the book event with my friend and writer, Thomas Rain Crowe, I described the forest and flute moment and how I realized that the only thing keeping us from experiencing Oneness was ourselves. And the ‘fix’ is to open our hearts.

To be in Oneness, to feel love and connection, we simply have to open ourselves. We’ve spent years building walls of protection and it was smart to do that when we were kids and trying to grow up and find our way. But as adults, those walls keep us from connecting. We can become addicted to adding to and stabilizing those walls, reinforcing them, to keep ourselves safe. But then, our world becomes smaller and scarier because we’re repeating our fears over and over. The way out of that fear cycle is to find ways to open again. For me, it’s with animals and forests…rivers, the night sky. When I dare to open my heart and listen to the forest, the rivers, wild animals and my own four-legged kiddos, I find I hear again and again, “The Door is open! Walk through!”

—

Misery is found in our self-created prison.

We sit inside the cell and carve days into walls of stone

As the rusted, open door of iron bars silently waits.

A beam of light illuminates the opening

And we marvel at the beauty of it sparkling

In the dungeon of our shadows.

It whispers, The Door is open. Walk through.

By the magic of grace, we walk through the open door

Of our heart and know freedom.

The Door is open. Walk through!

Star Dust

By Simone Lipscomb | October 21, 2025

Stardust drifted down and I’m pretty sure I felt it lightly kiss my cheeks as I stood face-to- pre-dawn-sky with a wild look that only a blue-white meteor streaking across the sky gives me. My scream of delight echoed down the mountain and across the valley. A coyote might have howled in answer.

The massive fireball seemed to slow time and even now, as I sit pondering it, the meteor seems suspended in space and time. Forever etched in my mind, I see it.

I returned from Waterrock Knob last evening of imaging the comets…two of them…and visiting with other night sky lovers. I didn’t expect to awaken so early, but meteors call. And the Orion Nebula…I’ve missed it. A lot. It’s a part of my life since it shared some of its mystery last winter. It felt like a dear friend returning to my life.

We’ve had so many cloudy nights for months, with only one or two mostly clear nights. Last night’s viewing was near perfection with no moon, clear skies, two comets, a meteor shower…a star gazer’s dream.

Stars open me to the vastness of Infinity and are a key to unlocking my inner infinity. Being under their blanket of swirling, twirling light grounds me in the present moment and reminds me that human problems and politics and all of that are simply a tiny blip in time and space. Madmen leave a mark, but a very tiny and insignificant one in the eons of existence. May I remember this truth.

When weather and celestial events come together like they did last night and this morning, I find my inner constellations glowing bright again and my heart beating strong with the beauty of the Universe.

Finding Polaris

By Simone Lipscomb | May 23, 2025

The nervous system was never meant to deal with the amount of information overload we are faced with every day. The mind is constantly spinning and the body becomes more and more stressed as the nervous system has no time to rest and unwind.

Last night, while standing under a sky filled with brilliant stars, galaxies, planets, and nebula, I reflected on how much star gazing—in particular photographing deep space objects and landscape astrophotography–has helped me learn to slow down. Several weeks of cloudy skies has taken away that meditative time in the dark outdoors and left me with an uncomfortable angst.

When I started photographing deep sky objects, I would jump from one amazing galaxy to a beautiful nebula or luminous star cluster, rarely allowing the telescope time to capture the long exposures needed as it gathered more light. I recall sitting outside under crystal clear winter skies feeling antsy and impatient at waiting. And waiting. And waiting for images to appear.

Finally, I understood the stars and all that deep space deliciousness was healing my nervous system. They were attuning me to a natural pace—the rhythm of Nature. Since we are all part of Nature, it’s odd that we are so disconnected from the rhythms of It.

While under the night sky observing, it’s impossible to see the stars and planets moving. But as you pair stars with earthly landmarks and continue watching, you will notice they have moved. Or if you place an object in a telescope view finder to see it, eventually it waltzes out of the field of view and you must reposition the telescope. The most telling sign of movement of sky objects is star trail images.

How lucky are we to have one object in the sky that doesn’t move…Polaris, or the North Star. Everything revolves around Polaris. If you set up a camera on a tripod facing this stillpoint and take a series of long exposures, and then stack them while processing, you see amazing movement. How can anything that appears to not be moving, move SO MUCH!?! That’s the magic of Nature.

When we allow ourselves to sync with Nature’s rhythms, we slow down, but that doesn’t mean we stop. We simply go at a more natural pace that allows the nervous system to function normally…we sleep better, feel better, have more energy.

During these challenging times, never has it been so important to pause and allow the nervous system—the body system—to be in neutral stillness. Attuning to the rhythms of Nature aligns us with home, with our own North Star within. When we connect and live from that place of perceived non-movement and stillness within, we allow life to move around us instead of us trying to keep up at a frenetic pace. Let us find Polaris within ourselves and learn to be observers of the chaos instead of participants in it.

Cycles

By Simone Lipscomb | April 17, 2025

Laughter erupted spontaneously as the stars witnessed my sudden understanding. Photographing the night sky, whether through a camera and tripod or a telescope, is a master course in patience. You cannot force the stars to move any faster, if you are wanting to capture their movement to create a star trails image. You can’t stop clouds from moving in to obscure the galaxy the telescope is imaging. The moon won’t slow its rising to give another 10 minutes of dark sky. The sun won’t go down any faster to help you start the imaging session sooner. The laughter emerged when I realized I was having to embody the cycles and timing of Nature…to S L O W down and be present. A nearly constant message coming from every direction these days.

For months I’ve been ‘listening’ to trees. Or feeling trees. However a human might interpret that idea. To me, it’s listening to them. Why do humans go so fast? That’s the question I hear when I’m hiking among the old ones on the high trails. My answers have varied. Snow’s moving in, gotta make it to my car before the road closes. Wind’s picking up, don’t wanna be hit by a falling branch. It’s raining. I’m hungry. The list grows.

But when I take the time to sit on the moss-covered, fallen tree, I meld into the forest. I slow down. I remember cycles. I remember to breathe.

The stars teach me this, too. Inhale………..exhale. Pause. Inhale………exhale. Pause. Let go. Remember.

I am the cycles of Nature. I am the stars, the moon, the galaxies. They are me. We are part of a whole. Separation no longer exists. Peace comes….and then? The clouds creep in. And it’s okay.

The Anchor Point

By Simone Lipscomb | April 16, 2025

“The stars serve as an anchor point of stability in a dangerous and ever-changing world.” This quote from The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars, sang in my mind last night as I stood beneath the blanket of twinkling beauty.

I don’t recognize the country that I dearly love. It has become a war zone of political insanity, with fear being the commodity propagated by the current administration. It’s unbearable to stay fully informed, but the small news bites I allow to filter through my boundaries, drive me deeper into the woods and cause me to linger longer under night skies absorbing the beauty and capturing it to share, with hope that it brings comfort to those who also need an anchor point of stability.

May we gather in beauty and celebrate it, in its many forms. It is possible, in that space of undeniable grace, that we may find each other again and come together in Oneness.

The First Astronomers: How Indigenous Elders Read the Stars by Duane Hamacher with Elders and Knowledge Holders.