Please introduce yourself ?
My name is Marcel Clemens, I was born in Cornwall, UK. I was trained as a radio astronomer at Cambridge University and worked as an astronomer for almost 20 years.
How and when did your passion for space was born ?
The main reason why I became interested in astronomy is simply that I grew up in a place with very little light pollution. The night sky in Cornwall can be very dark, and I just found it incredible looking into the night and realizing that I was seeing deep into the Universe. My first astrophoto was taken when I was about 14.
Please introduce your work
My images try to convey this sense of wonder without being inaccurate. I like to preserve a certain level of scientific honesty. Therefore, I try to show what the eye could see if only our vision were sensitive enough to detect the fainest of glows from the dark sky. For example, my images of the Milky Way were taken over several nights from the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii while I was observing with one of the telescopes there (the James Clark Maxwell Telescope). The mosaic image, consisting of hundreds of individual photos, shows the Milky Way in great detail and is exactly what you would see if your eyes were many times more sensitive. To this image I may add the horizon with a telescope in silhouette, which requires nothing more than a single photograph. The picture is a composite, but the final image shows what is really there.
I sell my work (at depressingly low prices!) through the main stock photo agencies, Shutterstock, iStock and Adobe stock. They appear worldwide, in print and on-line.
Recently I have started photographing insects under the microscope. The “Little Giants” exhibition showcases these images in prints up to 4 metres high.
Thank you Marcel.
Marcel Clemens’s space art
Interview : April, 2019
Pictures courtesy of Marcel Clemens
