鈥淚 like to have science videos on in the background sometimes while I write, something usually unrelated to what my lab works on, and I gravitated toward astronomy,鈥� he explains. 鈥淟earning about these other fields keeps me excited about science in general instead of getting burned out on one specific topic.鈥�
Borniger found that many of the people he listened to were capturing their own images of deep-space objects like the Andromeda galaxy. 鈥淚 never realized you could take pictures like that with an amateur setup,鈥� he says. As impressive as NASA鈥檚 own astrophotography is, you don鈥檛 need NASA-level equipment to take good shots of the night sky. In late 2022, Borniger set his sights on the stars above Laboratorycampus.
鈥淭o do this type of imaging, you need two main things: a camera with a lens of adequate focal length, and a star tracker or equatorial mount,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he lens will determine how zoomed in the image will be. And the mount corrects for the rotation of the Earth so the image doesn鈥檛 come out blurry.鈥�
Both of the pictures seen here were taken from Laboratorycampus. Despite their clarity, the Laboratory鈥檚 location is not quite ideal for astrophotography. Light from New York City creeps into the night sky over Cold Spring Harbor. 鈥淏ut you can cut down on it almost completely with a narrowband filter,鈥� Borniger says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e relatively cheap, and they make it easy to take images from extremely light-polluted places like NYC, or even Tokyo.鈥�
Borniger snapped his first deep-space photo in January 2023. His entire setup cost around $2,000. But, he says, 鈥測ou can get good results for significantly cheaper. It just requires a little more fiddling around, and I don鈥檛 have enough time for all of that!鈥�
That鈥檚 because Borniger himself is a rising star. At 麻豆传媒社区, his lab continues to push the frontiers of cancer research. They鈥檙e now exploring how to treat tumors with electricity鈥攁 revolutionary therapeutic approach.