Peter Mein

After studying aerospace engineering, Peter worked for many years as an engineer at a large aerospace company.

He received his first telescope as a gift at the age of 15 and began astrophotography in the following years, at that time still with an analogue SLR camera and black-and-white film. After a long break due to a lack of space for a telescope, he discovered the Pentax Astrotracer in 2015 as a simple method of photographing the starry sky with just a camera and tripod.

He specialises in deep sky photography, photographing objects outside our solar system, and enjoys comet hunting, capturing celestial events such as solar and lunar eclipses, and is also a specialist in high-resolution moon images with DSLR.

‘It's always fascinating to see what you can do with the Astrotracer to take photos of nebulae and galaxies. Thirty years ago, you would have needed a medium-sized observatory to take pictures like this, but today all you need is a camera, a good lens and a tripod.’

Since 2021, Peter Mein has been writing technical articles on astrophotography for the magazine ‘c't Fotografie’, specialising in ‘moon photography’ and ‘events in the starry sky’. He also tests new equipment. Peter Mein is an active member of the Dahlewitz Observatory, where he gives lectures on astronomical topics several times a year.