Technology is changing our lives. Those who are intrigued by the sky can feel it more deeply. It is just because of the contentiously progressing artificial intelligence that Zhou Kun can pry into a more distant universe. It is unimaginable a dozen years ago. Zhou Kun, a fan of astronomy in Qingdao, has already embraced the starry sky for 23 years. In the 19th year, the hobby became the way he would make a living in the future. Thanks to this, he could devote himself to seeing the infinite universe in extremely quiet Aishan Observatory located in Yanghe Town, Jiaozhou, Qingdao. As he continuously carries on international observation tasks, the universe seems to open a few gates at the same time.

    Dozens of hours are needed to take one photo

    Many people are astounded after seeing the photos of deep sky objects (DSO) taken by Zhou Kun because the universe presented by the photos looks so charming and resplendent. However few people know that it is very arduous and time-consuming to have astronomical images taken. Usually dozens of hours are needed to take one photo from the beginning to the end.

    The equipment that Zhou Kun uses to shoot DSO weighs 67kgs in total and is composed of 17 sets of devices with different functions. All the devices are computer driven. Human eyes are useless here and they can only give way to professional refrigerating CCD. It is a money-consuming and troublesome assembly because it takes a lot of efforts to make all devices mutually and harmoniously interact with each other. It will become a pile of scrap iron even if a screw doesn’t work normally. Before Aishan Observatory was constructed, mental breakdowns often occurred when assembling this big machine in the wilderness. The conditions required for shooting the sky are extremely rigorous. The transparency, tranquility, moonlight, light pollution, wind force and voltage stability are all affecting factors. Perhaps you have observed the sky by telescope. The sky is not as beautiful as you imagine because almost all deep sky objects are very far from us with the nearest distance hundreds of light years and the furthest distance thousands of light years. Even though they have gorgeous colors, it is very dim when the ray of lights arrives on the earth, the visual cells of human beings cannot feel the color existence at all and even the existence themselves. At this moment Zhou Kun needs a telescope and refrigerating CCD to shoot them. The sky is really too dim so Zhou Kun has to make exposure for a long time. Often one day or one month is not enough to take an object, two days or two months are needed. When the ray of lights and Signal to Noise Ration of the DSO accumulate to certain degree, the shooting work can stop. Extremely complicated photo post-processing then follows it. Finally an astonishing image is done.

    Make way for spaceship orbits

    In April 2017, China’s first cargo spaceship Tianzhou-1, which literally means "heavenly vessel," successfully launched to provide fuel and supplies will dock to Tiangong-2 flying in the space. This is the most important experiment before China constructs its space station. It is a very complicated process to make orbit designs for the spaceship. Avoiding obstacles effectively is an important part of the process.

    Spaceships are very likely to collide with meteoroids or even close and numerous space junk. It is a very important international cooperation project participated in by the Aishan Observatory to identify the position where potential dangerous meteoroids are. Zhou Kun has mounted on the roof of the observatory three sets of automatic meteor monitoring system respectively connected to three computers, which unremittingly monitor the meteoroids in the atmosphere and compute the orbits. When such data accumulates, a thick and dense data network can appear with which the meteoroid distribution in terrestrial space can be evidently analyzed. This way the spaceship orbit design can avoid these potential dangerous areas.

    Benefit astronomy lovers by making high definition DSO photos

    Since Zhou Kun set up China’s first starlight park in Aishan in 2013, it has become a very famous place in the circle of astronomy. Under successful operation, the number of people coming here for science popularization increases sharply every year. This has become the well recognized most comfortable and most successfully operated astronomy popularization base. Since 2013, the Qingdao Aishan Observatory is filled up with people in the days of meteor shower. At one night over 1,400 people came.

    In fact there are many difficulties and challenges all the way to today. Data missing or insufficient sharing causes many of them. For example there is a globally famous deep sky object catalog called Messier Catalog. It is composed of 110 deep sky objects. Although there is a lot of data on Internet, the resolution ratio of the object photos is terribly small. In the spare time besides professional monitoring, Zhou Kun plans to make high definition pictures of Messier Catalog. This science popularization plan has started in early 2017. It is estimated to need three year at least to shoot all 110 objects. Once completed, it will become China’s first high definition Messier Catalog. It will be a huge benefit for astronomical rookies. Wang Jianliang

    (Illustrated picture: Zhou Kun

    Illustration: 1. Zhou Kun under the Milky Way. 2. The flying apsaras and star trails in Jiuquan Satellite Launching Center. 3. Tiangong-2 Launching Orbit and Lunar Aureole, the national most outstanding photo in 2016. 4. Deep sky object and major planet shooting equipment in Qingdao Aishan Observatory.)