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Technically Speaking

Out of This World

by Dave Trecker
aples is full of remarkable people, and Ted It all started in 1995 when he constructed the first
Wolfe is one of them. In his working days, he remote, robotic observatory in Florida. In 2016 he upped
Nwas a successful businessman – “juiced up” you the ante and moved his equipment to Chile, from where
might say – the Executive Vice President of Welch Foods he generated a remarkable portfolio of images from outer
(Welch’s). space.
That’s pretty impressive in its own right. But what One of those images was recently displayed at a
really stands out is what he did when he retired. No Naples photo show. Called “Southern Pinwheel Galaxy,”
tennis or lazy days by the seashore for Ted. He became the picture was the result of an 11 hour exposure made
a shutterbug with a passion for outer space. He put up of 75 eight-minute sub-exposures added together
together special camera equipment with telescopes and took over several nights to bring out the stunning detail. Located in
pictures the likes of which most of us have never seen. the Hydra constellation, the galaxy contains some 40 billion stars
Ted tells how those photos differ from the ones I get with my and is 15 million light years away (1 light year = 6 trillion miles).
Nikon. Staggering metrics for sure. It’s hard to wrap your mind around
“A normal photo,” he says, “is a handheld or tripod-mounted numbers that big.
shot of about a fraction of a second. My typical celestial photo, on But to Ted it’s second nature. He has cranked out virtually
the other hand, is a remotely operated image of about 7-12 hours hundreds of celestial images – galaxies, nebulae, star clusters,
total exposure time. It’s taken with an electronic camera cooled to planets, the moon, the sun and more.
-10 degrees Centigrade, mounted on a large telescope and driven To say he is well known in the trade would be an
by a professional tracking mount located 3,500 miles away at my understatement. He has exhibited in museums, universities and
observing site in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile – one of institutions from Miami to the Canadian border. In Florida alone
the darkest places on the planet. his work has been shown in science museums in Tampa, Orlando
“A normal object would be something recognizable, like a sunset and Miami – topped off with a one-man, 20-month show at the
or a mountain or a lake. My object would be totally invisible to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. A permanent collection
naked eye and only about the size of the nail on your little finger of his work is on display at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
held out at arm’s length from your body in the dead of night.” And you can see his work online. His website at tedwolfe.com
The result of this fixation has become a second career for Ted, has been accessed by over 125,000 viewers.
and a very successful one at that. It’s no exaggeration to say he is If you haven’t logged in, try it. You won’t be disappointed.
one of the top astrophotographers in the world. Ted Wolfe’s astrophotos are truly out of this world.

Dr. Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Naples.

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