Ralf Vandebergh (born 1976) is a Dutch

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

, professional photographer and veteran satellite spotter from

Nijswiller Nijswiller () is a village in the southern part of the Dutch province of Limburg. It is a part of the municipality of Gulpen-Wittem, and is located about east of Maastricht. History The village was first mentioned in 1179 as "de Wilra sancti ...

. He is known for photographing the Sun, Moon, planets, satellites,

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

s, and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

from Earth using a telescope-mounted camera.

Biography

His work is widely published in the media. On 10 April 2009, NASA featured one of his images as its "Astronomy Picture of the Day". An October 2011 image he took of the defunct German telescope

ROSAT ROSAT (short for Röntgensatellit; in German X-rays are called Röntgenstrahlen, in honour of Wilhelm Röntgen) was a German Aerospace Center-led satellite X-ray telescope, with instruments built by West Germany, the United Kingdom and the Un ...

was published by various media outlets, including the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', and

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. In 2011, Vandebergh captured images of the Russian interplanetary probe

Fobos-Grunt Fobos-Grunt or Phobos-Grunt () was an attempted Russian sample return mission to Phobos (moon), Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Fobos-Grunt also carried the Chinese Mars orbiter Yinghuo-1 and the tiny Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment f ...

, which became stuck in low Earth orbit after communications failure.

Photographs

File:Isshtv120090917200858nm.jpg, The International Space Station photographed by Vandebergh: "The image shows not only the ISS with very special lighting angle but also it shows activity around the ISS which is often the case. You see the Japanese Cargo Ship HTV-1 in its demonstration flight shortly before docking and just a few hundred meters below the ISS." File:ROSAT one of the last images before reentry.jpg, One of the last images of the ROSAT spacecraft before reentry.

References

External links

Recent articles by Vandebergh
at ''Space Safety Magazine''
Ralf Vandebergh on Twitter (X)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vandebergh, Ralf 1976 births Living people 21st-century Dutch astronomers 21st-century Dutch photographers People from Gulpen-Wittem