He no longer counts the requests from the media, and if he also wants to answer our questions, he just asks us to leave him alone for a day to catch up on the delay he has taken in his revisions. Julien Looten, 22, from Arras (Pas-de-Calais), and an archeology student at the Master’s in Prehistory in Bordeaux (Gironde), has become a real star in recent days, after a photo of the celestial vault, taken on January 21 above the castle of Losse in Thonac, near Lascaux in the Dordogne.
It’s because the amateur photographer didn’t take a simple photo of the sky. He immortalized a “airglow”, a rare natural phenomenon caused by a chemical reaction in the upper atmosphere, where the sun’s rays excite molecules which then emit very faint light. These complex chemical reactions sometimes continue at night, with the production of light, a phenomenon called chemiluminescence, similar to the aurora borealis.
“It’s a rare atmospheric phenomenon, and you have to be in areas where light pollution is really low, with clear skies without a moon, to have a chance of observing it,” comments the student. That evening, I was just thinking of doing a photo session of the Milky Way above the Château de Losse. And when I got there, the sky was clouding over, so I thought about going back…” Julien Looten still takes a few pictures just in case. “That’s when I realized what I was seeing weren’t clouds, but airglow…”
“You shouldn’t miss it”
A particularly pronounced airglow moreover. “Usually, this phenomenon is limited to the horizon with a kind of whitish or greenish cloud, but that evening it took the form of ripples, with very intense colors. “Red, green, yellow, blue, purple… The show is extraordinary. A real firework.
Julien Looten understands that he is living a unique moment. A chance that should not be missed. “Clearly, you shouldn’t miss it, and choose the settings well, because it’s a chance to observe such a phenomenon in such a favorable place. He takes around forty long-pause shots to immortalize the event. After treatment on distortion and vignetting, some brightness and color corrections, “but nothing that hinders the reality of the photo”, it is published a few days later on the networks.
Next to Hubble and James-Webb photos
If nothing happens the first week, the photo is then marked with Apod (Astronomy picture of the day)a NASA site, which publishes it, and it is included on Sky, another site that compiles the best of Apod. The impact is immediate, “even with an international resonance. “You realize: I found myself next to the photos of Hubble, of James-Webb, of all the observatories around the world that take astronomy photos… They are models for me, and I never I was told that one day one of my photos would be shared alongside these. »
The young photographer is obviously over the moon. “It’s really pleasing, in addition it’s a photo that highlights cultural heritage and astronomy, in short all the subjects that interest me… It’s a great recognition, a source of pride, and as an amateur photographer , one can hardly dream of doing better. »
“Even more motivated to continue”
Especially since the young man studied neither in the field of astronomy nor in that of photography, but in that of archeology. In License in Lille, he arrived this year in Bordeaux in Master Prehistory. “I have a real passion for archaeology, but I also did astronomy with my father, using a small telescope, and one day I wanted to take pictures, and I took up astrophotography,” he explains.
If he recognizes that sometimes it’s “difficult to find the motivation, especially in winter, to go photograph the sky”, this time “the reward is the key, and that motivates me even more to continue. »