Before me three dolomite pillars stand out before the Milky Way: the Tre Cime di Lavaredo rise austere against the vault of heaven, calm and imposing. It is the cover of “The Starry Sky of the Dolomites”, a refined and appealing publication. Leafing through it means letting yourself be carried among sidereal lights and the shadows of the sharp Ampezzo peaks.
“The Starry Sky of the Dolomites”, published by La Cooperativa di Cortina, is not only an elegant volume of sky photography, but also a concentrate of poetic images that encloses the stars in an aura of sacredness, showing them to us vivid and present in our mental landscape. Without doubt it ranks among the best publications of the last ten years in the astronomical field and stands out both for the high quality of the images and for the completeness of the texts, enriched by fitting poetic quotations.
The book is born from an editorial project overseen by Alessandro Dimai with the contribution of members of the forty-year-old Cortina Astronomical Association and is divided into six chapters: “A journey through the universe”, “We are children of the stars”, “Two steps in the sky”, “Photographing the sky”, “Manual of a star hunter” and “40 years of the Cortina Astronomical Association”.
No fewer than fourteen are the astrophotographers who have captured the Dolomite sky, including some internationally renowned photographers: Virgilio Cavalet, Daniele Da Col, Piergiorgio Cusinato, Alessandro Dimai, Diego Gaspari, Giorgia Hofer, Giuseppe Menardi, Marco Migliardi, Marcella Giulia Pace, Alfonso Pocchiesa, Renzo Volcan Alessandra Masi,. All the authors show a remarkable eye; they are true image hunters, and I like to imagine each of them as a wandering Ansel Adams along the paths of Cadore, dazzled by astral light, as he seeks the affinity of places, stopping time and involving the stars in everyday life.
The 102 images are so captivating that we can call them “photographic paintings”, and it would be worth buying it just to admire the photo gallery. Surely we are faced with an extraordinary collection of images that a single author would hardly manage to produce with such high quality standards. In the photos the Dolomites form the backdrop to a sparkling sky, or perhaps we should say it is the sky that forms the backdrop to the sparkling Ampezzo peaks. In any case the book makes us love this magical, enchanted environment even more.
The first chapter “A journey through the universe” is an introduction to observing the starry sky with hints about the structure of the solar system and the Milky Way. Reading it, you are guided in approaching the night sky and you discover the etymology (which goes back to Plato) of the word “desire”.
The second chapter “We are children of the stars” is an in-depth look at the life of stars: protostars, red giants, white dwarfs and supernovae are described. The Col Druscè Remote Observatory Supernove Search Program is also illustrated, with which Cortina’s amateur astronomers have carried out 250,000 extragalactic observations since 1999.
The third chapter “Two steps in the sky” is a reasoned list of tricks to spot and recognize stars: how to measure angles in the sky using your hands, how to orient yourself, use catalogs, identify constellations, recognize the seasons of the sky and the main constellations.
The fourth and fifth chapters are probably the most interesting because they introduce the reader to the complex world of astronomical photography without ever getting into overly complex technicalities; a conversational language is used and is fully accessible to everyone. In particular, the fifth chapter describes the most photogenic objects to capture. Since this is a book with great photographic impact, I would have expected a greater deepening of photographic technique and in particular a specific section devoted to atmospheric optical phenomena (photometeors). These, instead, are only briefly mentioned. In my view the best way to learn to photograph the sky is to read the photo captions in order to understand the settings and lenses needed to create the images. Since this is a photo book, I would have expected a technical caption under every image and not only accompanying a few shots.
The last chapter is dedicated to the first forty years of the Cortina Astronomical Association with a description of the activities carried out, thanks to which the association has made and is making the history of amateur astronomy in Cadore, the Dolomites and Italy.
All the chapters help to outline a truly stimulating, refined, useful and interesting editorial product, whether read for astronomical interests or for naturalistic cultural interests. Leafing through it makes you want to set off with a camera for those enchanted peaks. In this regard there is a section dedicated to trekking trails, with their relative difficulties, that lead to the sites where the most scenic night shots in this volume were taken.
