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'A' List Challenge Image	Welcome ...
	Art de Ciel.com is a website dedicated to Astrophotography for Astrophotographers and by Astrophotographers. The name of the site literally means - ‘Sky Art’, i.e. the photographic images of astronomical objects in the Sky - the many millions of star clusters, gaseous nebulae and galaxies that can be found in the depths of space, as well as those closer to home like the sun, moon and planets. The magnificent images you will see in our galleries are real objects, they do exist and if man had the technology he would be able to travel the many millions of kilometres necessary to see them close up. Until that happens we have to be content with the images we obtain from our own backyard or from unmanned space probes. Backyard is an appropriate word, because that is exactly where many of the images you see were obtained. All the images on this website were taken NOT by professional astronomers using the world's largest telescopes in remote location far away from city lights, but by amateurs using modest equipment costing a few thousand dollars, often located in their own gardens in the suburbs, or transported to a dark site nearby. It is remarkable that all this has become possible in the last 10 years or so with the introduction of the availability of high quality low cost telescopes, the invention of the digital camera and rapid advances in computer software which not only process the images but can be also used to point the telescope with great precision at any object in space and then to control the camera to take images of it.
M42/NGC1976 Joe Stefaniak
Featured Imager	The Content ...
Martin McKenna Maghera, N. Ireland
Image of the Past	The 'Sky Art'
	ArtdeCiel.com was created for two reasons. Firstly, to provide the astronomical imaging community the definitive ‘portal’ for their works; somewhere to gain inspiration and information on new imaging targets; a site where they can share ideas, get answers to questions and solutions to problems. And more importantly, to make everyone aware of the magnificent images that are being produced by countless ‘backyard’ astronomers depicting what it is after all the greatest work of art ever created – the universe in which we live. The images you see in the pages of this site are Works of Art. As with any art, whether it is a painting, a sculpture, or photograph - the key to success is the Artist themselves. Anyone can be given the tools, but it is what they do with them that is important. To help you, ArtdeCiel.com contains or has links to the many useful guidelines, manuals, reference works and articles to how these images are produced, as well as books, websites and magazines where the necessary information on the techniques, methods and equipment can be found.
	'A' List Challenge Image
M101/NGC5457 James Edward Keeler 1899	The ‘A’ List is the Ultimate Astrophotography Challenge. It consists of 109 very diverse targets; some easy, others difficult and some almost impossible!; there are Deep Sky Objects, Lunar Features, Planets and Terrestrial subjects, plus one or two surprises. Every few days we will feature an image of an ‘A’ list object, which one of our members has captured in their pursuit of all 109. So who will be the first to image them all? You could be the next to find your photograph as our next featured ‘A’ List Challenge image. Just submit your ‘A’ List images to the ‘Firstlight’ forum or in the member’s area galleries, don’t forget to let us know how many more you have to do! Good Luck to all who take up the challenge – you will need it!

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