Interview by Kyle McNeill
Portrait courtesy of Bray Falls

KM Your journey into space photography had humble beginnings. You started out with a telescope, then an iPhone and a pair of binoculars; and then moved onto more advanced astrophotography. What was the motivation behind the switch?

BF There are two reasons. First, the human eye sucks at seeing most things in space beyond the planets, so you realise pretty quickly that if you want to see colour and capture detail, you have to get a camera involved. The second reason is that usually none of my friends or family are awake to see what I'm experiencing through the telescopes. If I want to share all the cool stuff I’m looking at, I’m going to have to take a photo to show them when they’re awake.

KM What’s the rush like when you discover a new nebula? Does it feel like there’s something forbidden in uncovering the secrets of the universe?

BF Honestly, the process is so difficult that when you think you’ve found something new, the typical emotional response is doubt. Most things you come across are known nebulae or space debris. So you learn pretty quickly that you have to approach it with scepticism, or else you’re going to hype yourself up for a huge rush, and then crash. When you’re sure of the discovery, editing and sharing the image is special. I’m the only person in the world who’s been able to see this thing and I get to choose how it’s presented to the world.

KM I feel like the proliferation and degradation of online images makes this experience even more powerful. There’s a pervasive cultural feeling that we’ve seen everything before. Seeing something previously unseen by anyone else must be special.

BF Yeah, and it’s so hard to do in astrophotography as well, because we’re all looking at the same things in the sky, and if you stick to those things, then you’re often just taking the same photos that others have taken.

KM I imagine that for some people, the main thrill of astrophotography is being outside in the elements and having your face pressed up against the camera. How do you get that sense of enjoyment remotely?

BF Amateur gear has become so good and automated that most people who have a telescope in their backyard will be logging into it from their home office. So the difference between this experience and an observatory 1000 miles away is effectively nonexistent. I always like to say, you can have your cake and eat it too. I also enjoy the in-person experience, and I still do that whenever I get the chance. But the barriers for entry into remote astrophotography are basically all gone now.

KM What makes Brady such an ideal location?

BF The skies here are so good because Brady is in the middle of nowhere. It’s very far from any major cities, so there aren’t any lights around. People use this thing called the Bortle scale to measure dark sky quality – we’re technically a Bortle 1 site. The land also already had ultrafast fibre connection. It ended up being a really good spot.

KM You now rent out telescopes that have already been installed, but many choose to send in their own. What’s the process like with people moving their beloved telescopes to your ranch?

BF Many people ship their ‘scopes, while others make the journey to the observatory to drop them off, coming from every single continent. Some come on family trips; it’s an extremely sentimental thing. It’s like sending your kid off to school for the first time. People are also extremely attached to seeing their telescope; they want to be able to log in and have a view. Most people have a little camera that’s below their telescope, so they can log in and see where it’s pointing and what it’s doing. It’s their baby, and having it that far away is a scary thing.

KM It’s interesting that people enjoy observing the site itself – there’s something sublime about seeing all 900 telescopes lined up like a flock. The writer Ashlee Vance described the ranch on X as a “certain kind of erotica”. Why does the ranch have this fetishistic quality for enthusiasts?

BF It’s just cool seeing a lot of scopes at once. It’s something to behold; you really have to see it to understand it. I still get kind of shocked by it every time the roofs open. I think I have a slightly different attachment to it as well, because I was in there with the concrete drill. So for me, it’s like looking at a time capsule. Each building has a vibe depending on the season that we installed it.

KM Astrophotography has an ineffable energy, but it often feels kinetic.

BF I think with a lot of space objects, the signs of motion are there, but the motion itself is just so big and slow. It’s like shockwaves from an explosion. Some time lapses enable you to see tiny changes. And with comets, you can see the solar wind blowing away the dust and the gas, and this happens on a timescale of minutes.

KM Many of the tech elite dream about moving to space. Does anyone in your community share this fantasy?

BF For now, I don’t think anyone needs to move to space to capture it. I could maybe imagine a remote observatory on the moon one day being an attractive option; there’s no weather there, it’s clear all the time. Or I could imagine a photojournalist moving to the moon or to Mars. Somebody one day is going to be crazy enough to take up a one-way test mission. .