Stars in their eyes

Shanghai is thousands of miles away from Van Gogh's masterpiece The Starry Night - both in time and space. His evocative picture of a night sky filled with stars is a curiosity for most people in Shanghai who perhaps can recall childhood memories of a sky with stars in it. In today's city the stars are usually hidden behind a heavy curtain of pollution and neon lighting.

But there is a group who have found a way to see the stars above Shanghai, photograph them and exhibit these online. Some startling pictures of Shanghai's night sky have been creating a mild sensation online and the Bund Pictorial recently wrote about the creators of this, a band of night photographers dedicated to capturing the night sky with their cameras. Their views of Shanghai nights have left many netizens stunned and in disbelief that this is indeed the same sky they look at.

It's not easy work. "As a photographer, you have to battle bad weather, loneliness and safety issues," Peng Zhenhui, one of the night photographers, told the Global Times. "Often after a long night's work, you've only got one satisfactory picture. But even so, this makes you feel it's worth the effort."

Perfect insight

By day Peng Zhenhui is a bank clerk. The 30-year-old described himself as "an obsessive photographer of starry nights." "When I look up at this glorious panoply of stars I am in a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility. Personal gain and loss seem unimportant and all my worries disappear."

For 10 days following July 21 city air quality was greatly improved, a result of subtropical high pressure and Typhoon Vincent and this provided a rare opportunity to actually see the stars. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau said that these conditions occurred in midsummer every year. Peng said that he could even see the constellation Scorpio from downtown.

Late last month Peng went to the Nanhuizui Sea View Park in the southeastern end of Shanghai where he photographed the Milky Way galaxy which glistened like a beautiful irregular necklace crowded with dazzling gems. The pictures have been retweeted nearly 3,000 times on Sina Weibo. "I never knew we could see the galaxy in Shanghai!" one netizen wrote.

"I even managed to photograph a falling star - an especially bright meteorite. This is rare anywhere not just in Shanghai. It almost lit up the entire sky. It was unbelievable," Peng enthused.

Peng took up photography 10 years ago when he was a college freshman and his subjects at first featured snowy mountains and the scenery of China's southwestern Tibet and Sichuan. He discovered the beauty of starry skies quite by chance. Driving from Sichuan to Tibet two years ago his car broke down in the middle of nowhere late at night. Annoyed and depressed he got out of the car to look around but when he looked up everything changed. That was the moment he fell in love with starry skies.

Peng does not travel lightly. Whenever he leaves home at night he takes with him two cameras, three lenses and a tripod. "You need a fisheye lens which gives a 36o-degree angle if you want to shoot stars," Peng said. Peng now owns five cameras and five lenses altogether worth about 100,000 yuan ($15,733). He said to capture the night skies accurately a photographer needs at least a single-lens reflex camera.

Good star watching sites have to be well away from factories, people and artificial light. As well as the Nanhuizui Sea View Park, Peng recommends the Dongtan Wetland Park on Chongming Island, Datuan town in Pudong, Hengsha Island, and the Jinshan and Fengxian districts.

Peng suggests would-be star watchers should check humidity, temperature and visibility every day in case there's a chance for a rare sighting. City star photographers have a simple test for a good star watching occasion - if you can see Sheshan Mountain, the highest mountain in Shanghai, from the top of the World Financial Center, the tallest building in the city, it should be a great night for stars.

Overwhelmed and inspired

After Peng began posting his starry night pictures on Weibo others wanted to do the same. Tang Yi and Jiang Chongwu were two who were inspired like this. Tang, 27, is a full-time wedding photographer but was overwhelmed by the sight of the millions of stars seen in Peng's pictures and invited his friend Jiang to join him for photography sessions.

Not knowing exactly where Peng took his pictures, they checked maps online to find sites with little industry and few residences. They tried sites near Pudong International Airport only to find too much lighting and a very dusty atmosphere there, the result of a constant parade of heavy trucks.

Eventually they found their way to the Nanhuizui Sea View Park. And when they arrived the moon had just vanished and the stars were at their brightest. "It was dark all around and this glorious galaxy was just above us. The contrast between darkness and brightness stunned me," Tang said.

When their photographs first appeared on Weibo, a lot of netizens could not believe that such beautiful starry nights could be found in Shanghai and accused the photographers of faking the pictures. "Perhaps we have seen too many phony things and now we can't believe our own eyes even when authentic and beautiful sights are right in front of us," Tang told the Global Times. "We just photographed what we saw."

Unable to resist the lure of the stars, Tang and his friends returned to the Nanhuizui Sea View Park. This time, they saw the planet Venus and Celaeno, a rarely seen member of the Pleiades cluster. Adding to the wonder of the night was a spectacular sunrise - "Forget about Bali and the Maldives, come to Shanghai to see a sunrise," Tang wrote on Weibo.

After their starry night photographs were viewed repeatedly on Weibo, the park in Pudong has become a Mecca for star gazers. Peng Zhenhui returned there with a group of fellow enthusiasts last month only to find that the once empty area was filled with cars parking there. Peng regrets that the popularity of his photographs on Weibo has lost him the "secret garden" he once cherished.

Snowy mountains

The most magnificent starry nights Peng has yet seen in China were in Tibet and Sichuan. About two years ago Peng read about Niubei Mountain in Ya'an, Sichuan in the Chinese National Geography. The 3,600-meter-tall mountain boasts a fantastic vista of starry skies and snowy mountains.

Peng took a holiday and traveled to the mountain which has not yet been developed for tourism. During the day searing heat and sunlight burn the skin on the rugged climb to the peak. At night the temperature drops to zero. Visitors have to camp in tents, without running water, electricity or mobile phone reception.

"Even though the conditions were rugged, the scenery made me relax completely and I forgot all my worries," Peng explained. A picture he took there, Lovers Under A Starry Night, won him a prize in a Chinese National Geography photographic contest.

Peng journeys regularly to Tibet, Sichuan, Ningxia and Zhejiang chasing starry skies and beautiful settings.

Peng told the Global Times that there are places in the US, Spain and New Zealand where star gazing is actively encouraged. The small town of Tekapo in New Zealand is the world's first International Dark Sky Reserve, where the skies are almost totally free of artificial light pollution. It is one of the best places in the world to view the skies at night. "Our government should also consider taking measures to preserve our views of starry skies," Peng said.

A different approach

Wang Yigang, 40, is the manager of a building materials company and he too enjoys taking photographs of starry nights, but he has a different approach. The 44-year-old enjoys exploring historic buildings in Shanghai and often finds himself on the rooftops of neighboring skyscrapers to get better pictures.

Last month he was photographing city scenes on the top of a 40-story building when he noticed that at that height he could see many stars twinkling in the sky. "This is a rare sight in Shanghai and it makes for perfect pictures combining old buildings with starry nights," Wang said.

While others crowded along to the Nanhuizui Sea View Park with their cameras, Wang took his to the 200-year-old Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Jinshan district. One of his most popular photographs now is a picture of the old church set against a starry night. "Although this is not a really famous landmark, it is a typical Shanghai building," Wang said. "A city's culture can be found in its architecture."

Shanghai developed a unique style of architecture between the 1920s and the 1940s, combining Chinese and Western characteristics. Shikumen (traditional lane houses) often appear in Wang's photographs. He showed one of his favorite shots, a picture of an elephant carved into a wall on a Shikumen gate to explain that there are now only two others like this in Shanghai.

Wang has concerns about the future of the city's history. He fears much of it will be lost like the stars in the night sky. "These old buildings are very important parts of my life and I am sad to see them disappearing. The young generation has been born into a world of skyscrapers and knows little about the past. If these old buildings aren't recorded in some way, young people might not know they ever existed the way they did," Wang said.