The historic city of Linz, Austria becomes a beating heart of astrophotography in Europe by holding a major event each two years in spring, that provides a unique meeting opportunity for dedicated astrophotographers in Europe to share ideas.

The Central European Deep Sky Imaging Conference (CEDIC) is a growing event that sees more international attendees each time. The second CEDIC in 2011 for example had more than 150 participants from 20 countries, including lecturers from South and North America, and the Middle East. Linz is also the home to some of the country’s most accomplished amateur astronomers.

The CEDIC team tries to invite an internationaly known key-speaker for each conference. In 2011 R. Jay Gabany from the United States was the featured lecturer and in 2013 David Malin from Australia was invited. The well known founder of TWAN and science journalist Babak A. Tafreshi was leturer in 2011 and 2013. Indeed the challenges and techniques of landscape astrophotography, now often referred as TWAN-style photography, which were covered by the lectures of Babak A. Tafreshi are much different from deep-sky imaging, but the CEDIC team intend to include all aspects of astrophotography to broaden the audience of their conference.

While most astrophotographers who have been to CEDIC report, that this is one of the best conferences they have ever visited, this does not only reflect the high quality of the lectures and the professional organization. We should also have a look at another very important thing of the CEDIC: Meeting astrophotographers (and friends) from all over the world, exchanging not only knowledge but also hanging around together and have fun. Maybe this is the reason why most of the conference attendees also join the traditional Conference Dinner on Saturday evening, where we try to show the Austrian way of living to our guests: Having a nice dinner and some beers together ;-))

We are already looking forward to the next edition of CEDIC which is planned for spring 2015.

Yours,

CEDIC Spotlight Team

Some parts of this review are quoted from the TWAN Photo Report which you can find here: