Early life

He worked as a volunteer of the Pardubice observatory in 1999–2010 and studied Theoretical physics and Astrophysics at the Masaryk University in Brno (2007–2011). During this period, in 2011, he started with astrophotography.^[1]

Astrophotography

Petr specializes in photographing "rare night-sky phenomena" and TWAN style photographs with the night sky over known foreground. His images capture unique moments and views in the sky to show the importance of the fight against the global light pollution problem.^[2]

Unique image from Aitutaki Island

However, those distant places were over his financial capacities due to medium GDP of his native country so in 2014, he bought Working holiday visa and travelled to New Zealand. Working on fruit orchards for 4 months, he was able to earn enough money for his only goal: to travel to the Cook Islands and to capture (probably) historically the first nightscape photograph with the Milky Way over the popular Aitutaki Island.^[3]

ESO Photo Ambassador

In January 2015, Petr Horálek became the 22nd Photo Ambassador^[4] of the European Southern Observatory. He focuses mostly on Ultra-hd fulldome and panoramatic images of the night sky over ESO observatories, which can be freely used in digital planetariums. With this work, he participates^[5] on the program of ESO Supernova Planetarium & Visitor Centre.

Cooperation with other organizations

As astrophotographer he cooperates with NSF's NOIRLab organization,^[6][7] where he participated on virtual tour^[8] of all of NOIRLab sites (Kitt Peak National Observatory, Gemini Observatory, Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory). He is the Czech delegate of the International Dark Sky Association and active TWAN guess photographer.^[9] Since 2020 he works in Institute of Physics in Opava.^[10]

Scientific impact

Several of his images had scientific impact. Here are some examples:

• Record of a unique bright Perseid fireball on August 12, 2012, analyzed by P. Spurný at al. and published in Astronomy & Astrophysics magazine^[11]
• Data of the hybrid solar eclipse of 2013 in Uganda were post-processed by a mathematician and a computer-scientist, prof. Miloslav Druckmüller^[12]
• Sophisticated imaging and post-processing of the zodiacal light over the ESO La Silla Observatory in April 2016 revealed structures in the zodiacal band, image was published in the ESO Messenger 164 (June 2016)^[13] as well as the ESO Picture of the Week^[14][15]
• Determining the properties of an asteroid that hit the Moon^[16] during the January 21, 2019 total lunar eclipse^[17][18]

The zodiacal light over ESO La Silla Observatory, captured by Petr Horálek in April 2016

Awards

Images of Petr Horálek were chosen 40 times^[19] as NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, ESO Picture of the Week^[20] and Czech Astrophotography of the Month.^[21] In October 2015 the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid (6822) 1986 UO after him (see Asteroid 6822 Horálek).

MPC Citation for 6822 Horálek

Petr Horálek (b. 1986) is a Czech astronomer, astronomy popularizer, passionate photographer, and one of the ESO Photo Ambassadors. He travels the globe to observe solar and lunar eclipses. His breathtaking photographs capture the beauty of the night sky and its harmony with the landscape. [Ref: Minor Planet Circ. 95803]