Jukka-Pekka Metsävainio

Astronomical nature photographer and visual artist

Education and Work Background

• High School Graduate, 1983

• Liminka School of Art, 1984-1986

• Studies in the Department of Architecture at the University of Oulu, 1986-

• Founded my own design studio in 1992; best-known works include the pillar-shaped mailboxes for the Finnish Post and a large number of outdoor furniture and lighting designs for various companies.

• Since 1990, user interface design for consumer devices.

• Transition to photography and visual arts in 1999.

• Full-time visual artist and photographer since 2008.

Summary of My Work

My passion is to reveal cosmic landscapes and atmospheres that surround us, partially hidden from our senses. My work is very slow; a single image can take years to complete.

A CNN journalist once asked me what makes my images so special when there are billion-dollar instruments on Earth and in space capturing the same subjects. I replied that my images differ from scientific images because they are taken for artistic purposes. I can also use unlimited exposure time to present the views in the way I desire. Scientific observatories allocate imaging time in short increments, often just a few minutes, with multiple research projects competing for time. It would never happen that even five minutes would be granted solely to reveal cosmic beauty and poetry. Large observatories produce material I could never create, but at the same time, I generate images that these technical marvels could never produce.

Although I photograph the sky purely from an artistic perspective, my images also meet the standards of scientific imaging and are used as part of scientific work. When science meets art, the result can be greater than either alone could ever be.

My Work Online

• Blog (serves primarily as a photography journal): https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/

• Image archive: https://astroanarchy.zenfolio.com/

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jp.metsavainio

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metsavainiojp/

• Google News Search (Recent): https://tinyurl.com/mw5jc3ce

Awards and Recognitions

• Third place in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014 competition, organized by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, September 2014 (2,500 participants from 51 countries).

• Twenty NASA-published APOD images (Astronomy Picture of the Day, 2008-2023).

• Stella Arcti Award from Ursa, 2009.

• One of the top 20 astronomical images of 2012, selected by NASA astronomer Phil Plait (all other images on the list were taken by NASA probes or major research telescopes).

• One of BuzzFeed's top science photographs of 2013.

• Smithsonian Institution article about my work, USA, 2013.

Collections Featuring My Work

• Science Photo Library, London

• National Geographic, USA

• Yellow Korner, France

• Vatican Observatory• NASA, USA

• Oulu Art Museum

• Tampere Art Museum

• City of Tampere

• Smithsonian Institution, USA

• Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Exhibitions and Major Works

• Dozens of gallery exhibitions across Finland (2012-2024).

• Multimedia artwork, Oulu, Hotel Lasaretti, Aurora Hall, 2012.

• Two multimedia artworks at Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria, 2013.

• "Moving the Still" photography exhibition, Wynwood, Miami, USA.

• Photography exhibition AIC 2013, Santa Clara, California, USA.

• Photography exhibition, September 2013, Sardinia, Italy.

• Finlayson Art Area, 2016.

• Large photographic artwork Cirrus of Cygnus, aluminum print, over 10m x 3m, OASO Educational Consortium main building lobby, Haukipudas, May 2014. Image: 

https://astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2014/04/astro-anarchy-get-published.html

• Large photographic artwork Path of Swans, aluminum print, 3.6 x 1.7m, Svenska Privatskolan i Oulu, October 2014. Image:

https://www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2014/11/astro-anarchy-gets-published.htm

• Cosmic Clouds 3D (2020) in collaboration with Sir Brian May and David J. Eicher. Eicher is the editor-in-chief of Astronomy Magazine, and Sir Brian May is an astrophysics Ph.D. and the guitarist of Queen.

• Currently working on a second book with Sir Brian May, set for release in 2025.

• The Northern Milky Way (completed in 2023), the most detailed and deep image ever taken of the entire northern Milky Way: 

https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/10/grand-mosaic-of-milky-way-is-now-large.html

• Lux Aeterna – Eternal Light, Hämeenlinna Church, 2024:

https://www.epressi.com/tiedotteet/musiikki-ja-viihde/lux-aeterna-iainen-valo.html

• A Thousand Years of Vocal Music concert series, 2014-2015:

https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2015/12/concert-thousand-year-old-vocal-music.html

• Voices of Apollo 11, 2021: 

https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/05/voices-of-apollo-11.html

Selected Media Publications from Recent Years

• PetaPixel 2021, a leading independent international photography and video publication:

https://petapixel.com/2021/03/16/photographer-spends-12-years-1250-hours-exposing-photo-of-milky-way/

• PetaPixel 2021

https://petapixel.com/2021/09/13/astrophotographer-turns-his-space-photos-into-kaleidoscopic-artworks/

• PetaPixel 2024

"This Astrophotographer Captures the Universe Unlike Anyone Else"

• PetaPixel 2025

https://petapixel.com/2025/01/29/astronomical-photographer-captures-his-best-photo-yet-of-tadpole-nebula-after-decades-of-attempts/

• My Modern Met 2024, a major cultural publication 

"Remarkable Astrophotography Captures the Sublime Beauty of the Universe"

• My Modern Met 2021

https://mymodernmet.com/j-p-metsavainio-milky-way-photo/

• Interview about my art on the Arto Nyberg show, 2024

https://areena.yle.fi/1-70235645

• EarthSky publication, article and video about the Voices of Apollo 11 piece, 2021

• CNN, 2021

https://earthsky.org/human-world/voices-of-apollo-11/

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/finnish-astrophotographer-milkyway-mosaic-scli-intl/index.html

• Forbes, 2021

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/03/22/compare-this-epic-amateur-astronomy-composite-with-our-best-space-telescopes/

• Newsweek, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/photographer-spent-12-years-making-this-massive-image-milky-way-1591347

• Smithsonian Magazine, 2021

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/astonishing-milky-way-mosaic-took-12-years-create-180977319/

Art of Astronomical Photos

Background

My passion is to reveal cosmic landscapes and atmospheres that surround us, partially hidden from our senses. My line of photographic work is very slow, and completing a single image can take years.

On bright nights, I have been capturing the universe from my private observatory for about thirty years. Using a reflecting telescope, I'm capturing intricate details, while with shorter focal length camera optics, I shoot broader areas of the night sky.

Subjects, compositions, and visual storytelling elements are selected based on artistic criteria. Each subject is photographed at least three times to create a color image. Astronomical cameras are grayscale cameras, so individual color channels must be captured separately through filters—just like in the first color photographs of the early 20th century.

Colors in my images are captured directly from the sky; they are not artificially colored in any way. Processing the images for publication is a slow process due to the large amount of data. However, the photographs themselves are not altered beyond normal color and tone adjustments. My images also meet the criteria for scientific photography. 

Photographs are always created through actual imaging, never by computer generation.

Download the pdf to read the full story completed with photos.