Welcome 2026 Speaker Marybeth Kiczenski
We are delighted to announce that Marybeth Kiczenski will be presenting at the Nightscaper Photo Conference!
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Marybeth Kiczenski is a Great Lakes-based adventurer and photographer with an obsession for dark skies and northern lights.
Wasn’t always this way, though. She got her feet wet, so to speak, with automotive photography. Always at the racetrack, she loved capturing those nuanced moments of a car under extreme pressure. From the tire wrinkle to the flames forced through the exhaust right before launch.
She is also an automotive product specialist who travels on the show circuit, a job that has taken her to virtually all corners of the United States and sparked her extreme wanderlust. She says this world is full of beauty, waiting to be discovered, and that’s where the shift from automotive photography to landscapes and nightscapes happened. What a difference, too! From high-speed, split-second reactions to minute-long exposures of the night sky. Couldn’t be any further apart, and she enjoys the challenges of both.
Marybeth feels fortunate to find wonderful people in the nightscaper world who inspire and push her beyond her limits. She has been featured on National Geographic Your Shot and Sky & Telescope, and was awarded an APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) in 2021. Her hope is to inspire and help others grow in their own journey.
Marybeth’s Presentations
© Marybeth Kiczenski
Space Weather Tools: Traps and Truths for Chasing Auroras
We live in the golden age of information. Photographers have access to more space weather data than ever before, from magnetometers to real time solar wind data to what seems like hundreds of apps. Despite all this information, the northern lights still have a habit of appearing when the forecast says “unlikely” and disappearing when Kp 6 is trending on social media. Why?
Marybeth Kiczenski will explore the space weather tools most commonly used by aurora chasers and photographers, and the ways that these tools are often misunderstood in the heat of the chase. She will detail how sometimes seemingly “good” data leads to nothing due to Earth’s magnetosphere adding its own chaotic personality to the mix. Along the way shee’ll discuss how to interpret real-time data and what is useful at different latitudes.
The goal: fewer broken expectations, better-informed chases, and maybe a little less yelling at aurora apps.
When Plans Go Wrong: Working with Mother Nature’s Unpredictability
What do you do when your master plan completely falls apart? Cry? Scream at the heaven above? Give up? Maybe all of the above?
Or … take these lemon moments and squeeze them into lemonade. As a photographer who has been adventuring around for a number of years, Marybeth Kiczenski can attest to many trips, trials and tribulations. Sometimes the best laid plans just fall apart.
What Marybeth has learned is that these moments give you opportunities. They force you out of your comfort zone, and sometimes can surprise you in ways you never imagined. They also give you a sense of gratitude for those times when everything does go smoothly.
This talk will be a little bit story time in addition to lessons on how to pivot and not let your emotions take control.
How do you stay involved?
If you haven’t yet, register for the Nightscaper Conference today!
Please share the 2026 Nighscaper Conference with your friends, other astro-landscape photographers and those who want to jump-start their skills. We also encourage you to share it with folks who are just getting into the craft.
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