Also called: Astronomical Photographer
Photographs the night sky and sells prints, teaches workshops, and licenses images.
You drive to a dark desert site, set up a telescope and camera that tracks the stars, and capture hours of exposures of a nebula. Back home you spend days processing them into stunning images. Most combine this with teaching, tours, or another job.
Very variable; few earn a full living from astrophotography alone.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
No formal education, about 0 years after high school. No degree needed; self-taught skills in photography, telescopes, and image processing.
Ways in: Self-taught. Training cost: Under $15k.
Majors to look at: Photography, Astronomy.
Growing about average. BLS does not project this specialty separately; rating estimated from related occupations.
Medium risk in 5 years, high in 10. AI image generation and processing tools flood the market with cheap sky images; selling prints and workshops gets harder.
Classes: Photography, Astronomy, Art.
Official data: O*NET occupation 27-4021.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.