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I did some more tinkering in Photoshop with the North America nebula data I captured the other night. I wanted to see if a version of the iconic Hubble palette would be possible, despite not using narrowband data. With a fair bit of trial and error with colour channel swapping,...

Yesterday evening I set out to a dark sky location in the middle of the North York Moors, determined to make the most of a break in the relentless clouds. The crystal clear skies making the one hour drive well worth it. The images I was able to capture without the glare are far...

A short break in the clouds was enough to tempt me outside with a plan to capture the Bubble nebula (NGC 7635) in Cassiopeia. I was only able to capture half an hour of data before the high cloud became too thick to continue. But the final stacked image came out a lot better than...

Last night I decided to astro modify my trusty D5500. Up until now it had remained completely stock, doing a great job for regular photography and astro work. But by replacing the hot mirror with a UV/IR cut filter, the sensor crucially receives around 5x as much signal in the...

As summer turns to autumn, one of the jewels of the northern skies moves directly overhead in the evening hours, making it the perfect target. The great galaxy in Andromeda almost fills the entire frame at 400mm with the Tamron lens and the D5500’S crop sensor. With polar...

Yet another big improvement on my old attempt at capturing the cluster, way back in 2014. It’s encouraging how well the AstroTrac performs at longer focal lengths without the need for autoguiding. The ability to capture two minute sub exposures at 400mm gives a huge jump in...

Inspired by the new editing techniques, I decided to revisit some of my old favourite images. It’s amazing how much more usable detail can be pulled out using modern techniques and software. The image above is a reworking of my original North America Nebula image from 2013,...