Galaxies & Nebulae

The open cluster of the Pleiades is a captivating sight in the winter sky, with nebulosity visible even to the the naked eye. Longer exposures reveal the electric colour of the blue hot stars at the cluster’s heart. These bright stars make it tricky to capture the fainter... Read More

The Omega nebula, also known as the Swan nebula (although it looks more like a snail to me) in Sagittarius is a tricky one from this latitude (54° north) as once the summer twilight passes and it’s dark enough to take photos again, it barely gets above the horizon. I had a... Read More

Comet Jacques is now perfectly placed for Northern hemisphere observers. Visible all night for the next month or so, it’s path takes it directly along the spine of the Milky Way. This should make for some interesting conjunctions, and some good photo ops in the coming... Read More

Spring is a great time to for viewing galaxies in the northern hemisphere. The Virgo supercluster arches overhead in a vast swathe through the constellations of Virgo, Leo, Coma Berenices and Canes Venatici. Many famous and recognisable galaxies occupy this region, but none may... Read More

I was a bit hesitant to image the Rosette nebula as it sits quite low in the sky, and is even fainter than the tricky Horsehead nebula which I had difficulty capturing a few months ago. So I didn’t expect much of a result when capturing the images with my DSLR/barn door... Read More

Eleven and a half million years ago, a massive explosion lit up the Cigar galaxy (M82), and just last week, the light from this dying star finally arrived on Earth. This is a rare supernova event (and the closest to Earth in 20 years) so I thought I’d have a go at capturing... Read More

The Sun sets by mid afternoon this time of the year in the north of the UK. This is not good news for SAD sufferers, but it’s great for astrophotography! Because of the long nights, the summer constellations sit high in the late afternoon/early evening sky well into January. This... Read More

After being blown away by my first attempt at the Andromeda Galaxy, I couldn’t help having another go with the improved barn door tracker, this time using longer exposures of 80 seconds, and a lower iso of 800. The resulting image has a lot more detail and much less noise... Read More

Since testing out the new Nikkor 180mm f2.8 lens on the Andromeda galaxy, we’ve been cursed with almost 3 solid weeks of cloud and moonlit nights. This is pretty typical, as anybody who’s just bought some new equipment will tell you. The stars finally came out for an... Read More