Category: Deep Sky Astrophotography

Astrophotography of deep sky objects such as nebulas and galaxies. These are predominantly conducted through a telescope.

The Triplet

Three spiral galaxies, M65, M66 and NGC3628 dance together amongst the stars. Galaxies are not my usual targets but as my primary target (M78) was getting low in the west I thought I’d fill...

The Coiling Dragon

Messier 78 writhes in Orion’s nebula, coiling restlessly like an asian dragon within a heaven of smoke and glimpses of fire. Its getting a bit late in the season for M78, I had to...

The Burning Flower

With a bit of imagination, this image of the center of the Carina nebula appears like a flower surrounded in a turbulent sea of flame. Even brighter than the Orion Nebula, the Carina nebula...

Something Stalks Distant Rigel

The Witch Head Nebula appears as a ghostly appartition silently drifting past the blue supergiant star Rigel, bathing in its cold coloured hues in contrast to the faint redish browns of the surrounding gas...

Mist of Pleiades (redux)

Re-learning some old processing skills that have faded over the past year of relative inaction, I’ve re-processed my previous wide-field image to include some shorter length exposures to produce an HDR version. HDR has...

Magellan Tempest

There has been recent furore regarding the naming of the Magellanic Clouds (despite his early writings on the galaxies, Magellan was not the earliest recorder of the galaxies). A movement has been growing to...

Mists of Pleiades

The bright stars of Pleiades shine through the mist like dust that drifts within the intersellar emptiness, their pale blue light revealing the seemingly gentle currents driven by the light of the stars themselves....

The Ghost of Rigel

Around the blue supergiant star Rigel, a ghostly appartion circles, its pale translucent form drifting through Orion, forever searching.   IC2118 (aka Witch Head Nebula) is quite a faint reflection nebula in the Orion...

The Blue Horsehead Nebula

Here is a quick capture of IC4592 – the Blue Horsehead nebula. The pale blue light of Nu Scorpii illuminates the surrounding reflection nebula, creating an almost ghostly apparition of a horse staring out...

The Field of Carina

The great Carina Nebula glows without peer in this image, nestled amongst a field of bright stars. The dense pack of stars towards the top right is the Wishing Well Cluster (NGC3532) and at...