Astrophotography

In the summer of 2025, I bought a 1000mm f/3.9 10-inch mirror Newtonian Telescope. My previous Newtonian had a mirror less than half that size, and it was 45 years earlier, but I never forgot the amazement and awe of looking up into the heavens, and have always wanted to try astronomy again. Now, as a professional photographer, I thought I’d be well-equipped technically to dig in and start making some photos of the night sky, and the nebulae I could barely see 45 years earlier.

My knowledge of light and exposure, and of course, grappling with complicated equipment, stood me in good stead, but I estimated the learning curve ahead of me to be around 5% of the actual curve I had to climb to even start and make my first rudimentary photographs. There was probably almost as steep a second curve after that to enable me to really make images I am happy with.

On this page I’m going to share some of my better images, and gradually build out this resource to cover my gear and some of the most important things I’ve learned and will continue to learn as I progress along this wonderful journey.

The Orion Nebula holds a special place in my heart. I remember learning the shape of the constellation, with the three stars of Orion’s belt in a perfect row, with the two stars at the bottom of his robe and two more on his shoulders, creating that unmistakable, familiar shape. And of course, the bright star, which is often depicted as a flash of light on the metal sword, is the Orion Nebula. Locating this in the night sky, and on a very clear night, being able to see a faint green cloud through my first telescope as a young teenager, is something that will never leave me.

I’d been fascinated by space and cosmos since I was a small boy. I made a rocket ship out of a washing machine box and filled it with egg-box switches and control panels, and while inside, living out my dreams, I would often turn on an old, broken radio and twiddle the knobs to make a scratchy static noise, and pretend I was trying to contact our base in vain. Being able to transport myself to those places thousands of light-years away was nothing short of a miracle, and I have longed to get back there for 45-years since.

One other thing I should add before we go on, is that to the nake eye, under relatively light-polluted skies, the Orion Nebula does appear as a greenish cloud, so if you are wondering why the background photo of Orion is red, it’s because of the filters used to capture the night sky. Is it not a faithful representation? Well, yes and no. We see the world around us because of the way our eyes are biologically formed. Some animals only see black and white, but that does not make the color we see a lie.

I currently use the following filters for the following reasons.