Last year I did a talk on Narrow Band imaging and the Hubble palette, I am going back again this year to do another talk which is going to be on the many different colour palettes that are available to astroimagers

I have added the finished image of NGC7000 in HST palette to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added two new pictures to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have managed two nights of imaging in the last two weeks so have added two new images to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added an image of M3 taken last night to the star cluster section of the image gallery

I have added an image of NGC2264 to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added a HST palette image of th Rosette nebula to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added an image of the Jelly fish nebula in HST palette to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added two new pictures of IC443 and B33 to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added a picture of NGC1499 to the Nebulae 2 page o the image gallery

I have added 3 new images to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have posted some new images to the gallery of pictures taken with my new FSQ106 and 5nm filters

My image of the Bubble nebula (NGC7635) in HST palette has been voted image of the week on www.myastrospace.com

I have added a picture of IC1805/Melotte15 to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added the finished image of NGC6992 in HST palette to the Nebulae 2 section of the image gallery

My image of NGC6960 in HST palette has won image of the week on www.myastrospace.com for week commencing September 14th 2009

I have added a new image of NGC6979 - Pickerings Triangle in HST palette to the Nebulae 2 section of the image gallery

I have added two new pictures of NGC6960 to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery using different narrow band palettes

I have completed the OIII AND SII channels for my NGC6960 image and added them to the Ha channel to create a HST palette, it is in the Nebulae 2 section of the image gallery

I have added a new picture of NGC6960 in Ha to the Nebulae 2 section of the image gallery

I have added two new pictures, oneof M27 and one of IC1805 to the nebulae2 section of the image gallery

I have added a Ha image of NGC7380 to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

I have added a widefield image of the double star Albireo to the star cluster section of the image gallery

I have finally managed to complete my three channel narrowband image of IC1396 which is in the Nebulae2 section of the image gallery

I have added a Ha image of the Elephants Trunk Nebula to the Nebulae 2 page of the image gallery

My colour image of NGC 6888 - The Crescent Nebula has been voted image of the month for June 2009 on www.myastroimages.com

I have added a colour picture of NGC 6888 - The Crescent Nebula to the Nebulae 2 secton of the image gallery

I have added a picture of The Crescent Nebula - NGC6888 to the Nebulae 2 section of the image gallery

I have posted an image of the nebula around Sadr (IC 1318) to the nebula section of the image gallery

I have added a new image of the Needle galaxy to the galaxy section of the image gallery

I have added a new picture of NGC 4565 to the galaxy section of the image gallery

I landed back from my holiday to Orlando last Thursday. When we arrived there we were greeted by the heaviest rain I have ever seen, thankfully we were in a coach at the time being transferred to the hotel, at one point the coach driver was down to 10mph as visibility was 10 feet. Thankfully most of the rain was in the evenings and didn't spoil our days at the parks although it rained solidly for the last two days of our holiday but a couple of cheap plastic ponchos solved that problem. The theme parks were great fun and the white knuckle rides were plentiful (just how I like it). I went on a fast wooden roller coaster at Busch Gardens and I thought my bones were going to crumble, I have never been on such a bumpy ride before. On the way back from Busch Gardens our coach was involved in an RTA where some idiot came straight out of a side junction on the freeway and drove straight into the front of the coach, thankfully nobody was seriously hurt (just one child who was a bit shaken when she fell off her seat), the 'idiots' four wheel drive car was written off though and the police who attended and took statements said he had been drinking although he wasn't over the limit. I managed to do most of the white knuckle rides at Busch Gardens, Sea World, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure as well as all the water rides at Aquatica where we met up with some friends. The food was very good and plentiful and the people over there were very friendly especially in the shops and restaurants where they can't do enough for you (something lacking in this country at times). The flights were fine and my girlfriend, Joanna has finally conquered her travel sickness courtesy of a pair of 'C' bands which are velcro straps with a plastic button that press on pressure points on both wrists, they cost about £4 and she swears by them now whereas before she used to get sick if we had to go anywhere by bus or taxi and felt ill on the plane. Well it is back to old Blighty now and work and hopefully some clear nights for imaging.

I have added an image of NGC 5907 in Draco to the galaxy section of the image gallery

I have added an image of M 101 - The Pinwheel Galaxy to the galaxy page of the image gallery

I have posted an image of NGC 3628 in the galaxy section of the image gallery using just Red and Green channels and synthesizing the Blue channel from the red and green

My image of the Christmas tree cluster, cone nebula and foxfur nebula was awarded picture of the month for February 2009 on www.astronomyforum.net

I have reprocessed the M82 image and added it to the galaxy section in the image gallery, it can be compared to earlier processes

I have added an image of M82 to the galaxy page of the image gallery

I have added some more pictures of our dogs to the image gallery on the "our family" page, this includes some pictures of Blue who sadly passed away and also of the new addition to our family Hunter

I have added a narrow band image of the galaxy M 108 to the gallery page and some narrow band images of the cone and fox fur nebulae, the owl nebula and close up to the nebulae page of the image gallery

I went to Astrofest to help out on the Widescreen Centre stand in the company of Simon, Elena and Ethan from Widescreen Centre, Richard Day from Skylight Telescopes and Markus Ludes from APM/Lunt Europe. Despite the weather and the current economical climate there was still a good attendance on both days but I think the venue is now too small to accommodate so many people. I had the chance to have a quick chat with Sir Patrick Moore before he did his book signing and it was nice to see that he was as good humoured and sharp minded as ever, even though as he says, his body is tired. It was nice to meet some of the people that I have been in contact with via this site and the forums and see people in person. During one of the quieter spells I had a wander around to look at the variety of equipment on display including the much talked about NTM-500 mount (infamous because of the video boasting its 100 deg/second slewing speed). I have to admit that I found the high pitched noise of it slewing from one side to the other on a continuous loop really annoying and I would petrified to move at night in case I got whacked by a counterweight travelling at such speed. I wouldn't have wanted to be an exhibitor nearby with that noise going on all day, in fact Ninian Boyle from VentureScope came upstairs for a look around and he said it gave him a headache. There was a lot of fine equipment on display with some new innovations and upgrades from different manufacturers, in particular from Starlight Xpress with their updated cameras, very reasonably priced filter wheel and cloud sensor (should sell by the lorry load with the British weather the way it is). Let's hope next year will be as successful.

Thank you to everybody who took part in my poll to find out whether people used DSLR or CCD cameras for imaging, I was quite surprised by the result in that out of everybody who responded 182 used DSLRs and 122 used CCDs. I was expecting the result to be the other way round. I have started a new poll and this time it is to find out whether people use refractors or reflectors

I have posted two images, one a widefield and one a close up of IC 410 in the nebulae section of the image gallery, this was my first use of the Takahashi BRC-250 which I have just received. I also found out that the image that was selected for APOD on Boxing day has been selected as image of the month for December 2008 on www.astro5000.com, a French based astronomy site

My image of IC 443 "The Jellyfish Nebula" in HST palette has been voted image of the week for week commencing December 25th 2008 on www.myastrospace.com and a picture of "The Elephants Trunk Nebula" - IC 1396 that I took 3 months ago has been selected as APOD  for December 26th 2008 on http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

I have added two new images, the Perseus double cluster to the star cluster gallery and the Jellyfish nebula to the nebulae gallery

I have added some new images of IC 1805 "The Heart Nebula" and some cropped close ups from this image to the nebulae section of the image gallery

My image of IC 1848 "Soul Nebula" in HST palette has been voted image of the week for week commencing December 3rd 2008 on www.myastrospace.com

I have added a widefield and a cropped closeup of the Crab nebula (M1) in HST palette to the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added a new image of IC 1848 "The Soul Nebula" to the nebulae section of the image gallery

The 20 minute subframe image of the Monkey Head nebula has been voted picture of the week for week commencing November 11th 2008 on www.myastrospace.com

I have added a reprocessed image of the tri-band emission line image of the Horsehead and Flame nebula to the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added some new images to the nebulae section of the images gallery

I have added a new image of the Rosette nebula to the nebulae section and on eof the Triangulum galaxy to the galaxy section in the image gallery

I have added 3 new images to the Image awards gallery

I have posted two new images to the nebulae section of the image gallery, one of the Horsehead and flame nebula in Ha and one of IC 1318 using the HST palette

I have added a new image processing guide, this time for tri-band colour emission line imaging

I have added two images of the Bubble nebula and its neighbours in the HST palette (SII, HA, OIII) to the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added 2 new images of the Elephants Trunk Nebula (VdB 142) in SII, Ha and OIII to the nebulae section in the image gallery

Just got back from Kelling Heath and London this evening, very hectic week, sight seeing in London and then helping load up a big trailer for Kelling Heath with Simon Bennett from Widescreen Centre in London, he got back from Photo kina in Germany at 11pm on Thursday and were just finishing loading at the shop at 2am, then had a couple of G&Ts and to bed at 4am. Up at 8am and away to Kelling. A great weekend with plenty of sunshine on the Saturday after a good clear night for some observing if you could beat the dew that is. Another good evening of observing on Saturday with one of the WO carbon fibre 98mm that we brought using my Nagler 31mm and Ethos 13mm, wonderful views with that combination. It was nice to meet so many people and I hear the site was fully booked. It's back to imaging for me now (and work) until Astrofest in February 2009.

My image of NGC 6960/6979 "The witches broomstick and pickerings triangle" in Ha and OIII has also won image of the week on www.myastrospace.com for week commencing 26th September 2008

As this site is restricted to the size of the images I have registered with Pbase and I have put a link to my gallery on the links page where I have put a selection of my images so that they can be viewed in their native resolution

I have reprocessed the image of NGC 6888 "Crescent nebula" and added it to the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added some new images of NGC 6888 and NGC 7822 to the nebulae section in the image gallery

I have added a new section for all the images that have won picture of the week awards on any of the astroimaging forums or published in magazine and there is also another funny story added to the jokes section

I just found out that my image of NGC 6960/6979 Witches broomstick and Pickerings triangle in Ha and OIII has been voted picture of the week on www.stargazerslounge.com

I have just found out that my widefield image of NGC 281 in SII, Ha and OIII has won picture of the week on www.myastrospace.com

I have added two images of the Veil nebula NGC 6969 and NGC 6979 in two different colour variations, they can be found in the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added images of the Pacman nebula in HST palette and the Cocon nebula in Ha to the Nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added some different versions of the bi-colour veil image using different methods for adding data to the blue channel

I have added two images of the Veil nebula (NGC 6992) to the nebulae section in the image gallery

I have posted two images of the Bubble Nebula to the nebulae section in the image gallery, one is a widefield and the other is a closeup

I have posted two new images of the Pacman nebula to the nebulae section of the image gallery

I have added a new page in the image processing section to show my method for processing a monochrome Ha image

I have added a new image of the nebula around Sadr to the image gallery, this was taken in much better conditions than the previous one

I have added a reprocessed image of the Pelican nebula to the image gallery in the nebulae section. Neil Fleming has kindly reprocessed this for me, check his site out for more information on emission line imaging www.flemingastrophotography.com

I have added a new image of Sadr to the nebulae section in the image gallery

I have posted an image of the Crescent Nebula in the image gallery

I have added new images of the Elephant Trunk Nebula in the image gallery in the nebulae section

I have added some images of the Pelican nebula and North America Nebula in emission line colours in the nebulae section of the image gallery, this is the first outing of the FLI filter wheel and first attempt at tri-colour emission line imaging

I have added new images of M51 and M106 to the galaxy section in the image gallery, I have included widefield and close up versions

I have added 2 new images of M101(Pinwheel Galaxy) and part of the Virgo Cluster to the galaxy section of the image gallery

I received an email today to say that my image of IC 405 The flaming Star Nebula has been voted picture of the week for week commencing March 31st 2008 on www.myastrospace.com I am particularly pleased with this considering the short exposure time and the low altitude in the sky. Also it makes all the sleepless nights sat in the cold really worth it when like minded enthusiasts consider your work to be good enough to be picture of the week.

I have added a new image of the California nebula to the image gallery

I have added a new section to the site on how I set up and do a typical nights imaging

I have added an image of IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula to the image gallery

I have added some more links to the links section, mainly to various forum sites

I found out today that my image of the Heart nebula (IC 1805) has been voted picture of the week on www.myastrospace.com/index.htm This is a very friendly site and forum based in Australia which I joined just over a week ago, I have to admit I was very chuffed with this as I had only just started using the TMB 115 with H36 and Ha filter and I hadn't long joined the forum.

I have added two images of IC 1805 in the nebulae section, both are in Ha, one is in monochrome and one is in false colour.

New image of the Rosette Nebulae in Ha has been added to the nebulae section in the image gallery

New image of the horsehead and flame nebula added to the image gallery, managed to get 80 minutes exposure time before thick fog came in

I have recently got my TMB 115 APO and first light images look very promising, also we have a new member in the family called Gunner, a rescue german pointer. 

One new image in the star cluster section and two in the nebulae section

Just got back today from Astrofest 2008, I was helping out on The Widescreen Centre stand upstairs. There were lots of people there and it was nice to meet new faces. I think there were more people than when I went last year so it is going from strength to strength. The highlight for me was when I got the opportunity to meet Sir Patrick Moore and have a brief chat with him before he started signing books on the Saturday afternoon. I found him to be a most charming person with a great sense of humour. I asked him about quoting a passage from his autobiography in the jokes section and he was delighted to help out so check out the jokes section for proof that Jesus Christ would have given Tiger Woods a run for his money at the Masters Golf championship.

Just out of interest I have added a user poll to the home page to find out which is the most popular for imaging, DSLR or CCD

I have added 3 new images to the nebulae section in the image gallery

I have added some more information and images to the equipment section.

Have added a new section on image processing showing how very basic processing can produce pleasing results.

Added some more jokes, they get worse!

Tried to make some alterations to site at work but the computer browser kept throwing up some wobblies so may have to correct this at home.

A true but unfunny story added to the Jokes section