Looking Further Than the Eye Can See

“The night is over before one has finished counting the stars”
– Fipa saying

I’m a keen amateur astronomer and the below are some of my images taken from my observatory in Somerset, England. 
For me, capturing photons of light to form an image that have been traveling across the cosmos for millions of years is a humbling thought. In some ways it’s like a cheap form of space travel and you often get the feeling of being transported across vast distances when you have photographed a celestial subject. It’s hard not to be inspired when you see these wonders of the universe.

M1 (The Crab Nebula)
This is the remnants of super-nova. At the heart of this expanding gas cloud, a neutron star is spinning at 30 times per second.

M13 (Hercules Globular Cluster)
In 1974 a message to possible extra-terristial intelligent life, was transmitted to M13 from earth. We are still waiting for the reply!


M42 (Orion Nebula)
A spectacular stellar nursery where stars are being born. It is easy to se why this is one of the most photographed subjects in the night sky.

M51 (The Whirlpool Galaxy)
The pronounced spiral structure is thought to be caused by the close interaction between M51 and the neigbouring galaxy, NGC 5195.


M63 (The Sunflower Galaxy)
M63 is a beautiful spiral bound galaxy. In the photo it is possible to see star forming regions along the spiral arms.
M65 & M66
These spiral bound galaxies lie at a distance of 35 million light years from the earth.
M81 (Bodes Galaxy)
M81 is a large classic spiral galaxy that can be seen in the constellation of Ursa Major and is 11.7 million light years from the Earth. 

 NGC2403
An intermediate spiral galaxy with numerous bright emission nebulas visible in the arms.