I’d like to start by acknowledging an amazing letter from one of the readers of the Blackmore Vale Magazine in last month’s edition. I was thrilled and humbled to read that my new article is inspiring others to look skyward and to get into the amazing hobby of astronomy and astrophotography! Sharing this wonderful passion […]

Any keen Astronomer or Astrophotographer born before the early 90s will remember seeing the iconic image of the Pillars of Creation taken by Nasa’s Hubble Space Telescope in April 1995. These elephant trunks of interstellar gas reside in the Eagle Nebula (M16), specifically the Serpens (the serpant) constellation, some 6,500–7,000 light years from Earth. Dubbed […]

Since we were treated to an annular solar eclipse last month on June 10th, and it was of course inevitably mostly cloudy during this celestial event, I thought I’d share one of the glimpses that I managed to get of the eclipse as so many would not have been as fortunate. The moon appeared to […]

We’re now at that point in the year where astronomical darkness is not achieved duringthe night, making it quite challenging for astrophotographers to capture the amount of data required to create highly detailed images. I had tried to capture M13, the Great Globular cluster mentioned below, but alas, as is often the case, things didn’t […]

Meeting Rob Nolan – Your New Guide To The Stars: A semi professional photographer for 6 years, my passion for landscape photography lead me to shooting commercial events and weddings. During lockdown when the beautiful Dorset coastline was no longer accessible I decided to combine my two life-long interests; Photography and Astronomy. We enjoy some […]

This month it’s all about Venus as it returns to the evening skies in April, making it a planetto keep an eye on for the rest of the year. Venus will slowly re-emerge into the eveningtwilight as an ‘Evening Star’, just as it did for much of 2019 and 2020. Perhaps tricky to seein the […]

Just before sunrise on 5 March, low on the south eastern horizon, search the eastern pre-dawn sky and you’ll find tiny Mercury (now at its maximum distance from the Sun) will bejust above gas giant Jupiter. This conjunction between the Solar System’s smallest andlargest planets will occur in the constellation of Capricornus, known as the […]

February brings a host of night sky activity that will surely delight. On the 6th a very bight Venus will pass Saturn, if you look to the east-southest horizon just before dawn you will be able to see them together easily in the same view. On the 10th in the same view you will also […]