From the eyepiece
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8 September 2026 · IC 1848 / Sh2-199 / W5 · Soul NebulaThe Soul on Its Own: 2h 27m on IC 1848
The Soul Nebula has been in the gallery since January, but never on its own — it was the right-hand half of a wide Heart and Soul frame, shot in one sitting with no integration ...
2h 27m 7,500 ly -
24 August 2026 · NGC 7380 / Sh2-142 · Wizard NebulaBoth Scopes on the Wizard: 6h 30m on NGC 7380
The first version of this one, from April, was among the thinnest entries in the gallery — a wide Dwarf 3 frame with no integration time listed against it at all, which is this ...
6h 30m 7,200 ly -
22 August 2026 · IC 5146 / C19 · Cocoon NebulaFirst Light for the Mini: 1h 30m on the Cocoon Nebula
This is the first image on this site that the Dwarf 3 didn’t take. The Dwarf Mini arrived recently, and last night was the first clear one since — an hour and a half on IC 5146,...
1h 30m 3,300 ly -
12 August 2026 · Sol · Partial Solar EclipseNinety-Six Percent: The Eclipse from Edinburgh
Twenty seconds. That is the whole capture — the shortest thing on this site by a long way, and the only one where the difficulty had nothing to do with collecting photons and ev...
20s 8 light-minutes -
9 August 2026 · M17 / NGC 6618 · Omega NebulaEighteen Degrees: 3h 45m on the Omega Nebula
M17 has been on the list for a while, mostly because it is a genuinely awkward target from here. The Omega Nebula sits deep enough south in Sagittarius that from Edinburgh’s lat...
3h 45m 5,500 ly -
7 August 2026 · NGC 2264 · Cone Nebula & Christmas Tree ClusterFifteen Months in One Frame: The Cone Nebula
This one has been sitting on a drive for a while. The Cone Nebula, NGC 2264, built from three Dwarf 3 sessions that turned out to be fifteen months apart — one from Christmas mo...
6h 38m 2,600 ly -
2 August 2026The Satellite Can't See Your Garden: What a Bortle Number Actually Measures
Everyone finds their Bortle number the same way. You type your postcode into a light pollution map, read off the colour, and then quote that number for the rest of your life. Mi...
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30 July 2026 · M101 / NGC 5457 · Pinwheel GalaxyTwo Supernovae and a Lopsided Disc: 9h 34m on M101
A restack of the Pinwheel, now standing at 9 hours 34 minutes against the 7 hours the previous version carried. M101 is the sort of target where that extra couple of hours is no...
9h 34m 20.9 million ly -
30 July 2026 · IC 443 / Sh2-248 · The Jellyfish NebulaWreckage and Cosmic Rays: 3h 27m on the Jellyfish Nebula
No new photons here — this is the same September 2025 data on IC 443, taken back through the stacking and stretching from scratch. All 3 hours 26 minutes and 45 seconds of it we...
3h 27m 5,000 ly -
30 July 2026 · B33 / IC 434 · Horsehead NebulaThe Horse Nobody Credited: B33 Reprocessed
Another trip back through the archive, this time to January’s Horsehead. Same 2 hours 27 minutes of subs, new stack, and the thing that changed most is the ridge. IC 434 — the w...
2h 27m 1,375 ly -
30 July 2026 · NGC 1333 · Embryo NebulaJets, Shocks and Failed Stars: Six Hours on NGC 1333
This one has been sitting on a drive since last November. Six hours on NGC 1333, captured on a dark night in Perseus season and then, for no better reason than the usual backlog...
6h 1,000 ly -
29 July 2026 · C4 / NGC 7023 · Iris NebulaBorrowed Light: 105 Minutes on the Iris Nebula
Back to the Iris for a second attempt, and this time with something like a proper run behind it — 1 hour 45 minutes of integration against the 40 minutes I gave it in June. The ...
1h 45m 1,300 ly -
27 July 2026Ten Hours for One Galaxy: What a Bortle 7–8 Sky Actually Costs
The Whirlpool Galaxy took ten hours. Not ten hours of driving somewhere dark, or ten hours of processing — ten hours of shutter time, accumulated an hour or two at a time across...
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25 July 2026 · Chryse Planitia · MarsBig Joe on the Plains of Gold: Fifty Years Since Viking 1
Nothing on this site was taken from another planet’s surface, except this. A grey-brown boulder sitting in rust-coloured dirt under a hazy salmon sky, with the corner of a space...
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23 July 2026 · C27 / NGC 6888 / Sh2-105 · Crescent NebulaRevisiting the Crescent: A Deeper Look at NGC 6888
Back to an old target tonight with a fresh set of subs — an updated take on the Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, with 1 hour 10 minutes of integration. This wolf-rayet wind nebula in ...
1h 10m 5,000 ly -
19 July 2026 · IC 1396A · Elephant's Trunk NebulaTwenty Light-Years of Trunk: First Light on IC 1396A
A new target tonight, and a proper sit-down with it — 3 hours 12 minutes of integration, the longest run I’ve given a nebula since the Bubble. The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, catal...
3h 12m 2,400 ly -
19 July 2026
The Telescope That Earned Its Successor: Dwarf II to Dwarf 3
Every image on this site came through a Dwarf 3, but the story doesn’t start there. It starts with its predecessor — a Dwarf II picked up on eBay in early 2024, as an impulse bu...
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18 July 2026 · IC 1318 / Sh2-108 · Butterfly NebulaSadr's Chest, Split in Two: The Butterfly Returns
Back on IC 1318 five days after the first pass, this time with a bit more integration and a frame chosen deliberately to bring out the wings either side of Sadr — the feature th...
1h 17m 4,900 ly -
13 July 2026 · IC 1318 / Sh2-108 · Gamma Cygni NebulaSadr's Butterfly: A Trick of Perspective
72 minutes on Cygnus tonight, aimed at the bright star Sadr and the huge field of nebulosity that surrounds it — IC 1318, usually called the Gamma Cygni Nebula after Sadr’s othe...
1h 12m 4,900 ly -
10 July 2026 · C11 / NGC 7635 / Sh2-162 · Bubble NebulaChasing the Bubble Nebula
Cassiopeia was the target this session, and specifically the object that gives this nebula its name: a shell of gas nearly seven light-years across, blown outward by a single fu...
2h 11m 7,100 ly