Welcome to Urban Astrophotography, a website all about my attempts at taking photos of the night sky from Bristol, a light-polluted and often cloud-covered city in the UK. I use Askar FRA400 and Askar 130PHQ telescopes, and an ASI 2600MC-Pro camera.
I’ve been dabbling in astrophotography on and off since 2005, following the usual route: using a DSLR and tripod, a few different telescopes, and several cameras including the venerable ASI1600 Mono. Recently a new addition to my family devoured pretty much all of my spare time, so I decided to streamline my astrophotography. I wanted a straight-forward but powerful set-up that would get me good quality data as quickly and easily as possible. So, I sold most of my kit and started again.
Cameras designed for astronomical imaging come in two types: OSC and Mono. Conventional wisdom is that Mono is really the only option if you’re imaging from a light-polluted city. OSC is a bit simpler though, and recently-released dual-band filters open up a lot of possibilities for OSC imagers, so that’s what I opted for. I’ve found OSC to be surprisingly effective, and decided to make this website to display my images, give tips and tricks, and hopefully show that OSC imaging from a city can work very well.
If you’re new to this site, then these four articles are good starting points:
“How do you take those photos?”
My astrophotography kit
OSC vs Mono from a city
How to get long integration times
I also highly recommend joining The Stargazers Lounge. Everything I know about astrophotography is thanks to the generous people there sharing their knowledge.
I aim to update the site every month or so with new images and articles, so be sure to check back once in a while.
About me
My name is Lee, and I’m a science communicator and photographer. You can find out more via my two business websites:
If you’ve found any of this content useful, then why not show your appreciation with the best gift of all: money!
Great website! keep up the good work
Thanks 🙂
Thank You so much. I am a “novice” amateur astrophotographer and have similar sky conditions in a suburb of Los Angeles (34 degrees latitude) . Your large IC1396 nebula astrophoto including the Elephants trunk is GORGEOUS and has helped me gain more interest and courage towards trying this target from my back yard with an IMX294 astrocam and will use my smaller better scope a 6″ Mak-Newt (ES Dave Levy Comet Hunter) because it’s too wide for my C8. It is still pretty low in the sky right now (and always is compared to your better view at 41 degrees latitude ) and I may have to wait until about July or I’ll have a vevry narrow window of time before sunrise.
Thanks for the kind comment! Give it a go, it’s a great target for amateur astrophotographers.
Hi Lee, Thanks for the excellent overview for working with groups. I have a number of neighbors who will use any opportunity to gather together to have a party. A couple of years ago I set up a telescope to watch the solar eclipse (safely, of course) and had twenty of my neighbors come to watch. Your overview will be very helpful for future watches. I have had a telescope since I was 10 and now at 77 I want to do some astrophotography with the Seestar. I have an Android 12 tablet but am having trouble getting connected and wondered if you might have any insight into settings on the tablet that I should check. I appreciate any suggestions that you might have. Thanks again.
I live in south central Pennsylvania, USA and I have some pretty dark skies here. I am really excited about using the Seestar S50.
Hi John, sounds like the Seestar will be great for you! An Android 12 tablet should work just fine. To begin with, ensure your tablet has Bluetooth enabled, and isn’t set to Airplane mode. Those are easy to miss settings that would scupper attempts to connect.