Latest news
November 2015 Update: Arctic Circle trip photographing the Northern Lights!
I had a very successful trip inside the Arctic Circle to Tromso, Norway, in Mid November to photograph and view the Northern lights. While we had some cloud on the first few nights, I had managed to scout a great white sandy beach on the West Coast near Sommoray on one of the nights.I returned on my last night to the beach and witnessed a beautiful Auroral display. On one of the mornings, I made a time lapse movie showing how the Sunrise to Sunset at this time of the year only lasts 3.5 hours, with the Sun only reaching...
October 2015 Update: FUTUREPROOF radio interview on Newstalk this Saturday (Oct 3rd)
This coming Saturday (October 3rd), I've been invited in for a chat with Jonathan McCrea on the excellent FUTUREPROOF Science & Technology show at 12-1pm on Newstalk Radio 106-108 FM.I'll be discussing my photography and talking about the Astrophotography Awards from the Royal Observatory Greenwich London.Please tune in if you can, but if you miss it, I'll add a link to the podcast afterwards! :)UPDATE: The FUTUREPROOF interview was cancelled - hopefully it can be re-arranged for a future date in 2016
September 2015 Update: Runner-Up in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards 2015!
On the 17th of Sept, I travelled to the Greenwich Royal Observatory for the Awards Ceremony for the "Astronomy Photographer Of The Year Awards 2015".Against some very stiff competition, I'm thrilled to say that the Orion Mega Mosaic was awarded Joint Runner-Up in the 'Stars and Nebulae' category! This is my second 'Runners Up' Award in 3 years in this competition - it was also a great chance to meet other photographers and discuss imaging, techniques, and other Astronomy related topics.More details of the event and to see the other fantastic submissions, go to the 2015 Insight Winners Astronomy Photographer of the Year site
August 2015 Update: Astronomy Ireland Star-B-Q on Saturday, Aug 15th 2015
Would you like to see the highest resolution image ever made of a constellation by an amateur?On August the 15th, I'll be displaying the Orion mega mosaic at Astronomy Ireland's Star-B-Q at Roundwood in Wicklow!This is a photo with over 400 hours of exposure, more than the famous Hubble deep field galaxy image. 4 years of work and many months of post processing were needed to complete the photo. The result is a 34 pane, full-frame mosaic at 0.53m of resolution. The Horse Head, Orion, Flame, and Running Man nebulae have higher resolution data added of 1.0m.Enjoy getting up close...
June 2015 Update: Orion Mosaic Complete!
After four years of data collection, and a further six months processing, the 34 pane mosaic of Orion is compete! The result is just over 400 hours, or 1.44 million seconds of total exposures -- to put that in context, this image has more exposure time than the famous Hubble deep field image! Details of the image data captureThis luminance data, hydrogen alpha, and some central RGB for the image was taken by myself from Spain from 2011-2013. At the end of 2013 I moved back to Ireland but moved my set up to France to my friend Olly Penrice's...