Roger Nichol

Hi, I am a photographer specialising in Astrophotography. I live in the Wiltshire in an area with reasonable light pollution allowing me to image from home.

I was converted to astrophotography by the fly-by of the Neowise comet in July 2020, and having captured some images of that with my DSLR, figured I should get a tracker and see if could capture some Deep Space Objects. After imaging some of the brighter galaxies (Andromeda and the Triangulum galaxy) and an attempt at the North America nebula with a Star Adventurer and my DSLR, I realised that I needed to "go large or go home" to get the quality of image I wanted, so acquired my current setup:

Telescope:  Skywatcher Esprit 100ED
Mount:       Skywatcher  EQ6-R
Camera:      ASI2600MC Pro
Off-Axis-Guider with ASI120MM-mini guide camera
Sesto Senso autofocuser
Filter wheel with various dual narrow-band and light pollution filters.

This equipment, together with the NINA imaging acquisition software, has allowed me to automate the acquisition of astro images to a high degree, allowing me to image whenever there is a gap in the clouds in our variable UK weather.

I built upon my previous knowledge of landscape photography and Photoshop editing to learn astro processing and editing using PixInsight. It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but I'm now at the point where I can achieve my vision for how the image should look - it is a conjunction of science and art!

I hope you enjoy my images - they look amazing printed large and framed on a wall!

Roger