Stargazing
The Image above is a narrowband Hydrogen Alpha CCD image of the Theta Carina Nebula - NGC2944 - also known as the Running Chicken Nebula - and was taken from a dark sky site in Namibia in June 2018 - image is (c) R Williams.
When did I start stargazing? - that's not such an easy question to answer.
The fact is that as a fairly young child - maybe aged 12 or 13 - I discovered the BBC program 'The Sky at Night' in the late-night TV schedules and asked my parents if I could record it, to watch later.
My stargazing activities then took a back seat during my later-teens - I'm sure that everyone has been through that phase - as schoolwork and later College and University - took priority.
Finally after leaving University, I had an occupation as an 'Industrial Chemist'.
In 1989 I returned to my home town to start a job that I still do.
Some years [don't quite know how many] later I discovered that my home town had an 'Astronomy Society' - a group of amateur stargazers who enjoy looking at - and maybe finding out more - about what's beyond our atmosphere.
I was slowly but inexorably sucked into the world of astronomical equipment - Mounts, telescopes, cameras etc. - along with - certainly for me at least - the variety of quite enjoyable astronomical expeditions to Starcamps and dark sky locations in the England and Scotland.
Along with this - and having also experienced astronomical events in the UK and overseas - see information in the other sections of my website - I have for most of the past 20 years now - manged to include a degree - sometimes small sometimes not - of astronomical content into my main vacations and I plan to keep it that way.
When did I start stargazing? - that's not such an easy question to answer.
The fact is that as a fairly young child - maybe aged 12 or 13 - I discovered the BBC program 'The Sky at Night' in the late-night TV schedules and asked my parents if I could record it, to watch later.
My stargazing activities then took a back seat during my later-teens - I'm sure that everyone has been through that phase - as schoolwork and later College and University - took priority.
Finally after leaving University, I had an occupation as an 'Industrial Chemist'.
In 1989 I returned to my home town to start a job that I still do.
Some years [don't quite know how many] later I discovered that my home town had an 'Astronomy Society' - a group of amateur stargazers who enjoy looking at - and maybe finding out more - about what's beyond our atmosphere.
I was slowly but inexorably sucked into the world of astronomical equipment - Mounts, telescopes, cameras etc. - along with - certainly for me at least - the variety of quite enjoyable astronomical expeditions to Starcamps and dark sky locations in the England and Scotland.
Along with this - and having also experienced astronomical events in the UK and overseas - see information in the other sections of my website - I have for most of the past 20 years now - manged to include a degree - sometimes small sometimes not - of astronomical content into my main vacations and I plan to keep it that way.
The gallery above are my most recent images I have taken, on a trip to Namibia in 2022. If you would like to see a more extensive gallery of night-time and special images, please browse the galleries from the links below:
For more information about places to go in the UK for stargazing and enjoyment of the night sky, please take a look at this website...