The Race into Space

That’s when it all started for me, as a boy in the 1960’s and 1970’s, my interest in “outer space” was very much born out of the USA/USSR space race and the excitement of the Apollo program. Of course, to further spark the imagination was original Star Trek series (who remembers trying to spot The Enterprise as a dot before zooming into,,,

The night sky

Is something that I’ve had an interest in from a young age. I remember as a young child getting a blue refractor from my parents, nothing special but it gave me the ability to look at the moon. I would often look up, wondering what was up there from then on. I would watch the Space Shuttle launches live on TV, amazed at what was going on,,,

Astro kept me sane

I’ve always needed to be busy, to learn and to have a goal. Back in 2016, I was getting near the end of a Masters’ degree in Linguistics and had also finally decided to stop SCUBA diving, my hobby for the past 15 years. In my time I had not only become a SCUBA instructor, but had progressed into technical diving qualifications and had,,,

Lockdown Liberation

I have always been fascinated by the night sky ever since I was small boy, like many of us who are into this incredible hobby. My teens included posters on my bedroom ceiling and walls of the iconic horse head and flame nebula. In my mid 20’s I purchased my first telescope, a 10” reflector which sadly started to collect dust. Visual astronomy really,,,

Self-Belief

We all need something to help us unwind. Be it from a hard day, responsibilities or just general recreation. To some people that’s music, others its television or video games. To some it’s writing, or painting. The point here is that we need a hobby for various reasons. Mine just so happens to be astrophotography. Let me explain. When I was a,,,

From Then till Now.

My interest in the night sky started when I was about four years old, sitting on the steps of my home in Pendine, South-West Wales, watching the tracer bullets arcing over the sands with occasional small white parachutes lowering the still glowing remnants of burnt out mortar cases to the ground. Not WW2, this was about 1957 when my father,,,

Never Look Back

As a kid I grew up on a working farm in the County Durham dales known as The Pennine Way which holds an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status, which to be honest, as a kid meant nothing to me even though I was surrounded by the beauty of hundreds of green fields, crystal clear rivers, fantastic waterfalls, rolling fells and,,,

My Journey of Astronomy

I embarked on my astronomical journey in 1967 when I started Hagley RC Secondary School and noticed an observatory in a garden near the school playing fields in the village of Churchill Worcestershire. After several attempts of knocking on the door of the owner and being told to go away I was eventually allowed,,,

Four letter word

What is it about four letter words? So many emotions can be described that way, Love, Lust, Hate, Envy, the list goes on! The one that affects me is different, it’s not even a word. It’s an acronym – PTSD. I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with those four letters. I’m grateful to have a label to describe it though, to have a label that other people understand,,,