BroadlandAstro
A look through my lens...
Hi, I’m Jack — an amateur astrophotographer, single dad of three teenage girls, and the human behind this site.
In the ’80s, my “space internet” was library books, Carl Sagan, grainy TV, and the tiny postcard-sized images from the Pioneer missions. Crunchy, low-res, but absolutely magical. Access to astronomy wasn’t as easy as it is today, but when I was around eight or nine, a local astronomy club let me look at Jupiter through a telescope — cloud belts, moons, the Great Red Spot — I could see the lot, and seeing it with my own eyes was amazing. I promptly asked my parents if I could build an observatory on the flat garage roof. We weren’t well off, so the dream got parked pretty quickly.
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s/early-2010s: I’d geeked out on every space documentary I could find on the Discovery Channel, and one bored evening I watched a ridiculous programme about “structures on the Moon”. I do love a good conspiracy theory — The Moon landings were faked?! Area 51 has Aliens working there?! etc., etc... — but the fun is debunking and laughing at them. Even a cursory check of the facts debunks the lot; there’s usually a glimmer of truth buried under a mountain of nonsense, but too many people skip the basics and end up believing some crazy things... anyway... I digress... structures on the Moon?? “Yeah right, I’m gonna have a look and debunk this BS!”
I borrowed my sister’s 6-inch Newtonian on a cheap, unmotorised mount, which I think they’d used three times, maybe?? I looked at the Moon close up (no structures — apparently they’re all on the far side anyway 😉), then chased the easy-to-find classics: Andromeda Galaxy, Pinwheel Galaxy, Whirlpool Galaxy, Orion Nebula, a few clusters. Frankly, I was disappointed. The Moon looked cool, Jupiter and Saturn looked “OK”, and I could see the Cassini Division in Saturn’s rings (just about), but on that setup the galaxies and nebulae were faint grey smudges — nothing like the glossy Hubble images I’d been looking at for years — so I decided to find out: how do people actually create those beautiful images? (Spoiler: not with a wobbly tripod and wishful thinking. It actually takes time, decent equipment, and a certain degree of skill. None of which I had at that point.)
Nevertheless, I was properly hooked. I couldn’t afford the decent stuff, so my first “rig” was basically a CCTV camera shoved in the focuser. It did simple in-camera stacking equivalent to a five-second exposure, and I pulled a hint of colour from Orion. Without decent tracking, it was definitely character-building. Manually tracking a nebula whilst capturing video with a CCTV camera, on an EQ2 mount, is… challenging, to say the least. Bit by bit, on a single-dad budget, I upgraded: first a slightly better GOTO mount, then a third-hand DSLR, then a larger Newtonian. An 8-inch steel Newt on an inadequate mount taught me plenty about balance, guiding, and creative swearing. After a minor car bump (everyone fine), a small compensation payout finally paid for a decent mount and scope.
About a year before the “bump”, the girls and I had moved to the countryside — to a small village on the edge of the Norfolk Broads (with NO street lights). It was officially sold as: fresh air, a village school, and a calmer pace of life. All true, but the girls were 3, 5, and 5 (twins), so didn’t actually have a choice… bad dad. Honest truth: it was for the darker skies. 😉 By then I was mildly obsessed.
It’s worked out well though — the girls are all growing into awesome people, we’ve got two Greyhounds and life is pretty peaceful. There have been a few peaks and troughs along the way, but there’s no way I’m giving up my dark skies now. The girls will always have a base in the countryside, and the “big city” is there whenever they want it as they get older.
I am going to mention my one gripe about where we live... During the darkest part of the year, one of my neighbours goes ALL out on Christmas lights... and I mean ALL out! Imagine the American Christmas movies of the ’80s and ’90s and double the amount of lights! I swear they’re getting more lights every year too. For those of you who know anything about processing astro data... gradients!!! For those who don’t, I’ll simply say “Bah! Humbug!”
I’ve built my kit slowly over the years, tried various scopes through trade-ins and upgrades, and I’ve now built my second roll-off-roof observatory. The first iteration had some serious design flaws. I’ve somehow managed to save up for more than one scope and mount, and I’ve improved my image-processing skills whilst learning the craft the hard way — under real skies and with Great British weather. Now I need a second camera, and I feel some of my images are good enough to show off and maybe monetise to get that second rig complete.