A shout-out to our astrophotography cousins. Astrophotography is often overlooked as an art form and can be pigeonholed into scientific or technical-based recording. As a result, we see less of it as a photographic art form. If you have ever seen a stacked and un-stretched file before these wizards do their magic in post-production, it would leave a lot of us Photoshop users gobsmacked as to how hard these people worked to get these results below. The technical and time-consuming challenge of the capture process alone is daunting enough without the hours of stacking and post-production involved in the photography of one image. The scope for creativity in the imaging is extraordinary, they have very little reference for the grading and colour correction and are working with very small image sensors in comparative terms to the luxury of modern DSLR and rangefinder cameras.

These images have been processed by Don Pearce from Donstronomy. They are here because they should be given the exposure that a lot of astrophotographers don’t receive, other than within their own community.