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The night sky

Timelapse from a night shooting the Horsehead Nebula, telescope at the bottom right

Away from the keyboard I photograph deep-sky objects from a heavily light-polluted city sky (Bortle 9); one target took 25 hours of exposure across a season. My images are published on AstroBin and DeepSkyHosting, where M27 and the Heart Nebula were shown among popular photos on the front page. I was a finalist of the Nauka TV channel photo contest in 2024 and 2025, and at 35AWARDS 2026 I made the top 5% in astrophotography. I run a Telegram channel with 215+ subscribers and a YouTube channel where I teach beginners to process images shot in light-polluted cities.

How I shoot from a Bortle 9 city →

Before and after processing

Left: the stacked frames straight out of stacking. Right: the finished image. Drag the slider.

Horsehead, After processingHorsehead, Stacked, before processingStacked, before processingAfter processing

Nebulae

Galaxies

Planets and the Moon

Comets, aurora and the Milky Way

How the setup grew

From a small reflector at the dacha to a cooled camera, autoguiding and a strain-wave mount.

  1. The start: a small Sky-Watcher reflector at the dacha, a Canon on a photo tripod next to it01

    The start: a small Sky-Watcher reflector at the dacha, a Canon on a photo tripod next to it

  2. Sky-Watcher BK1149 on an equatorial mount, shooting from the balcony02

    Sky-Watcher BK1149 on an equatorial mount, shooting from the balcony

  3. A bigger Newtonian on a motorised equatorial mount03

    A bigger Newtonian on a motorised equatorial mount

  4. Canon straight on the telescope, a winter evening at the dacha04

    Canon straight on the telescope, a winter evening at the dacha

  5. OnStep controller, a guide scope and foil insulation against dew05

    OnStep controller, a guide scope and foil insulation against dew

  6. Moved to a Juwei-17 strain-wave mount06

    Moved to a Juwei-17 strain-wave mount

  7. The same rig at AstroFest07

    The same rig at AstroFest

  8. ZWO AM3 mount and a cooled astro camera on the Newtonian08

    ZWO AM3 mount and a cooled astro camera on the Newtonian

  9. Now: an Askar refractor on the AM3, ASI533MC Pro, ASIAIR and an off-axis guider; for some targets I swap in the 150/750 Newtonian09

    Now: an Askar refractor on the AM3, ASI533MC Pro, ASIAIR and an off-axis guider; for some targets I swap in the 150/750 Newtonian

What I shoot with now

Telescopes
Askar refractor; 150/750 Newtonian with a Sharpstar coma corrector
Mount
ZWO AM3 strain-wave mount
Camera
ZWO ASI533MC Pro, cooled colour camera
Guiding
Askar off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI220MM Mini
Filters
SVBony SV220 7 nm dual-band or Antlia quad-band, in an SVBony SV226 filter drawer
Control
ZWO ASIAIR
Processing
PixInsight with RC Astro plugins

Contact

Email is the fastest way to reach me. I usually reply within a day.

Download CV (PDF)

Elsewhere

LinkedInTryHackMeYouTubeAstroBinDeepSkyHosting35AwardsTelegram (astrophoto)Telegram (sport and life)InstagramInstagram (astrophoto)VKX

My GitHub profile is temporarily under review by GitHub Support, so links to source code are hidden until it is back.