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Urban astrophotographer reveals Bristol’s dazzling starlit sky
Lee Pullen’s magical photographs of the night sky reveal a dazzling hidden world, invisible to the urban eye.
Producing the photos is a labour of love that starts in his back garden in Old Market, a stone’s throw from Temple Meads train station.
Lee uses a telescope customised with a special mount that moves to track the stars as they rotate across the sky. A camera attached to the back collects precious photons of light from the star target he has in his sights.
is needed now More than ever
The Butterfly Nebula lies 4000 light-years from Earth. This photo spans 80 light-years, but the area it occupies in the sky is only twice the size of your thumbnail held out at arm’s length
Astronomical objects like galaxies and nebulae are very faint, and light pollution almost completely drowns them out. So Lee takes not one photo of his target, but hundreds, night after night. He then uses computer software to combine these into one super-picture.
It can take as long as two months to collect all the light needed to form a single photo worth looking at.
The Pleiades (also known as The Seven Sisters) is a cluster of hot, young stars 444 light-years from Earth.
The Pinwheel Galaxy is a spiral galaxy that we’re seeing face-on. It’s 21 million light-years from Earth.
Lee suggests urban dwellers could do their bit to reveal more of the sky’s hidden wonderland to the naked eye.
“Reducing light pollution isn’t all that hard,” he says. “Lights that aren’t needed at night should be turned off, and those that are needed should be designed to focus down to the ground rather than wastefully spilling light up into the sky.
“Sensible night lighting benefits human health and wildlife, as well as helping us to reclaim our view of the night sky. Electricity bills and energy consumption will be lower too!”
The Cygnus Wall is an area where new stars are forming. It’s about 20 light-years long or, to put it another way, about 1.3m times further than the distance between the Earth and Sun
To see a whole gallery of astro-images taken from Bristol, visit Lee’s website: www.urbanastrophotography.com
All photos and captions provided by Lee Pullen.
This piece of independent journalism is supported by the Bristol24/7 public and business membership.
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