Instagram story viewer> @pixpetephoto> Posts

Pix Pete

@pixpetephoto

5.9K

followers

366

following

🇬🇧 | Astronomer & award winning British photographer
📸 | Art through the lens | 🚫 Strictly no A.I.
🫵 | No reposting of my content | ➡️ Press Follow

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

✨ ORION OVER DUNSTANBURGH ✨

My first attempt at shooting H-alpha emissions and constellations. Usually I’m just shooting the milky way but there is a lot more to see in the night sky, so here is the Orion constellation and molecular cloud complex over Dunstanburgh Castle on the Northumberland coast.

The ring you can see is Barnard’s Loop which is an emission nebula in the constellation of Orion. The loop takes the form of a large arc centred approximately on the Orion Nebula. The stars within the Orion Nebula are believed to be responsible for ionizing the loop.

I was down on these rocks (suitably named The Death Rocks) around 3am on Wednesday morning to capture this image.

Shot on my astro-modified Nikon Z6 II with Astronomik H-alpha filter.

#astrophotography #nebula #orion #orionconstellation #dunstanburghcastle #northumberlandcoast #northumberland #visitnorthumberland #milkyway #nightscapes #capturetheatlas #moveshootmove #moveshootmove #nikon #nikonuk

@nikoneurope
@ap_magazine
@digitalcameramag taken in Dunstanburgh Castle by @pixpetephoto

2k

170

a year ago

The Strawberry Moon of 2025 over Penshaw Monument in Sunderland. Decided to stay close to home last night rather than venturing off on a long road trip as despite the clear skies above, the horizon looked a bit too cloudy for my liking. Nothing reminds me of ‘home’ more than Penshaw Monument - it’s definitely one of the most iconic landmarks in the North East.
.
#strawberrymoon #penshawmonument #moonphotography #supermoon #lunarstandstill #moonrise #sunderland #visitnortheastengland #northeastuk #spring2025 #summer2025 #nikonuk #nikonzf #cityofsunderland #wearesunderland #tyneandwear #fullmoon #sunderlandecho
.
@sunderlandecho
@bbcneandcumbria
@your_skies
@yourbritain
@excellent_britain
@ap_magazine
@natgeoyourshot
@digitalcameramag taken in Penshaw Monument by @pixpetephoto

596

64

a year ago

✨ S T A R V A L L E Y ✨
This week’s crystal-clear skies and New Moon phase have opened up some excellent opportunities for catching the Milky Way once again, and so on Monday evening I set off on an adventure through the North Yorkshire countryside to Brimham Rocks, just near Harrogate!

This is somewhere I hadn’t been since I was a young child, but it’s always stuck in my mind ever since I started doing astrophotography a few years ago.

Supposedly over 320 million years old, Brimham Rocks is an amazing collection of weird and wonderful formations, sculpted over centuries by ice, wind, and rain - creating a landscape which, to me at least, has always looked somewhat alien.

Unfortunately, while the site sits under relatively good dark skies directly above, looking toward the southwest horizon there is a lot of light pollution coming from Manchester and Liverpool. Most stars, and particularly the galactic core, are not visible to the naked eye in that direction. Thankfully, modern cameras can pick up a lot more detail, so I was able to pull this image together with a fair amount of work to clean up the sky.

It’s certainly a place I’ll return to when the Milky Way is oriented differently, but for now I’m pretty happy with how this photo turned out.

#brimhamrocks #harrogate #northyorkshire #yorkshire #nationaltrust #ntbrimhamrocks #summerbridge #your_skies #yourskies #nikon #nikonuk #nikonz6ii #milkyway #astrophotography #milkywaygalaxy #galacticcore #nightscaper #milkywaychasers #nightsky #nightscape #capturetheatlas #milkywayshooters #nightphotography #visitnorthyorkshire

@moveshootmove
@nikoneurope
@visitnorthyorkshire_
@astronomypicturesdaily
@ap_magazine
@digitalcameramag taken in Brimham Rocks by @pixpetephoto

1k

212

a year ago

✨ S T M U N G O ‘ S ✨ - Another night beneath the stars in Northumberland, and another photograph for my ongoing project documenting the county’s churches beneath the night sky. This time, it’s St Mungo’s Church in the little village of Simonburn.

The church’s origins are traditionally associated with St Mungo, who is said to have come to the area during the 6th century after being driven out of Glasgow. According to local tradition, he performed baptisms in the stream that still flows past the church today.

I’d wanted to photograph St Mungo’s through the old stone lychgate for some time, using the archway to frame the church and Milky Way above. The problem was that even my 14mm wide-angle lens wasn’t quite wide enough!

As luck would have it, @astrhori recently reached out and very kindly sent me their 12mm f/2.8 fisheye lens to try some creative shots with. It has an enormous 185° field of view, which turned out to be perfect for capturing the entire scene as I’d originally envisioned.

I love the exaggerated perspective and curved lines of a fisheye lens, although the distortion can also be corrected in post-processing. For this photograph, I decided to keep the effect as I think it adds something special to the framing.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how much detail I could capture in the Milky Way, especially when tracking the stars with my NOMAD star tracker.

One final detail I particularly love is the inscription on the lychgate, built in 1885:

“TILL THE DAY BREAKS AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY.”

Quite fitting for a photograph beneath the stars!

It’s been a lot of fun experimenting with this unusual lens, and I’ll definitely be using it for more astrophotography in the coming months.

Check out the @astrhori page to find out more.

****

Fancy getting a star tracker? Use my discount code PIXPETE in the Move Shoot Move store to get some money off.

**** taken in Northumberland by @pixpetephoto

2k

116

9 days ago

The September Harvest Moon 2026 at Cleadon Water Tower, taken from South Shields. Did you manage to see it for yourself wherever you are?

#moonrise #southshields #harvestmoon #fullmoon taken in South Shields by @pixpetephoto

280

61

22 days ago

Tomorrow, at 1:05 AM on September 23, it will officially be astronomical autumn, which means we’re now in the final few hours of summer 2026. So here’s a little photo dump of random shots I’ve taken this season.

Sunsets, night drives, road trips, flowers and holidays from across the North East and abroad — all shot on a variety of cameras, but mostly on little pocket cams! According to my catalogues, I’ve taken over 12,000 photos this year so far, and most of them never have and never will be seen by anyone else. A lot of these are not the typical type of photos I would post.

Summer is always my favourite season, but autumn just so happens to be my second favourite, so while I’m sad it’s over, at least there’s something else to look forward to before the dread of winter. taken in North East England by @pixpetephoto

117

27

a month ago

D U C K E T I N F E R N O - Some people are going to have a problem accepting a photo like this, calling it fake, calling it AI, but this image reveals what is hidden in the Universe above us every night.

A slightly different kind of Nightscape showing the enormous Cygnus region of our Milky Way rising above The Ducket. The glowing red “flames” dominating the image are the North America and Pelican Nebulae on the left, with the complex around Sadr stretching across the right. The constellation of Cygnus is one of my favourite areas of the Milky Way.

Beneath, The Ducket is one of those strange little Northumberland landmarks that stands alone among the surrounding fields. This tall, tapering stone tower dates from the 18th century and has been Grade II listed since 1969.

Exactly what it was originally built for isn’t entirely clear. It’s often described as an old windmill, and has even been suggested as a navigation marker, but Historic England considers it more likely to have been a dovecote. The name itself seems to come from an old variation of the word “dovecote”. After being restored, the tower has taken on a different purpose as it’s now used as holiday accommodation. I was fortunate enough to stay here for a few nights back in March, with some very clear skies as a bonus!

You can’t see anything remotely like this with the naked eye, however, as special filters and long exposures are used to capture the hydrogen-alpha emissions, revealing these enormous structures. To us, Cygnus simply looks like a particularly starry patch of the Milky Way.

After acquiring an Astronomik H-alpha filter in October 2025, I got lucky with some initial tests (Orion over Dunstanburgh), but I really didn’t start to get to grips with how to use it properly until I stayed at The Ducket earlier this year.

I’m excited now to be capturing the night skies throughout the whole year especially these lesser-photographed parts — clear skies permitting — something which is quite hard to come by in my little part of the world.

—
PARTNER DISCOUNTS:

5% off for Move Shoot Move: code PIXPETE
20% off Skylum Luminar: code PIXPETE20
—

#milkyway #cygnus #northumberland #NOMADSEPTCONTEST taken in The Ducket by @pixpetephoto

1k

78

a month ago

✨ H A N N A H ‘ S S K Y ✨ A night under the Milky Way at Hannah’s Meadow, tucked away in the remote countryside of Baldersdale, County Durham. It’s a beautiful place to visit during the day, but beneath a clear night sky, with almost nobody around and little but the stars above, it takes on a completely different atmosphere.

The meadow takes its name from Hannah Hauxwell, who lived and farmed here at Low Birk Hatt for decades, much of that time without electricity or running water. Her isolated life in the North Pennines became famous through television documentaries, but perhaps her greatest legacy is the landscape she left behind.

Hannah farmed the land using traditional methods, without artificial fertilisers or reseeding, helping preserve the extraordinary variety of wildflowers and wildlife that had developed here over centuries. When she retired in 1988, Durham Wildlife Trust took over the meadows and continued that traditional management; today Hannah’s Meadow is a nature reserve, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and home to some of the most species-rich upland hay meadows in County Durham.

The old stone barn still stands amongst the meadows today, reached by this winding wooden boardwalk, and I couldn’t resist using the path to lead through the landscape and towards the Milky Way. I added myself into the scene with a small light, partly for scale, but also to capture that feeling of wandering through somewhere very special beneath a sky full of stars.

While I was here, thinking that clear skies are hard to come by in the North of England, I decided to have a go at capturing The Pleiades star cluster (Messier 45) while I was waiting for some foreground shots to expose on my other camera. I’ve become quite interested in capturing Deep Sky Objects ever since trying Andromeda with a 200mm lens on the MSM Nomad. It needs much more integration time to reveal all of the dust clouds but I was quite impressed by what could be done with only 32 minutes.

—
If you’re looking to buy yourself a star tracker, use my discount code PIXPETE in the Move Shoot Move store to get some money off.
—

#milkyway #hannahsmeadow #baldersdale #NOMADSEPTCONTEST taken in Hannah's Meadows by @pixpetephoto

2k

83

a month ago

Like most other astrophotographers, I spend so much time complaining about clouds covering our skies, not being able to get certain shots. Well, might as well just make it a feature of the image instead then.

So here’s a cloudy moon, a Sturgeon Moon for August 2026 actually, and it’s a type of image I’ve wanted to make. Turns out if you put your wishes out there, the Universe will grant them to you!

#fullmoon #sturgeonmoon #cloudynights #astrophotography taken in The Moon by @pixpetephoto

137

16

2 months ago

🌹 THE ROSE OF HURLESTONE 🌹 - A deepscape of the Rosette Nebula over Hurlestone Tower in Chillingham, Northumberland, UK.

It has taken me a few months to fully understand and get to grips with the process of editing deep-sky images and combining data from shots captured with hydrogen-alpha filters, hence why this shot, captured at the end of April this year, has taken me so long to finish!

I’d actually planned this shot months in advance, working out exactly when the Rosette would pass above the tower from this position, and where I needed to be to align them both using my 200mm zoom lens. What I hadn’t planned for was the enormous field of rapeseed! I had absolutely no idea it was there until I arrived, and somehow I’d managed to time the Rosette perfectly with the field being in full bloom. Sometimes you just get lucky!

Around 5,000 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn), close to the border with Orion, the Rosette Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust spanning roughly 100 light-years, with a cluster of young stars illuminating the gas from within.

At its centre is the young open cluster NGC 2244. The hot, massive stars in this cluster ionise the surrounding hydrogen, producing the Rosette’s characteristic red hydrogen-alpha emission. Their stellar winds have also cleared out the large central cavity that gives the nebula its distinctive rose-like appearance.

As for Hurlestone Tower, it’s a modern-day folly and observation point set within the private grounds of the Lilburn Tower Estate, but can be seen from various roads and footpaths as it sits high upon a hill. It was built in the year 2000 to celebrate the new millennium.

A rose in the sky and a sea of rapeseed below, with Hurlestone Tower sitting right in the middle.

The total integration time to create this image was 1 hour 13 minutes from 46 exposures.

If you’re interested in shooting the night sky with a Move Shoot Move tracker like I have, then use my discount code PIXPETE to get some money off 🙂

#rosettenebula #northumberland #astrophotography taken in Chillingham, Northumberland by @pixpetephoto

4k

137

2 months ago

Allen Banks and Staward Gorge is a nice little place for a wander around on a summer’s evening. It’s the largest area of ancient semi-natural woodland in Northumberland, near Ridley Hall, Bardon Mill, Hexham.

I’ve been looking for some picturesque woodland to shoot some upcoming projects and I think this might be the ideal place. Going to come back here when the Autumn is in full swing to see the beautiful changing colours and hopefully some fungi (shrooms) which I’ve been promising myself for years I’m going to take up photographing.

#woodlandwalk #summerstroll #northumberland #nationaltrust taken in Allen Banks & Staward Gorge by @pixpetephoto

102

17

2 months ago

✨ H O W I C K M I L K Y W A Y ✨ - A misty and partially cloudy night down on the rocks near Hindson Cove, just a little further north than The Bathing House at Howick in Northumberland. You can see the house in the distance here.

This is a shot I took back at the end of March, around the time the galactic centre of our Milky Way begins to make an appearance on the south-east horizon. We had an exceptionally cloudy winter and spring here in the North of England, with not many opportunities to shoot the night sky, so I had to make the most of any clear spells I could get!

There was definitely no need for a star glow filter on this occasion, with the hazy atmosphere making all the stars pop and bloat! I did have some problems editing this photo, however, as it’s a particularly difficult location to shoot the Milky Way. The light pollution coming from Newcastle and Sunderland can completely blow out the sky in this direction, made even worse by those pesky clouds reflecting all that light back.

It certainly wasn’t the perfect clear night I’d hoped for, but sometimes the less-than-perfect conditions give an image an atmosphere of its own, and the end result is one I’m happy with nevertheless.

…
If you’re looking to buy a star tracker, use my coupon code PIXPETE in the Move Shoot Move store to get some discount!
…

#milkyway_nightscapes #northumberland #thebathinghouse taken in Howick, Northumberland by @pixpetephoto

2k

92

2 months ago