North East London Astronomical Society - NELAS

26/05/2026

A lovely celebration was had in our April meeting to celebrate NELAS's 70th anniversary! 🎉🎉

22/04/2026

🌌 Christmas Tree Cluster & Cone Nebula (NGC 2264)

A compact star-forming region in Monoceros, where young stars are still embedded in gas and dust. The bright central cluster shapes the surrounding nebula, while the Cone Nebula appears as a dense column silhouetted against the emission glow.

📍 Kelling Heath (Astrocamp), Norfolk 19th March 2026
🧭 Coordinates (J2000): RA 06h 41m | Dec +09° 53′

🔭 Captured with the DWARF 3 smart telescope

🛠️ Processing
Dual-band (60s, gain 120) combined with broadband (15s, gain 60), ~single-session capture.
Stars corrected in Stellar Studio (), with further processing and blending completed in PixInsight.
Time 1hr and 30 min approx.

18/04/2026

🌌 California Nebula (NGC 1499)
A wide, faint emission nebula in Perseus, glowing mainly in hydrogen-alpha and illuminated by the bright star Xi Persei (Menkib). Because it stretches across a huge area of sky, it works far better as a mosaic target than as a single frame.
📍 Taken at Kelling Heath Star Party (Astrocamp), Norfolk, UK on the 20th of March 2026 — a great chance to work under some of the darkest skies in the UK.
🧭 Coordinates (J2000)
RA 04h 03m | Dec +36° 25′
🔭 Captured with DWARF 3, using a 4-panel mosaic to cover the full length of the nebula.
🛠️ Processing: 4-panel mosaic with two datasets combined.
Dual-band (Hα/OIII): 60s, gain 120 → nebula signal
Broadband (RGB): 15s, gain 60 → stars + banding control
~5h total integration.
Stacked/assembled in Stellar Studio, then blended in Pixinsight to smooth gradients, reduce dual-band colour banding, and restore natural star colour.
Workshop will be available shortly.
✨ It is not a nebula that shouts at you straight away. Most of its beauty is in the subtle structure — long soft clouds of hydrogen spread across the field — and that makes it a really satisfying one to build carefully.

16/04/2026

🌞 Same Sun — 3 different looks

Captured with a mobile phone through a solar telescope at Astrocamp.

With just small adjustments in contrast and tone, the same single image can reveal very different aspects of the Sun’s photosphere — from a natural view to a more enhanced look, and finally a monochrome version where the subtle granulation becomes easier to see.

No stacking, no complex processing — just a single frame and a few tweaks.

Which one do you prefer: 1, 2 or 3?

Astronomy MobileAstrophotography

16/04/2026

🌞 Our restless Sun — captured with a mobile phone

Taken through a dedicated solar telescope at Kelling Heath Star Party (Astrocamp), March 2026 — Norfolk skies giving us both stunning nights and a chance to turn our attention to the Sun by day.

This is the photosphere (~5,500 °C), where convection creates the fine granulation pattern — countless cells of hot plasma rising and cooling across the surface. Subtle structures and magnetic activity are visible across the disk, even on a relatively quiet day.

The darker edge (limb darkening) appears because we’re looking through cooler, shallower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere at an angle.

Captured simply with a smartphone through the eyepiece, with only light adjustments to enhance contrast and detail — a reminder that solar imaging can be accessible, even without complex setups.

Even when it looks calm, our star is anything but still.

Astrocamp SolarImaging Astronomy MobileAstrophotography

09/04/2026

Flower Moonrise Tower Bridge by Nelas member Ikram Haq 02/04/26

Flower Moonrise Tower Bridge London 02/04/2026