Iris Nebula — 4 Sept 2026

The weather in Devon has been dismal recently for astrophotography, either cloudy or excessively humid. Although I am sure the grasses and plants are relieved after a long hot summer.

I shot this on the 4th Sept, over a 2 and half hour slot of wonderfully clear skies. The Iris nebula is one of my favourites. It’s a reflection nebula, which means that rather than generating its own light, it reflects the light of a nearby star. In this case, it is illuminated by a star that is designated HD 200775, a young, blue, hot star. Despite the low integration time, the ASI533MC Pro has captured the blue light of this star, and the structure of the surrounding dust cloud. The plan is to capture more data whenever the clouds and humidity clear , with a target total integration time of 6 hours. I’ll post a side-by-side comparison to highlight the quality difference by varying integration times, so stay tuned for this.

As a long standing fan of the LOTR universe, this nebula reminds me of the line delivered by Galadriel to Frodo from the films (slightly different in the books):

”I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out.“

Shot this with the following gear:

• Askar 71F refractor scope
• ASI533MC Pro at -20C
• Sky-Watcher HEQ5 mount

Total integration time of 2.5 hours, from 180s subs. Stacked and processed in Siril, finalised in Adobe Lightroom.