When we are lucky enough to get away from the lights of our cities and towns and reach a truly dark place, all it takes is looking up to be left breathless: the sky fills with a sea of stars. There are thousands of them, and it is natural to think the cosmos is made only of suns far away from us.

But what lies beyond those stars? Many people never ask, yet the answer is surprising. The stars we see with the naked eye almost all belong to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and are only a tiny fraction of those that exist. Further out hide nebulae, star clusters and millions of other galaxies, each made up of billions of stars. Some are so distant that their light set out millions of years ago.

Most of these wonders are too faint for our eyes, but discovering them doesn’t take an observatory. All you need is equipment that is far from prohibitive, such as a camera on a tripod or a small telescope on a motorized mount, and a bit of patience: with long exposures, light builds up on the sensor and reveals colors and details the eye cannot pick up.

This is how we discover just how vast and beautiful the cosmos is, and how small we are within its immensity. On this blog I will share my deep-sky shots, the way I make them, and my photographic story.