There are so many huge and colorful celestial objects hiding in the dark that most never experience, or even know exist. It is a misconception that you need an observatory-class telescope to reach into the night sky. With patience, passion, and good technique, I’m able to reveal vast expanses of vibrant gas and dust that you'd never know were there.

My journey into astrophotography began with a simple appreciation for stargazing, but capturing and sharing my images has transformed that fascination into something much more rewarding — I invite you to explore the universe as I see it.

My beautiful face.

About Me

Hello! My name is Nikolaus Becker. I am a hobbyist-turned-professional astrophotographer based in central Virginia.

I launched this website as a dedicated space for showing off my portfolio and to track my growth in astrophotography. All of the images found here are my own work. Most were captured with a small telescope from my rural backyard in central Virginia.

If you like what you see, and happen to have empty space on a wall you wish to fill… Please consider supporting me and my work by purchasing a print from my shop. I reserve the highest quality images for prints. The images I upload here are downscaled to common display resolutions.

You are welcome to download any image from my online portfolio for personal use - desktop or mobile backgrounds, whatever you wish. Feel free to share or repost my content! I only (humbly) ask you provide attribution to me, by linking this website or mentioning one of my social accounts.

A quick and dirty first light of the Cone Nebula with my new Celestron EdgeHD 8" This was four hours of LRGB at the scope's native F/10. I binned the sub exposures by 2x2 to help deal with oversampling and poor seeing. I clearly have some issu
🎶 It's me, hi - I brought the clouds, it's me. 🎶 You can blame me for your cloudy nights. I got a new (to me) mount and telescope! iOptron CEM40 Celestron EdgeHD 8" I'm looking forward to equipping the EdgeHD 8 for galaxy season and other s
After a long time sitting on my raw eclipse photos from earlier this year... I've finally gotten around to making a stacked composite of the solar corona at totality. To be honest, I'm surprised that I was able to reveal the moon's surface in this
Finally joining in on the comet mania for C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS! The first pic was captured by a 80mm F/6 refractor, with star tracking. A blend of several 15 and 30 second exposures through LRGB filters, and *painfully* stacked and composited
IC 443, also known as the Jellyfish Nebula. The nebula is believed to have originated from a supernova explosion that occurred approximately 30,000 years ago in the constellation Gemini. It lies approximately 5,000 light-years away from Earth and s
Breaking a long hiatus to share (mostly starless) images of the Cygnus Loop! This is a two panel mosaic captured over a few nights. Keep swiping for closeups and the starry version. The Cygnus Loop is a large supernova remnant located in the constel
Some artistic edits of original photos that I took of the 2024 total solar eclipse: #astrophotography #eclipse #photography #space #astronomy
A sequence of my favorite shots that I took with my telescope during the 2024 total solar eclipse. Telescope: SVBONY SV550 Camera: Canon 1200D #astrophotography #eclipse #photography #space #astronomy #svbony #canon
The Rosette Nebula, recaptured in the "Hubble Palette" of narrowband false color. This image represents another "re-do" of an image I produced early on after starting this hobby. This time around I'm able to image it in three co
A much brighter re-do of the Orion Nebula for the winter of '23/24 My first attempt on Orion last year was full of technical difficulties and newbie mistakes, so I had to "underexpose" that image in post-processing. For this new version,

My Equipment

My primary imaging setup with the SVBONY SV550 80mm APO.

Below is an assortment of gear that I have acquired over time, trial and error. Pictured here is my primary imaging setup that most of my images were captured with. Boldened list items are used as part of the rig shown in the image.

    • SVBONY SV550 APO 80mm F/6

    • Samyang 135mm F/2

    • SVBONY SV209

    • QHYCCD QHY268M

    • Canon Rebel T5 / 1200D

    • SVBONY 905C

    • iOptron iGuider

    • QHY EFW3-M

    • Optolong LRGB & SHO 36mm filter set

    • SVBONY SV220 Dual-Band Filter 2inch

    • QHY OAG-M

    • Teleskop-Service OAG for Canon DSLR

    • iOptron CEM26 - With tripod and mini-pier

    • PrimaLuceLab Sesto Senso 2

    • PrimaLuceLab Arco 2

    • Dew-Not DN05

    • SVBONY SV172

    • Stellarmate Pro

    • Mele Quieter 2 Mini PC

    • Raspberry Pi 4

    • Bluetti EB55 537Wh