Stars and planets seen from Brighton by astronomer

For the last four years, Ivana Peranic has been looking up to the stars from her Brighton back garden, capturing planets and galaxies with her telescope.

And the 38-year-old is encouraging more people to look up and appreciate what is above them - despite the light pollution in the city.

Ivana with both her planetary and deep space setups (Image: Supplied)

Her latest project involved photographing every planet in the solar system and digitally combining them.

"It has been three years of learning how to take pictures and use the telescope, and then two years of getting all of the planets," she said.

The picture was shortlisted for an award at the European Astrofest in London earlier this month alongside dozens of other acclaimed astro photographers.

Comet Neowise by Mark Bond

Ivana first picked up the hobby in 2020 when the comet Neowise was seen passing over the country.

"My husband Martin bought me a small telescope and I saw the comet and Jupiter. It was amazing," she said.

"And then one thing turned to another and I have a full imaging set-up now."

It works out of the back garden of her flat and she has used it to capture pictures of planets some 2.7 billion miles away.

Ivana has even photographed the ISS (Image: Ivana Peranic)

She said: "You have to have a a really good evening. Good weather, good visibility, good atmospheric conditions and the planets at a good height. 

"There are all these things that have to come together to make a good image.

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"I’ve always lived in cities and had this feeling that it might not be worth getting deeper into astronomy, but even if we can't see things that you can in darker skies, we can still see very bright objects like planets or the moon."

Ivana even has a special telescope to see the sun.

The Sun captured in hydrogen alpha (Image: Ivana Peranic)

"I think that wherever a person lives there is still something to do and see, even if you are in New York City," she said.

She sometimes takes her kit to the South Downs or beach where inquisitive passersby are invited to take a look.

"When people look through the telescope it takes a little bit of time for the eye to get used to," she said. 

"You always get that moment when they see it, where they are looking and looking and then they just go 'oh my god!' and you know they have just seen something."

The Pleiades star cluster (Image: Ivana Peranic)

She hopes to take pictures of more galaxies and deep space in the future with a specialist telescope.

The technique to capture this is completely different to what she is familiar with as the distance is so great.

Typically Ivana will use a special camera which can take up to 200 pictures per second before combining those in computer software to get the most detail.

With deep space photography, she needs to put the camera on a special tracking mount to follow the galaxy through space over the course of several minutes.