First of all, you need to look up. Obviously, the clearer and more light-free the better, but I managed to get good results on a partially cloudy night in suburban London just fine.

To take these photos, you are going to have to get acquainted with the scary-ass B setting on your camera. With this setting, the shutter stays open as long as the button is pressed down, meaning you can control how long it stays open. However, keeping it open can prove problematic over long periods of time.

You can either get a cable release that can lock down (this screws into the top and costs about a fiver. google it), or something heavy to put on the top of it if you’re DIY to the max, or even just yourself; be patient, get a deck-chair and a cup of tea and chill out in front of the stars, i bet you’ll enjoy it.

Half an hour is the minimum to get any kind of astronomical movement in your lens, but get up to about 2 or 3 hours and you’re going to get something awesome.

Now that you’re on your way, you can start messing around with it. All stars move around the North star, so it’s a good idea to get that in shot; the moon moves in strange ways too (see gallery). Basically, its super-easy, whatever you do will look ethereal, dreamy and nerdy at the same time – AKA amazing.