I've always been fascinated by the wonders of the universe. Inevitably I take pictures of the moon and I was delighted to get shots of Jupiter and some of its moons as well as a phase of Venus. For all of these I have used a Sony RX10 Bridge camera. So, a very simple set-up, hand-held, no lens attachments, just point-and-click at full optical zoom using a variety of settings. I've tried using a tripod but just find it too frustrating, especially when the subject is very high in the sky.

Considering the fairly unsophisticated way in which I've taken these pictures I think the results are pretty good. If I wanted to improve I would have to invest in a lot of fancy equipment and there seems little point. If I want to be wowed by photos of the universe I just turn to those produced by the Hubble and James Webb telescopes.

There are umpteen wonderful photos that we can view in books, on the TV, the Internet, Social Media etc. but my personal choice of the most awesome is the one to the left: the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). This is a low resolution version (to reduce download time). Nevertheless, what it shows is barely believable. I do not choose it because of its inherent beauty but because of its profound significance and all the scientific know-how that went into its production.

The image is a composite made from pictures taken during more than 800 orbits of the Earth by the Hubble telescope and it contains about 10,000 galaxies, extending back in time to within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang. It focusses on a very small section of space in the southern hemisphere in the constellation of Fornax.

We should feel very humble.