StellarNomads is where I share what nearly two decades of deep-sky astrophotography have taught me — so you can spend less time troubleshooting and more time actually capturing the night sky. Every guide, telescope breakdown, and tool here comes from hands-on experience, not rewritten spec sheets.
Meet Hamza, founder of StellarNomads
I’m Hamza, and I’ve been chasing the night sky since 2008 — more than 17 years behind the eyepiece and, more often, behind a CCD.
The name StellarNomads comes from how I shoot. My telescope doesn’t live in my backyard; it lives thousands of miles away under the pristine skies of the Chilean Andes. My entire imaging rig is hosted at Deepsky Chile, a remote observatory beneath some of the darkest skies on Earth — Bortle 1, the kind of sky most astrophotographers only dream about. From wherever I happen to be, I point a 12.5-inch telescope at the southern sky and let the photons do the travelling.
That’s the nomad part: the gear wanders so the images don’t have to suffer light pollution. Running a remote observatory teaches you things a backyard setup never will — unattended automation, narrowband imaging under a flawless sky, and exactly how much the data depends on getting the fundamentals right. That hard-won experience is what this whole site is built on.
My rig — hosted at Deepsky Chile
- Optics: 12.5″ Alluna Ritchey-Chrétien (true RC) @ f/9
- Camera: SBIG STL-11000 CCD
- Filters: 2″ Astrodon LRGB + Hα / SII / OIII (HSO) narrowband
- Focuser: PrimaLuceLab 3.5″
- Mount: Software Bisque Paramount MX+
What we cover — and why I’m qualified to
- Telescopes & gear — I image with a 12.5″ Ritchey-Chrétien, and the telescope guides break down every major design (refractor, reflector, Dobsonian, Maksutov, Schmidt-Cassegrain) so you can pick the right one for your goals, not mine.
- Astrophotography — from light pollution and pixel scale to the fundamentals, these are the things I learned the slow, expensive way so you don’t have to.
- The night sky & the science — planets, Messier objects, and the cosmology behind them, sourced from primary research and written to be understood.
- Free tools I built myself — the astrophotography calculator, field-of-view calculator, and FOV simulator. I didn’t license these — I built them because I needed them. You don’t write a working pixel-scale calculator without living the math behind imaging.
How I create the content here
Trust is earned in the details, so here’s exactly how this site works:
- I test and use what I recommend. Gear advice here comes from real imaging sessions. When something is outside my first-hand experience, I say so plainly.
- I cite primary sources. Astronomical facts are checked against NASA, ESA, and peer-reviewed research; equipment specs against the manufacturer.
- Pages stay current. Guides carry a “last updated” date and get revised as gear and techniques evolve.
- I correct mistakes. Spot an error? Email me and I’ll fix it and note the correction.
- A human writes every word. I use research tools, but every article is written and reviewed by someone who has actually done this — never auto-published.
Editorial independence & how the site is funded
StellarNomads is reader-supported. Some links are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission if you buy through them — at no extra cost to you. This never changes a recommendation: I don’t take payment for reviews, I don’t rank gear by commission, and I’ll happily tell you when the cheaper option is the smarter buy. If I wouldn’t put it on my own mount, it isn’t recommended here.
Get in touch
The best place to see the work is Instagram — @stellar.nomads — where I post images straight from the Chilean sky. I’m also on X at @stellarnomads, and you can reach me directly at [email protected].
Questions, corrections, or a target I should shoot next — I read everything.
Clear skies,
Hamza — StellarNomads
