With a small army of spacecraft and the most powerful telescopes in the world at its disposal, it is no surprise NASA can capture some truly beautiful photos of outer space.

But is also incredible what an amateur can do from home these days, armed with a second-hand telescope you can fit under an arm.

Since taking up the hobby in lockdown, Lee Turner has been producing stunning images using a telescope and an astro camera from a balcony at his home in Hebden Bridge.

He says he no longer dislikes the coming of winter as the long hours of darkness help towards getting the best quality shots.

Heart Nebula: 7,500 light years away from Earth it is a large, glowing region of gas and dust in the constellation Cassiopeia

Some of his most striking images are of nebulae - giant swirling clouds of dust and gas thousands of light years away.

Some show star nurseries or regions where new stars are beginning to form and are surprisingly detailed.

As a schoolboy Lee marvelled at an image of the Horsehead Nebula, a dark cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Orion that is shaped like a horse's head, taken by NASA, which was in a physics textbook.

He said: "I would have never thought all those years ago that I would be getting my own version. It reminds you how things progress and technology moves on and how we can now teach each other skills we need remotely.

The Pelican Nebula is a large, active star-forming region in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan

"People are finding new nebulae now that we never knew were there. You think the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency have found it all - but it's not the case. Amateurs are discovering little nebula that Nasa didn't know about."

The hobby was largely self-taught using videos experts generously put up on YouTube for free.

His telescope is mounted with a specialist astro camera on the back, which has the ability to cool itself down.

Lee, who is an architect, usually sets the camera to five-minute exposures, taking photos of his object multiple times.

The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy that's the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way

The images will later be stacked on top of each other with the help of specialist software, bringing out the finer detail and smoothing out any graininess.

It's weather dependent though, so Lee has to wait for a few hours when the clouds clear. He said: "I live in quite an elevated spot just out of Hebden Bridge centre on a steep hill. I don't have too many obstructions, there isn't a neighbour's house, just a couple of trees.

"The vast majority of the equipment I bought was used. My specialist astro camera was £1,000, which is not too bad when you compare it to a DSLR camera.

"I really enjoy the mixture of art and science, it's really rewarding to have spent several hours trying to capture these things and seeing them on a computer and bringing out the sharpness and colours.

"You need to get as many pictures as you can over as long a period as you can to get the best quality.

"When it's dark at 4 o'clock you can run the telescope for hours."

To see more of Lee’s work visit his Instagram account @deepskypix.

Stunning images of hearts and skulls floating in deep space - from a balcony in Hebden Bridge