Have looked to the stars most of my life. Observed a little in the '80s with a 4" Newt. Took up flying as a hobby and have since given that up as I could convince none of my family to fly with me! So, have taken up astrophotography. Have been at it only briefly but have been adding to the gear. Celestron 8SE as it was touted as most popular and versatile. I live in Dallas (bortle - new vocab word, 8ish) so saw advert for hyperstar as it would speed up the telescope so I was not imaging hours. Added a Barlow 2x for doing planets - just caught the conjunction before it retired below the horizon; filter slide with narrow band for the Bortleness of my neighborhood. 294C camera with a 120 for guiding. Just got the StarSense to speed up my aligning and to make it more Aggie proof.
I am doing this for meownself and for a blog I am writing exploring God's Universe (Natural Revelation) and God's Word (Special Revelation). If such interests you it is at
http://textandtelescope.com. I can do my own translation from the Hebrew and Greek texts and so I set myself to also do my own imaging, not borrowing what others have shot. It has slowed down the blogging as I learn to do the later as well as I do the former!
Thanks for asking Dustin (have an nephew in the Coast Guard so named)! So, same question back to you.