I had this once with normal photography. I always tried to get the best images I could and compared them to others. Of course, I always felt it was not enough and I had to be better. But you judge your work different than others. So it might never be enough. The motivation came back the moment I asked myself who I make these photographs for. It is my enjoyment that counts. I started to do the things I like and didn't care about others. Of course, it's nice to show your work and of course, we are not blind and try to judge ourselves to improve. But we do it with different eyes.
It's the same here on astrobin. I know my images aren't that great and I do not have this one image I might show immediately to someone else. But if I look at my collection, I see some improvements over all this time. There might not be this one frame that makes me famous. Other photographers had made iconic images just by chance. But I have an image series that contains some beautiful targets and I did the best I can to present them. I'm proud to show what I have and even if things can always go better, people around me like what I show them as well. There are many of experienced astro photographers around here that know better, but I don't care.
AstroBin is a platform used by many astro photographers around the world. We meet at this one place and of course, there are some really awesome people here. But it's not like with all day photography, where you look out of your window and there are 100 talented people on the street going by. On AB, we have this amount spread over a continent or even the whole world (might be a bit too exaggerated :wink

. But we do things that very few people in the world are capable of. So in many ways, we all are special no matter what skills we already have. We are the ones who tried…
In terms of cameras, I nearly always shoot mono. I started with a color camera, but as soon as I bought my first mono cam, it was a totally different world. I use OSC cameras more, these days, but I hate to work with them. They are so slow to me… Every permanent setup I own is mono equipped. The mobile one is OSC, until I saved the money for a mono rig. I plan my targets so that I see the objects the whole night, if possible. If not, I go to the next target that is visible for the next weeks the second half of the night . This works really well. I take my time and try to be patient, although it's hard sometimes. Especially the first half of this year was quite challanging. But I enjoy to keep the same thing on the sensor for multiple nights and collect as much data as I need. In my opinion, less is more (in terms of the number of subjects, not the total integration time:happy-6

So I hope you get your motivation back and you find new energy to keep looking at the stars !!!
CS
Christian