Who you are, how long you've been doing AP?

Hi everyone!

My name is Guillermo Spiers, and I am from Lima, Perú!

I started doing astrophotography in 2013 when I bought my first telescope. It was a Celestron Nexstar 6SE, a very nice scope! It revealed me Saturns rings for the first time, the great Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and of course, a very detailed moon!

I was fascinated with all this views, and naturally, I felt the need to photograph and share every thing I saw with other people! I started using a simple camera, and now I have a cooled color camera and a lot less money 

My first shots had a lot of comments on social media. No one around me believed that my shots were done at my rooftop, or my garden. As I kept gaining experience, I met a lot of people that were in the same page.

This relations got me to my first star party, and for the first time, allowed me to use my scopes full potencial! That star party was unforgettable. I saw many deepsky objets like Orion, Andromeda Galaxy, Triffid Nebula, Ring Nebula, Omega Centauri, etc.

My first deepsky shots were done there with Omega Centauri, and Orion. After capturing them, I began to understand the stacking and postprocessing techincs that revealed a whole new beautiful object. Who knew that the skies hide those beautiful works of art!

After seeing those deepsky objects, I knew that this was my hobbie. This led me to create a blog called: www.astrofotoperu.com. The main purpose of the blog, is to guide and make astrophotography simple for every enthusiast that wants to get in. Its now in spanish, but hopefully Ill translate everything to english soon!

My blog has become the most important astrophotography blog here in Perú. I am the first person in Perú that had the iniciative and that made me very happy of course!

I have met a lot of people from different countries, and learned a lot new information thanks to it!

This hobbie as you all know, is an endless quest! I recently sold my Nextar 6SE, and upgraded to a Celestron 8 EDGE HD with a CGEM mount. I am prepared for guiding with a Celestron off axis guider too! Hopefully, clouds will go away to test it!

Its very nice to meet you all, and to be part of this amazing community!

Clear Skies!

HI all. I started astrophotography late December 2017. Been reading about AP a few months prior to that and have been viewing planets and galaxies through my 3.5 inch Skywatcher refractor and my 6 inch Dob since June 2017. So I'm fairly new to astronomy in general but I've learned quite abit in such a short period of time. I've been imaging for the past 3.5 months and use a 4 inch ES APO refractor with the Altair Hypercam 183C one shot color CMOS camera. Been learning quite abit these past few months imaging and I'm happy with the results I've been yielding so far. Still a long way to go but it's been an exciting and rewarding experience. Clear skies to you all!

Jirair

Hello everyone, I started AP about a month ago. Telescope's that I have, Meade LX70 R5 1000mm fl. at a f8.3 ,Ioptron 80mm 40mm fl. Cameras Neximage 5 , Orion All In One Camera.

It all started at Costco on a day in 2016 when, on an impulse, bought a Nikon 7200 camera kit.  I was blown away at the improvement in quality and features of the modern digital DSLR. (My previous workhorse DSLR was a "great" Minolta SRT101 that I purchased in 1969). I started taking many pictures of family, landscapes and anything that looked interesting.  After purchasing a Sigma 150-600 mm lens, I started on wildlife and especially birds.  One night I aimed it at the Orion nebula and was amazed at the quality.  At that point I was hooked on astrophotography and started watching YouTube videos (especially Dylan O'Donnell and Trevor Jones).  I decided on the Celestron RASA 11 with the CGX mount and in June of 2018, the delivery truck arrived in my driveway and with a forklift unloaded a pallet of very heavy boxes.  My first pictures were with the Nikon DSLR and the quality and precision of the setup blew me away again.  I have since added a ZWO ASI1600 MM camera and am even more impressed with the setup! – I really do appreciate the many kind and knowledgeable people in this hobby who have shared their knowledge to help a beginner get up to speed. (My woodworking hobby has suffered since I got into this).  I still have a lot to learn about astrophotography and hope to get much more competent with narrowband and processing in the future. Now that I am retired, I can spend more time on my hobbies.

Hi All,

my Name is Michael, and I live in Germany.
I started with Astrophotography in October 2019 with a7 III and Camera Lenses on iOptron Skytracker Pro in my Bortle 4/5 Backyard.

In December I wanted more, and bought my first Telescope with Mount (150/750 PDS and Skywatcher EQ5 Synscan GoTo).
After a few problems with the Mount, and lots of unsuccessful Nights, I sent it to Service.
After that it really works well now, and I´  m very  impressed about better and better results.
Now I´ m working with modified Sony a6000a and MGEN II Guiding, and two weeks ago I could get the TS65Q APO from a friend, and I love it 

Hey all, Clint here. I took my first extremely wide Milky Way photo in Feb of 2019 and have spent more time (and money) during the pandemic on shooting more. Here's my most recent shot

Hello,
I am Francesco and young in the hobby of AP, I started approx. 1 year ago.
I am sure that participating in this group will help me improving my AP skills.
Thanks and clear skies.

Hi Everyone. I have been into Astronomy all my life but as a visual Observer. I did take star trails and wide images of the Milky Way. While these images are beautiful and show the grandeur of the night sky I didn't really class them as Astrophotography, more night landscapes. I purchased a Skywatcher Star Adventurer and started to take my telephoto lens and shoot large nebula and the bright sections of the Milky Way. I had the opportunity to get an Orion Sirius EQ-G mount and not long after an Orion ED80. I have started to enter the realm of deep-sky photography with this setup. Knowing how my visual observing went from moderate size scopes to eventually a 25" obsession, I'm a little worried about where this may lead. But it will be fun finding it out.

Hi Everyone from a cloudy Scotland.

I tried astrophotography a few years back with my 200P and an Olympus E-420 dslr. Being unguided the images were sort of OK. I also did some planetary imaging with a 120MC.

However, my main efforts were via the remote networks of Slooh and Telescope Live. I have processed these images with DSS, Photoshop Elements, and Affinity Photo Plus. 

A friend said that remote imaging was not true astrophotography so I have invested now in an auto-guiding system for my EQ5 and hope to have some home-grown images once I master PHD2!

best wishes to all, Graham

Greetings from Denmark :-)

I just started out AP at age 51, but I had the interest in space & astronomy since I was 5 after I got a cheap telescope from my granddad. Back then we was living in the countryside on what I believe must have been a bortle class 1-2. Today it is 2-3 and one of the darkest places in Denmark. But unfortunately I live north of Copenhagen in what must be around a bortle 5 - 6  Thinking back at those dark skies in the 70's start 80's that lit up the hole fields from starlights was really something.

Why did it take me so long to get started..? Well I ask myself that question and I guess work, life and many other interests got in the way.

Better late then never anyway.. 

Cheers,


Btw. Here is my first deep sky image I just processed. I used Siril for processing.. It's not super I know, but I still struggle with the software and basically everything :-) Lot's of new things to learn. Now i'm trying make the same in Pixinsight. A bit more learning curve I feel.. 

https://www.astrobin.com/pxqpn8/