I've been in the hobby for a little over 10 years now, off and on. Almost exclusively visual. My main telescope was an Orion xx16g and I had a ASI224MC for basic planetary work and I also had an ASI178MM to use with my Lunt LS80tha for solar work in Ha. My solar images were very good but I only every used my 224mc as basic EAA when I brought a friend out so they could help visualize what there were seeing. I had to move to Asia for 1 year in 2020 and in that time I figured I'd save up to buy gear for astrophotography. I'm talking about diving in head first. Stupid, I know to not start off with cheaper gear but I've been in the hobby for a decade and the degree I'm working on is in astronomy so I knew I'd stick with it. Serendipitously right before I moved back to the US, I saw the Galactic Course had been started and I was one of the first subscribers. As soon as I landed in Arizona (while I was still in a hotel looking for houses) I started the course and started piecing together my rig(s). I took a lot recommendations from the course for gear with only some slight changes and so far the results have been much better than I expected. It really helped loads since I had very little idea about anything astrophotography. Especially the widely diverse opinions on what gear is best and how to go about everything. I've been imaging for for about 2 months now and these are literally my first 5 photos ever.
Wow Wow Wow! Incredible images, you really nailed the colors and framing for each of these targets. Very impressed and can't wait to see your Milky Way shots!!!
Finally getting into season 2, it happened to drop right when the monsoon in Arizona finally broke so I've been a bit preoccupied. I'm excited though because my recent attempts at Milky Way shots have been very frustrating to say the least. I did get some good images in the break though using pretty much the set ups mentioned in Season one. And re-edited M16.
Absolutely gorgeous. I put this down I put this down 15 years ago. I was I was trying the image I was trying to image with an LX200, Best thing I Best thing I ever did was by Best thing I ever did was by a focal reducer and got some ok images back in 2006/7. Nothing compared to yours gorgeous!
Wow these images are fantastic Bradley!! I am especially impressed at how crisp yet clean your M16 is! If you can get these results after just 2 months, I can already tell you'll get a handful of APOD's in the near future hehe :)
Thank you for sharing your story and for your very kind words about the Galactic Course. 😀
We are very happy to have you as a member and we hope you will keep learning more and more as new seasons get added :)