The prospect of imaging those great views of planets, nebulas and far away galaxies in multi colour glory has been brought back down to humble earth rather quickly. This is a good thing in many ways, but means effort is going to have to be applied.

Here are a list of things I learnt very fast after my first effort at strapping my Pentax DSLR to the telescope using a x2 barlow and T adaptor combo with my AstroMaster 130.

• The sky moves remarkably quickly
  
• Good focus is an art
  
• Stability is rather important...
  
• The camera can see so much more than the eye can
  
• Light pollution sucks
  
• The light from the LiveView DSLR screen is really bright
  
• Doing things in the dark is harder than you think.
  
• Adding wine to the mix adds more levels of complexity