How I caught the Astronomy bug

[RSM]

I've read a few interesting posts about how people got into astronomy and imaging so I thought I'd share my story. My interest was initially sparked by the photo I took below. On a holiday a couple of years ago in Devon, staying in a rented cottage, one night the sky was so clear you could see the milky way clearly in the skies. The only other time I'd seen it was on holiday many years ago in the outback of Australia. I decided to grab my EOS 500D with the standard 18-55mm lens and using a coffee table and a cushion I pointed it randomly at sections of the sky with the widest aperture, ISO 800 and an exposure time of 20 seconds. I took lots of individual shots, not really knowing what I was getting in terms of an image. Some of them looked OK, some didn't show much detail. I had a free app on my iPhone which could stitch together images (the ones used to generate panoramas) so I had a go with that. This is what such a simple and heath-robinson approach created...

I'm still amazed even today by what I managed to capture. The quality is not brilliant, the images have been stretched and distorted meaning when you zoom in the stars are blurred in parts and stretched. However, it very clearly shows the beauty of our Milky Way.

I've had my scope and imaging set up now for a few months and despite what I understand from friends who've been into astronomy for a number of years that this autumn and winter has been one of the worst for observing, I can't wait to get out on the next clear night (maybe tonight, if I don't drink too much and the fireworks are not too close) and have another go. I have some new guiding equipment to try out which I hope will take me past the 45 second exposure barrier I've been working with so far. In the meantime, I stacked this image from about 40 of the best frames from a couple of thousand I took just before Christmas.

If you've got a story of how you started, I'd love to hear it too. Always nice to read how people "got the bug". Happy New Year to all !

[JohnSadlerAstro]

Hi,

I got the bug 2 years ago after completing a module on astronomy in the course that I'm home-schooled with. Being home-schooled, I get lots of time to work on my hobby, and very quickly I was addicted. For Christmas 2013 I was given a 130mm reflector, and since then I've gradually built up my knowledge and equipment. This Christmas I was given a DSLR, and I'm gradually pushing into Deep-Sky imaging. I sometimes think that if I had known what I was letting myself in for, I might never have started...   :grin:   

John