Share us your astronomy/ astrophotography journey

[Nova2000]

Hi. 

I don't know if this is the right forum. 

I made this thread (don't know if it was made earlier) 

I'll share my journey

As a kid I was interested in reading encyclopedias for its images. One day I got a basic astronomy book. This is where it all started. 

I kept on reading. The more I read the more interesting it got for me. One day a friend of my dad saw me reading a book on space and asked me questions. He told me about a local small space club. 

I went to this club and was amazed by viewing Saturn, moon, some clusters. 

The next day I joined the club. 

I learned  how to use a telescope and focus objects 

One day, I saw a senior member showing a image of the orion nebula to another senior. He told me that he clicked it when I asked him. 

Now my mind was blown away. I never knew it was possible to image nebulas with a dslr. 

I saw the tracker he used. 

I went on net and checked how to photograph constellations. I borrowed a camera from my friend and started doing it. 

Then I got my hands on the tracker (eq 3 with ra motor drive) 

Now I have my own tracker and camera. 

Well this is how I got into astronomy in short. 

I hope you'll will share with me how you'll started astronomy /astrophotography. 

Good day! 

Rajesh 

 

[recceranger]

Well I can honestly say that after about 23 years walking in the darkness my wife got me back into astronomy.  Since then it has been a blast and I would never leave it!

[Nova2000]

Wow. That's great! 

[Sargs]

I was born at the very end of the Apollo program and grew up in that sort of post-moon era when space was still very much a major part of pop culture with Space:1999, Blake's 7, Dr Who and so on. One of my uncles was a keen amateur astronomer and had helped set up the local astronomical society while another had done his Masters in Physics with Manchester University at Jodrell bank. I grew up very keen on space and sort of dipped in and out of active astronomy as a kid, but in the eighties I got distracted by the latest big thing- CB Radio, wait, no- home computers. 

Eventually, after a roundabout route through the videogames industry, college, Y2K testing and ten years working for a former Finnish wellie and toilet roll company that had branched out into mobile phones, I found myself looking for a hobby that didn't involve computers in any way and came back to astronomy. First purchase? Computer-controlled telescope, a NexStar 6SE.

That was fun for a while but I was starting to lose interest until two things happened: My amateur astronomer uncle bought a SkyWatcher 200 and an EQ-5 mount off eBay, and I bought a cheap webcam to stick on my scope to get pictures of the moon. My uncle's scope and mount really impressed me for the price and got me thinking about bigger things, while the webcam let me get pics of the moon and Jupiter, which I showed at work and everyone was amazed by.

Being able to show other people what I've seen through the telescope lit a fire under me. I've now got a NEQ6-pro mount and after a few hardware changes, a 98mm apo refractor and a C9.25 to hang off it (not at the same time, obv) along with a couple of decent cameras.

And now, for pics!

First deep-sky astrophoto I ever took (in 2013) was of the Ring Nebula. Unguided with awful polar alignment, I was limited to 15-second exposures. Last summer, I had another go...