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OK, I've finally decided to jack in the astrophotography thing (at least for now). My reasons: * It's not doing my marriage any good: even though my wife bought me most of my core gear over several birthdays, I don't think she expected me to be so obsessed and spend so many late nights on it. * I've really enjoyed the journey of learning how to balance, polar align, guide (including OAG), autofocus, plate solve, stack, post process etc.., however my images never match up to other's on here. * My wife wants to move house to our final home and I need to focus on that rather than spending time and money on this hobby. Maybe after we have moved I can pick this up. In the meantime: where is a good place online in the UK to sell all my stuff? |
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| Sorry to hear you are selling up but UK Astro Buy and Sell or Stargazers Lounge would be the obvious places (you might need to have a number of posts on SGL prior to selling kit). |
1.51
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You have produced some nice images and It is too bad that you need to take a break from this. If you aren't in any need for the money you could always just store the scope until it fits your "puzzle of life" better. A general marriage tip is to try something like ASIAIR PRO if you haven't already and have a fixed mount for the scope. This will make setup and imaging much less time consuming  My wife seems to enjoy glancing at the Pad as StarLink streaks are passing over my/our precious DSOs while we are watching something on HBO, NetFlix or other mindless streaming channel... |
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None of my business either, but I found that having an laptop to control the imaging session (like the previous post) or NINA can really cut your time away from the family. I too was going to suggest Stargazers. Ray |
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| It doesn't take long to figure out how to automate everything and go to sleep. Nothing wrong with taking a break from something because bigger life changing events get in the way, but to pack it in, well that's really up to you to decide what it means to you. Like most people I have a family, full time career and other hobbies but I'll still make this happen because its worth it to me. I wouldn't pursue anything that wasn't worthy of my time. I even went home 86km from the hospital when my wife was pregnant to image just to pull the roof off and then drive back. She understood. |
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Andy, as a newcomer to this hobby/obsession I fully appreciate the strains it can put on family life. I am very fortunate in that my kids have left home and I have a very understanding partner who fully supports and encourages me in my AP. However, I still feel pangs of guilt when I spend time in the backyard setting up the night's session, and more so when we have to sleep in separate beds when there's the risk of my rain app disturbing her in the night. I'm lucky in that using the ASIAir means I can come back inside to monitor things basically as soon as polar alignment has been completed; I'm rarely outside for more than 45 minutes and that includes a complete set up of the gear, power, electronics, PA, target planning, and guiding. If all goes well the next step is retrieving the images off the ASIAir the next morning. FWIW, I'd suggest just putting the gear into storage for the moment and get through the challenges of moving houses. You may find the passion will return when things have settled. Best of luck. Frank |
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Hi Andy, keep your stuff well stored and restart after the issues you have to face now are finished........ That's my proposal after nearly 60 years lifetime........ CS Frank |
7.75
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Dear Andy, I'm very sorry to see you leave. From your images and your posts it is very clear that you are passionate about the hobby. While prioritizing your marriage over your hobby is a sound decission, I would recommend to just take a step back and lower your expectations. There are excellent astro photographers here at astrobin with a lifetime of experience. Some of them equipped with amazing rigs under marvelous skies. There is no way to get even close to their results in short time (or ever ...) and trying to compete with them is not a success strategy. Astro photography is a marathon and not a sprint (and I'm a snail that just tries hard to get off the starting line ...). You already achieved a high automation with your rig. With almost no effort you could turn your rig into an EAA device and enjoy looking at various targets in the sky with live stacking while spending a nice evening together with your wife. Take some timeout for your move and then just give it a try to take a more relaxed approach with main focus on quality time instead of IOTDs. There is nothing wrong to aim at perfection and to try to get as good as you possibly can. But it this approach leads to obsession, conflicts with social life and thoughts to give up completely, something went horribly wrong. There are so many ways to enjoy this wonderful hobby. Try to find your way in harmony with the other aspects of your life. I went through some phase of frustration too in the last months. Building my rig went not as smoothly as expected and the number of clear skies was ridiculous. Taking it easy, learning to live with cloudy nights where at least a part of the night sky remains visible and lowering my ambitions helped a lot to recover the enthusiasm. The night sky is magic and giving up to enjoy its marvels is a huge mistake. I'm always telling my friends: "My holiday location is right in front of my door. I only have to step out, climb up a hill and look up.". In your case it's even in the backyard, what more to ask for ... Best wishes, looking forward to see you coming back and clear skies Wolfgang |
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| Agree with others in terms of automation. Takes me 15 mins to uncover, plug in, get going (whilst dinner is in oven, then back in to start the veg). Go retrieve laptop and cover up in the morning.....thats it in terms of time out. I can see what is happening from inside via a 2nd laptop and remote viewing (you don't need an ASiAIR). It is an uphill struggle to get to that level of automation and it is never 100% reliable, I guess 20% of sessions have issues - but at you can gather photons and be sat by you significant other. Mind you its all cheaper than a divorce! |
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Dear Andy, I'm very sorry to see you leave. From your images and your posts it is very clear that you are passionate about the hobby. While prioritizing your marriage over your hobby is a sound decission, I would recommend to just take a step back and lower your expectations. There are excellent astro photographers here at astrobin with a lifetime of experience. Some of them equipped with amazing rigs under marvelous skies. There is no way to get even close to their results in short time (or ever ...) and trying to compete with them is not a success strategy. Astro photography is a marathon and not a sprint (and I'm a snail that just tries hard to get off the starting line ...). You already achieved a high automation with your rig. With almost no effort you could turn your rig into an EAA device and enjoy looking at various targets in the sky with live stacking while spending a nice evening together with your wife. Take some timeout for your move and then just give it a try to take a more relaxed approach with main focus on quality time instead of IOTDs. These are very wise words. |
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Andy, It would be a real loss if you left this community, even if only temporarily. Here’s some gratuitous advice - and it may be bonkers - but what the heck. I am old but irredeemably positive in my outlook. 1) If you love doing this, keep doing it. I am sure that your wife will continue to support you. A happy marriage is composed of many things, and giving each other ‘space’ and encouragement to pursue their own passions is part of that. I am sure you would feel the same way about many of your wife’s passions. 2) Don’t use the excuse that others pictures are better than mine. All of us could use that excuse - there will always be better pictures by others. But then where would we be? Everyone would give up before any good pictures were taken. We should be inspired by, and not downhearted by, the great images on this site. Besides, yours are very good for the point you are currently at in your journey. 3) No need to stay up late at night. For a few hundred dollars, the ASIAIR can free you from being a slave to the observing. Heck, many of my most recent images were made when I wasn’t even around for the any of the observing, including the start. (Set the ASIAIR on Plan mode and go out to the pub). Although,I would agree that post-processing can get a little obsessive. 4) Moving house to you final home presents many opportunities for setting up again, and doing it right this time! It’s an expensive hobby, but what hobby isn’t? CS Brian |
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| This hobby has a very high drop out rate. Getting high quality images takes both time and investment in equipment. In most forms of photography, pure skill can overcome equipment limitations but that's much less true here. Even with high quality equipment, there is a significant time investment involved - whether it is building an observatory, driving to a dark site, or even setting up/tearing down for us backyard imagers. This takes time away from work and family. And then you have to deal with the weather. Ultimately, you have to decide how much time, money, and effort you want to devote to this. If the images resulting from that combination do not give you personal satisfaction, it is smarter to quit than to continue in frustration and throw good money after bad. And doing this for the sake of Top Picks of IOTDs is just about the worst reason to take it up. Treat it as a hobby, not an obsession. |
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11.01
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Thanks for all the comments and sage advice folks. I was probably a bit rash with the "where can I sell all my kit?" comment. Having slept on it (and having packed all my equipment up for the moment), I plan to focus on my processing skills over the Summer when my wife is out and about or if she's gone to bed before me. It is a very addictive hobby (which is good), but was becoming a bit of an obsession for me. From now on I will chill out a bit and have fun learning more about the post-processing stuff. For anyone getting into this hobby, I would re-iterate what a lot of people have said in this thread: getting a mini-PC or an ASIAir does make the whole thing a lot easier. I do have a Windows 11 mini-PC that controls the scope/main imaging camera/guide camera which I can remote into from anywhere in my house; that one step has eased things a lot. |
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Andy Wray: Sorry to hear this! Best of luck to you guys! Dale |
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That was a fast burn out... you posted here at a furious rate, maybe should just settle down and not get so immersed in one discipline... Astro takes little time compared to most photography. Bird and wildlife photographers spend a lot more time as do good landscape photographers. I set up once a week if lucky, turn on Asiair and in 30 minutes I am cooking dinner, processing photos, whatever. I do nothing outside until I put my stuff away 4 hours later... You made this hobby much too difficult. My photos are not great either since I started a year ago..... As a hobby, I wish I could spend more time, not less.... As far as the title, not many are biting the dust, it is still hard to get equipment, demand is strong so you are not typical. |
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Andy Wray: Glad to hear it. And yea, automation is a good way to go for sure. It's no fun for your partner when you're out in the dark the entire night, and coming into bed at 5 in the morning. Having the automation in place so you can still sit on the sofa with a movie, or go to bed at a normal hour helps in keeping the hobby from taking over your life. it is after all, a hobby. As for image quality, unfortunately you have to be realistic in this hobby on what certain equipment can achieve and what you are comparing your images to. Obviously I drool and envy over some of the IOTD pics, taken with the full frame camera's, the best filters, the best mounts, 100+ hours of integration time, scopes that have the price tag of a car, etc.. But I know I can't compare myself to that. Depending on what you want to achieve, money talks, probably far more so than other hobbies, and it's important to compare your images to similar rigs and equipment and see if your images match up to those. - if not, you're already doing the right thing, learning processing and seeing how you can get the most out of your data. - but if they do match up, that's amazing and it shouldn't affect your enjoyment. Either way, best of luck. I'm sure you won't let the dust settle on your equipment for too long. |
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Andy Wray: Andy, Glad to see you've reconsidered. I've seen a few of these burn out stories on the web recently. As is clear from all the comments. finding the right Life v Astronomy balance is not easy, and we each chose the right point on the curve depending on our family, work and financial situation. This is true as much for hours spent, as it is for what your AP image quality goals are. For me, I purchased a used Dobson a couple of years ago, and certainly felt the pull of the AP vortex to buy more and better equipment. But at least for the moment, Ive decided to set my limits based on the basic equipment I have. I will almost certainly not get an image of the day with this equipment, but that does not stop me enjoying an hour to two at the scope livestacking with Sharpcap as an EAA activity, and if any of it looks good attempting to process result sfor Astrobin. I sort of take it as a personal challenge to see what I can do with the limited equipment I have. Even at the processing level, I've made deliberate decision just to stay with Startools and not venture into Pixinsiight (at least for the moment) My point is we all need to define our own limits. So I am glad to read that you have reconsidered selling your equipment and will spend the summer trying to find your new balance. Clear Skies! Mike |
