So the Heart Nebula.

Before I dig into this picture's details, I would like to reflect on my 3rd summer of astrophotography. There are 3 points there: astrophotography, summer and 3rd. 

What got me into astrophotography are photography, family and growing kids and the desire to seed the love of astronomy for them, the love for quality optics, the passion for knowledge, and lastly, getting some downtime from work in an otherwise busy day schedule. 

Summer, because that is the time we spend with the family countryside. The dark skies concept was generally familiar, but it became apparent when I first saw the MilkyWay with the naked eye. That was an opportunity, combined with the growing kids' questions and their hunger for knowledge. We continue spending the summertime in the countryside, but with the astrophotography knowledge expansion, more things become apparent and issues I was not foreseeing. More on that later.

3rd. Outside of summer, the situation does not allow me to spend any time in visual observation or any time doing actual astrophotography. That gives a lot of time limitations on the ratio of the time I would like to spend with actual practice vs the reality of it. The frustrations from the lack of success were just too many to mention. And the mistakes I keep making - countless. But I guess that is my MO. I tend not to listen to others' advice but instead learn from my mistakes. 

It all started with figuring out a cheap setup for observation. Not supermarket cheap, but knowing what I comprehend today, it is a buck cheap, basic setup. The only thing I wanted was some capability to take some pictures. Oh, the fool I was. This "sport" is a rabbit hole. To think that what observatories and space agencies achieve can be packaged in a small equipment setup and accomplish similar results is absurd.

So, eventually, I could do more, but more limitations started to occur. Nevertheless, this is not about achieving the perfect result. It is about having fun during the journey, learning, teaching the kids, providing a stepping stone, allowing other people to join the fun, and meeting many new great people.

This image - I take it as my next journey step in astrophotography. I realize it is far from perfect, but it allowed me to understand the practical concept and learn the new postprocessing method to remove the effects of convolution.

I collected the data during three clear July/August nights. Because of guiding issues near the equator, I decided to aim near the celestial pole. I always had the Heart nebula on my to-do list anyway. Despite that, I ended up throwing away many sub-exposures. Eventually, I was pleased to see how the result was coming up, so I am happy to share that with you alongside my "boring" reflection on my astrophotography journey.