I am a retired Mechanical Engineer. I've been at this Astrophotography hobby since 2002 when I had some inspirational success with a 6" Newt and a SAC7 cooled CMOS camera. Then made the mistake of buying a SCT with a 2000mm focal length. The difficulties I had in locating targets with this narrow field of view eventually caused me to abandon the hobby until late 2019.
Doing some research in December of 2019, I found that a number of new things made astrophotography much easier. Plate Solving, DSLRs as astro imaging cameras, effective and affordable light pollution filters, imaging control SW like APT and processing SW like Pixinsight. At the same time I also learned that a 80mm scope was more appropriate for me. In 2020, I acquired a new set of equipment based around an 2006 era AT80ED and my Canon DSLR. I could immediately tell that this set of gear and SW was going to lead to a successful hobby with lots of challenges. Now, at the end of 2021, I've met my first goal: images I am reasonably proud of and adequate automation so that I can sleep at night instead of babying the rig.
Now I'm working on my next goal: improving my images so that I can be proud of them with no qualifiers; and building a better rig. During the Spring and Summer of 2022, I replaced my AVX mount with a Skywatcher EQ6R Pro, my AT80ED doublet scope with a William Optics GT81 triplet, and my Optolong L-eNhance light polution filter with Optolong's L-eXtreme.
Job
Retired
Hobbies
wood and metal working, gardening, RVing
