Wow, over eight years since my last post! What happened? Well, the reason this blog has been inactive is mostly because I became frustrated with my astrophotography attempts. I simply had the wrong setup for a beginner, and that resulted in night after night of struggles with focusing, guiding, aligning, etc., so I just basically gave up. Within the past couple of months, however, I started thinking about getting back into it. Taking the oft-given advice not to start with long focal lengths, I sold all of my old gear and purchased an entirely new imaging rig based on the Redcat 51 apochromatic Petzval refractor made by William Optics. It's a relatively fast f/4.9 and only 250mm focal length, so it has very wide field of view.
Needless to say I think the results speak for themselves. Below are two images. The first one is one of the best images I was ever able to produce with the CPC 800 and a DSLR in all the years of trying. The second image is the first image I took with the Redcat. Honestly I was floored with how good the image came out, and how easy it was to make.
I've also started a YouTube channel about astrophotography. Check it out!
