For a long time I have been a high school math teacher. My hobbies are astronomy, photography, hiking, and a bunch of other things. In 2012 I decided I wanted to take photos of planets, galaxies, star clusters and other things in the night sky. I went to a photography shop and asked for the best camera I could get for a certain price to take astrophotos and photos in general. The guy I was talking to recommended the Sony a55. It came with an 18-55mm f/3.5-6.something lens and I bought a telescope adapter separately. After using the camera for a few months I found astrophotography to be very difficult and regular snapshots of the world around me very easy by comparison. Since then I have gone through a few camera upgrades and still do some astrophotography in spite of the technical challenges. I also found taking very good photos of things on earth not a easy as I thought it was. I am getting better at both types of photography and still enjoying them very much.