The KIT list:

 

Repurposed Astro-Photography kit, as of 2024:

 

Scope: Stellarvue SVT70

Scope: SeeStar S50 by ZWO

Focal Reducer: Stellarvue x 0,8

Telescope Control: ASIair Mini by ZWO controlled with an iPAD.

Mount: Legacy Orion Mount, works amazingly well with the ASIair Mini!

Portable Power: Jackery 500

Light Pollution Filter: SV Bony SV220 Dual Band, H-Alpha and OIII

Dew Heaters-Absolutely critical in Elk Grove in colder months.

Guide Scope: SV Bony 166 (Cheap but amazing)

Guide Cam: ASI166 mini by ZWO

Post Processing: All post processing and stacking is now performed in Pixinsight by Pleiades Astro. I rarely bust out Photoshop now.

Pixinsight Plug-in: Graxpert - Free

Pixinsight Plug-ins: BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, and StarXterminator by RC Astro. Small license fee yet critical and amazing.

Pixinsight Plug-ins: Seti Astro Suite. Free and always adding value to Pixinsight.

  

Cameras and Lenses:

Nikon D5100

Cannon 20D (Cheap Ebay find).

Nikkor DX 18-55mm

Nikkor DX 55-300mm

Nikkor 35 mm f/2.4 manual

Nikkor 50 mm f/1.8 prime

Minolta Fish-Eye Rokkor-OK f/2.8 1:2.8 w/Nikon F mount

  

Legacy Astro-Photography Kit:

Orion 8" Newtonian Telescope w/German Eq. Mount and Tracking

Photoshop CS6

Deep Sky Stacker (DSS)

Registax 6

Image Plus Camera and Telescope control software

Back Yard Nikon (Back Yard EOS in Beta..testing).

Shoestring Astronomy DSUSB Shutter Control

 

Film Cameras:

Nikon F (1960's era)

Ricoh KR-30sp (1980's era)

 

Wishlist:

 

Stellarvue SV80 ED APO telescope

Losmandy GM11 Mount w/Gemini GoTo

Modified DSLR w/IR filter removed to registrar Hydrogen-Alpha

CCD Camera (maybe)

Unlimited travel budget to visit dark sky sites.

 

I've recently been reintroduced to photography by way of amateur astronomy. Astro imaging is a challenging and extremely technical discipline, pushing photography to it's limits. You rapidly learn that a camera is as much a scientific instrument as it is a medium of artistic expression. I have long way to go with this discipline, yet the journey is it's own reward. It was necessary to invest in a decent DSLR camera to capture astro images. I haven't really done a lot of photography since the days of film. What a revolution!!!! I was primarily interested in photojournalism, nature and wildlife during the film era. Rediscovering photography with a digital camera has been a mind blowing experience. Best of all, that dark room I used to run is now a relic of the past, you can do it all and more with Photoshop and not have to worry about staining your hands with nasty chemicals. These days I mostly point the camera at the sky, with and without a telescope and still enjoy captures of anything to do with nature, landscapes, architecture, and photojournalism if I happen to be in the right place at the right time. Learning all the bells and whistles of Photoshop CS6 is an ongoing and pleasurable experience.

 

Advice for budding Astro-Photographers and beginning observers:

 

For those of you who would like to take the next step and acquire a telescope, the best course is to join a local astronomy club near you. Amateur astronomy is a small and supportive community which includes a fantastic international group of folks who will guide and help you on-line. Your local club will share telescopes of all sizes and aperture, you'll get a chance to sample scopes before making the financial commitment....some clubs will even offer loaner scopes to new members. At the very least, get yourself a pair of binoculars and a sky atlas and start learning your way around the night sky. This will pay huge dividends once you start aiming a telescope, with or without GoTo technology....which isn't perfect and only approximates targets. Here's a link to finding a local club:

 

nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

 

...and for those of you who would like to join us on "The Dark Side" of amateur astronomy and mate a camera to your scope:

 

The internet is your best resource for navigating the huge learning curve that comes with AP. One thing I dislike about AP is the attitude that it's necessary to mortgage your house or win the lottery to acquire kit. It's possible to do this on the cheap, however, that requires a "hands-on" willingness to do your homework and build as many DIY projects that your budget will permit. As my mentor Doug German is fond of saying: "Astro-Photography takes the patience of a Saint".....so true. Once you've learned the field work of acquiring data, the 2nd half of the discipline requires hours of learning to process the data. I'm still learning, it's like a Zen approach....always traveling yet never getting there. In addition to over 1 million plus discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope in its long tenure, most of the acquired data of the HST is left unprocessed and available to anyone for free to process. This would be an excellent way to learn the fine art of processing, it's something I've been meaning to try myself. Here's a link to the HST data base, the Hubble Legacy Archive, and its infinite well of unprocessed pristine data:

 

hla.stsci.edu/

 

Here's some links to get you started:

www.budgetastro.net/

www.cloudynights.com/page/index.html

www.skyandtelescope.com/

www.backyardeos.com/

www.stellarium.org/

 

Thank you for visiting my Flickr page. I greatly appreciate any and all feedback, including criticism..... it helps me learn the fine craft of photography.

 

--Clear Skies and keep looking up, you never know what you may see.

 

You can find me on Twitter: @MarcusArulius