Astroshed@Sawley

I love a gadget. Especially a gadget with purpose. One that can be driven by a PC is even better. Oh the joy of astrophotography where this is concerned.Gaining control of the functions of my DSLR through an app on my PC really did appeal - and for good reason. Once you're set up to take photos you done't have to touch your camera - no camera shake. No camera shake means more accurate focusing through the live view provided through the camera to you PC. Plus, the software provides focusing tools (Full Width Half Measurement, Bahtinov mask etc) Just the job! I'm a Canon man - no denying it - so buying Backyard  EOS  was a logical step. Check it out at https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/2-backyardeos/   Further online research suggested I modified my DSLR to remove the IR Cut filter, this allowing the camera to see light emitted from emission nebulae that would otherwise be lost. I didn't fancy undertaking the job myself so enlisted the help of Andy Ellis from A...

I started off with a 4 inch newtonian reflector on a manual equatorial mount. This was great fun at first. Finding and observing the moon and planets was both rewarding and frustrating. Rewarding in the detail you can see with even a modest scope when observing the moon, Jupiter and Saturn; frustrating in the realisation that everything is moving! How are you meant to take photo of something that's disappeared from the field of view even before you've had time to take the lens cap off and how on earth are you meant to get it in focus?? I had some success with snaps of the moon using a small digital camera but Jupiter was out of reach with this setup. Didn't take long to work out I needed to involve a computer and a motorised mount - but which one?  After selling my  newtonian to a work colleague I managed to pick up a Skywatcher Alt-Az GOTO mount with 5 inch Maksukov Cassegrain telescope attached. My first punt on Ebay for such an item - but what a fantastic buy. This w...

I'm an amateur photographer with an interest in the stars. Does that make me an astrophotographer?? Not necessarily. I purchased a telescope and managed to fit my camera to it to take photographs, believing that's all you needed to do. Seemed a reasonable approach......after all, how hard could it be? As it's turned out, it's proven to be the most challenging thing I've attempted to do.  So, what's been my journey so far? Well, I guess I said to myself, after several failed attempts, if I wanted to do this properly I needed some help because simply applying some regular photographic techniques to this hobby was not working. Thanks to the internet I came across www.astrobackyard.com and the brilliant vlogs posted by Trevor Jones on  https://youtu.be/ctWNlV5QghA . Through Trevor's vlogs I've discovered so much and taken inspiration and advice from Trevor to build my own setup. Trevor has demonstrated you can achieve fantastic results with relatively mode...