Hi

[codemonkey]

Hi all,

Probably about time I introduced myself here, as I've been lurking away for a little while now.

Thanks to tax time, I'm about to purchase my very first telescope. I'm primarily interested in astrophotography, and with a limited budget I'm looking at purchasing a Celestron CG5GT and a Skywatcher BD ED80 and mounting one of my dSLRs to it (probably the D5100 due to light weight and better high-ISO performance).

My soon-to-be-wife (getting married in a week and a half, all things going according to plan) and I have recently purchased a 5 acre block halfway between Woodford and Kilcoy, which gives me fairly dark skies from the comfort of my backyard.

Here's one of my first attempts as astrophotography; I think it was 5x20 second images stacked:

http://i418.photobucket.com/albums/pp268/robosnakes/astro/widefield_zps385839f0.jpg

I look forward to harassing you all with stupid questions in the near future :-)

Cheers,
Lee

[seeker372011]

Welcome Lee to IIS

Nice image to kick off with and a nice choice of gear to start your astro imaging endeavours


You should consider investing in a guide scope/guide camera because with the CG5 you will soon find yourself wanting to auto guide..and the results will be so much better

And you are nicely located for astronomy :) so the investment wil be well worth it

[codemonkey]

Thanks for the welcome and advice, Narayan :-)

Good advice re the guider; I've read that CG5 performs a lot better on long exposures with one. It's definitely on my list, but due to financial constraints it'll have to wait for a little bit yet. I figure the scope & mount will be enough for me to get my feet wet.

[Grease]

Hey Lee and Andrea,

:welcome: Nice photo Lee.

Rob

[jjjnettie]

:) Howdy Neighbour.