Quote:
Originally Posted by cometcatcher
The main thing is, are you having fun? Cos at the end of the day, that's all that matters.
P.S. Here's my 6723 and friends ---> http://astrob.in/176242/0/ |
Thank you so much for that very informative post Kevin.
Your picture of "6723 and friends" is magnificent! And your willingness to share the details of settings etc on that page is much appreciated.
Your point about having fun is absolutely the key for me.
When i began investigating astronomy I had no idea where it would take me. Would I lose interest in a week or two? (No). Would I get an attack of GAS and buy more gear than I really needed? (Yes! However, I've bought a lot less telescopes than I bought guitars when I took that hobby up!). Would I start to get competitive about aspects of it? I.e.Would my inner obsessive come to the fore and insist that I take the best darned deep space pictures you ever saw? (No - which was something of a relief to find out!
).
But I could really only discover the answers by getting started on the hobby and seeing how it went. It was especially interesting to find out that I was unlikely to get into the serious end of astrophotography although I'm learning just enough about it to be able to appreciate the enormous amount of patient dedication and skill that goes into pictures like yours. (I'm currently slowly working my way through the early pages of "Astrophotography" by Thierry Legault).
The path for me involves using a program like SkySafari, my old binoculars, a basic refractor, and then something a little bigger. But once I've found something and "seen" it - no matter how faintly - I'm happy to switch to pictures from other sources to get a closer look. E.g. your picture and the one from the Hubble. I don't feel the need to do the whole journey myself. That was particularly good to discover, because It could easily have gone the other way.
It was especially enjoyable to see your splendid picture and to be able to recognise what I was looking at, because I'd been doing some reading about it and had also captured a primitive version of the same subject.
There can be a fine line between dedication and obsession, satisfaction and frustration, and so on. And at this stage of my life I much prefer to keep things fairly casual. At my current level of involvement, there’s nothing about astronomy that needs to be rushed and there’s no finishing line to aim at. No exams, no contests or competitions, and no stress to hit targets. Only - as you sagely recommended - the aim of enjoying the experience. And, so far, that side of things is working very well.
Cheers,
Chris