My real passion is nebulae in particular, but most deep sky stuff. My attraction to imaging is 2 fold: to be able to extend the capabilities of my scope to reveal detail I can't see by eye, and simply to learn how to do it. I love learning stuff!
I was into astronomy about 15-20 years ago but after 5 years or so marital pressures meant the scope was just sitting in the corner collecting dust, so I sold it. It didn't help the marital situation though, and other activities took precedence for a while...
Early last year, circumstances changed again and I now had more time and some spare money to put into a scope. So I'm back, but while I love the DSOs, I have to admit that I am conscious of how much time I spend on astronomy. My home must be the most light polluted in town, with a street light out the front and another over my back fence (installed in development after I built my house), so I usually travel out of town to find fairly dark skies mainly so my eyes can dark adapt. If a bright moon is up, often I won't bother, I'll set up in the backyard and study or image the moon.
So because I am a) new to imaging; and b) have a portable set up to get away from the light; I am working on learning what I can on lunar and planetary imaging (I must confess to enjoying the lunar stuff more than the other planets so far however - probably something to do with achieving results
). When I get my laptop sorted to drive the long exposure mod on the ToUcam, I plan to get into some wide field long exposure stuff (because the alignment and guiding will be less critical than high magnification stuff).
Deep sky high magnification stuff at this stage is a long term goal / dream... maybe one day when I move to a darker site and can set up and observatory... In the meantime, I have lots to learn
and besides, I can thoroughly enjoy and marvel at the the deep sky images that a lot of you guys are producing. I love 'em!
So, yes, what I do is a compromise on what I'd like to do, influenced by my location, my budget, my available time etc.
Al.