Hi

[codemonkey (Lee)]

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/p...ps385839f0.jpg

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

Cheers,
Lee

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

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 (Lee)]

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 (Rob)]

Hey Lee and Andrea,

Nice photo Lee.

Rob

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Howdy Neighbour.