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You got it all wrong my friend, AP is all about purging yourself of the sinful item called money. You purge yourself of some money, take pictures and see that they are noisy, blurry ugly things and you know God is not happy yet. You purge more of the sinful stuff and buy a cooled CCD, Temperature compensated focuser, OAG etc..... and eventually you know that you are back in good grace when you get outstanding pictures and your bank balance is nearly zero. It's all about saving your soul. Me, I'm flat out broke most of the time therefore I know I'm clean.

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For the longest time, I viewed Ap as an expensive and unnecessary aspect of astronomical observing. That simply took people away from the eyepiece to try in vain to mimic the Hubble. And I always told myself, if I really wanted a picture of something, I would invest in a computer chair instead of an observing chair and download something from NASA.

That was when I struggled with a LXD55. When excitement actually meant having the thing work at 10% of its advertised specs, or trying to translate Turn Left at Orion at my finderscope of that terrible LXD55.

A few weeks ago, I charmed myself with a newly purchased CGEM. All of my gotos were spot on at a dark sky site during a Star Party. There was nothing that the scope couldn't find in the eyepiece if my 8 inch could resolve it. I was trying to see just how good it was and was going through a tour really fast, hitting one nebula after another.

Then it dawned onto me. All I was seeing were - gray smudges with a little structure. I needed to start photographing to see better. Now that I have a AP capable mount (which I got really for gotos), I want to start creating images of the light smudges I saw as the next logical step of observing.

I may not understand the AP thing, nor can I justify it - but I finally get it!

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I'm right there as well. I'm in the process of acquiring pieces parts to take my first pic and purge myself of sinful money

I probably have seen hundreds of pics done by people that I couldn't hold a candle to. Either by talent or the equipment they use. By most logic, I should look at a pic, admire it, move on and stay visual. BUT, there is something there when you do it yourself. Like the one poster said, I'd rather catch my own fish

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Astrophotography is a hopeless, debilitating obsession and I've loved every moment of it since I captured what I like to think of as:

"The Greatest Astrophoto Ever Taken In the Past, Present, Or Future!!"



It's horrible. I know. But knowing that I personally took the image changed everything and I was instantly hooked and haven't regretted it for a second.

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You got it all wrong my friend, AP is all about purging yourself of the sinful item called money. You purge yourself of some money, take pictures and see that they are noisy, blurry ugly things and you know God is not happy yet. You purge more of the sinful stuff and buy a cooled CCD, Temperature compensated focuser, OAG etc..... and eventually you know that you are back in good grace when you get outstanding pictures and your bank balance is nearly zero. It's all about saving your soul. Me, I'm flat out broke most of the time therefore I know I'm clean.

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HAHAHA... check out my equipment list below... I am completely purged.

Now, to show what can happen during the purge process...

Partially purged



Fully Purged




I totally get it too...but there's nothing left to purge!

My wife asked if it was worth the time and trouble to get my $50,000 image!

I think so.

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