Snapped this through the clouds with the scope. I like the little 2" bayonet mount I got for my gh4

That's so cool.

A clear, cold night in the Panhandle away from the lights and it feels like you are walking through the Milky Way.

Thank you! There's a pretty significant learning curve I'm dealing with, and long exposures are a lot harder. The moon is pretty simple, it's just a matter of getting a crisp focus( which I never quite did....plus clouds).

This was my first attempt at a longer exposure. My Polar alignment sucks, and that prevented more than about 5 second exposures. My next investment is a better finder scope and an auto guider

A good EQ mount for photography isn't cheap. I researched that a couple of years ago. Cheaper mounts used for telescopes move in a zig-zag pattern whch doesn't matter for viewing from the eyepiece but if you're going to put a long exposure through that then you'll see the motion in your shots.

But scopes are just flat out fun to look through!

There were some Milky Way shots at the Aggie Barn that went viral earlier this year (or last year rather). I'm going to try to recreate those as summer gets closer.

I have an AVX mount, my Polar alignment just sucked last night. I was nowhere near close enough to do long exposures. I'm having trouble getting alignment because of a combo of back problems and spotter scope ( trying to align with a straight through spotter scope is nearly impossible for me, need to invest in a right angle mount)

But yes, you're looking about 850$ for a basic mount ( what I have), then about 350$ for a good guider setup. The scope I'm using is not the best , but the mount I got for the camera I'm using is avoiding most of the problems I thought I'd have. You can produce decent exposure with an alt/AZ mount, but are limited to 20-30 seconds without a wedge.

What are the odds that you can get a photo of the ISS overhead? I imagine it may be impossible due to the small object size and high speed relative to the observer.

titanmaster_race said:

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What are the odds that you can get a photo of the ISS overhead? I imagine it may be impossible due to the small object size and high speed relative to the observer.

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i've seen pics where people have gotten shots of it passing in front of the moon. it's difficult, but possible with the right equipment

http://www.space.com/29889-space-station-crosses-moon-photo.html

Iss is tough, but there's some pretty nice shots from a scope similar to this floating around Google that show pretty good detail

Nice job. I once swiped the side of my RV at the Cooper State Park.

I would've thought the light noise would be too high there...considering it's not that far from DFW.

Gorgeous photos!

Amazing

http://www.darksky.org/first-international-dark-sky-reserve-in-the-u-s-designated/