Glad you liked it. I started taking astrophotos when I was a teenager in the 1980s. I use to do piggyback shots with my old Mamiya 55mm camera. It was on top of my scope which was guided by a clock drive that could track but not very good. Then my career hit and I stopped until I retired. The technology has completely revolutionized astrophotography and it took two years to learn how to do it. It is also pricey. My setup cost almost 10,000 bucks and that is a low budget range. Cell phone apps can stack multiple images quiet effectively. Comets don't require long exposures but they take some time processing because the comet is moving different relative to the stars. Galaxies and comets are my favorite and I have photos of over 200 Galaxies and probably 20 to 30 comets.
I think the comets and galaxies would be cool to see if you have a chance to post them in the future. And if you have shots of Andromeda or Hale-Bopp, I’d love to see them.I remember Hale-Bopp in the mid-90s—you could just barely see it with the naked eye around sunset, even in the city.
Today, I love using the Sky Guide app on my iPhone or iPad. It’s so neat—just open the app, point your phone at the sky, and you can see the stars, the zodiac constellations, and a host of other things. It even beeps when the International Space Station flies overhead. It’s $50 a year but free for one week, so it’s a great way to quickly check what you’re looking for.It’s especially nice to open the app early in the morning while it’s still dark. You can point it at the eastern horizon and see the Sun, along with Mercury, Venus, and sometimes the Moon—all lined up before sunrise. They follow roughly the same path, moving from about the 9 o’clock to the 1 o’clock position on a clock face. At night they descend from around 11 to 3. I’m in Los Angeles, so they slide more slowly over the ocean compared to the equator.
For me, it’s kind of interesting that during the daytime we really don’t see what’s actually there because of the sunlight. When I’m riding my old motorcycle south of Interstate 5 in the early morning, the Milky Way, Magellanic Clouds, and stars a thousand times the size of our Sun are all out there on the horizon—even if I can’t see them with my eyes. It’s nice to check the app while riding and actually visualize what’s in the sky. Visualizng the Milky Way right in front of you on the horizon when riding is pretty special.
