Astrophotography
Photographing, or simply observing, the night sky is good for the soul...After the equipment has been checked out, aligned and focused the imaging sequence begins. It is this point of the evening that I look forward to most. I am free to just walk outside and look around...realizing that what I am looking at has been around for billions of years and will be around for billions more. The stars are in the same position and the moon goes through the same phases it did when I was young. It is this constant that I cherish...nothing really changes "up there" at least that we can notice. Our lives are not even a blink of the eye in the life of the Cosmos... quite humbling - and that is not a bad thing.
Our hobby is very fortunate to have so many people willing to help out, offer advice and provide solutions to the many issues that always seem to arise. I would like to take this opportunity to thank a couple people in particular that have gone above and beyond to help me get started. Carl from Hawkeye Observatory jumped right in to help me design the roll off roof system for the observatory and also used his machinist skills to fabricate many of the components. Scott Rosen has been a constant advisor to me over the past few years assisting me in image processing and has become a close friend. I owe them both a lot...