telescope – Katorella Astro

I Imaged During a Full Moon Right Next to LED Christmas Lights with a One Shot Color Camera…. and this is what happened.

December 12, 2019June 23, 2020Katorella Astro

Clear nights are few and far between in the Midwest throughout Winter. When they come along, I just want to get out and image. This night was no exception. So I decided to do a little experiment to see how the IDAS NB1 filter by Hutech would perform in the most impossible conditions.

Meade LX85 Mount First Impressions

November 26, 2019December 12, 2019Katorella Astro

I’d been wanting to upgrade/update my old LXD75 mount for quite some time. The old horse has been tracking great, but I really want to take my imaging to the next level, and I had an opportunity for a package deal with an Meade 80mm triplet refractor that I couldn’t pass up. You can check out the video below, and/or read on for some first impressions.

Do you have OHD?

August 31, 2019February 17, 2021Katorella Astro

How to diagnose and treat Obsessive Hobby Disorder.

If you can check off just one of the symptoms on the list below, you probably have OHD.

Do you check the clear sky chart before planning date-night with your significant other?
Do you find family time sidetracked by staring at a computer screen monitoring your mount’s tracking?
Do you wake up in the middle of the night, and instead of going right back to sleep, look outside to see if the sky is clear?
Have you ever called in sick to work because you were up all night imaging?
Do you START drinking coffee at 8PM because the sky is clear?
Do you disassemble, re-grease and test your mount because, Saturday?
Do you plan out the next 6 months of imaging wile you’re at work?
Is your bank account’s primary purpose to fund your next piece of astrophotography gear?

Buying Your First Astrophotography Setup? Start Here… kind of

April 8, 2019November 30, 2019Katorella Astro

I often wonder if anybody in astronomy forums has had to struggle to figure out how to pay kids’ school fees and the mortgage in the same month, or forgo that pizza order to put gas in the car.

What’s the Bare Minimum to Get Started?

December 11, 2017November 29, 2019Katorella Astro

What you need to get started

What do you really need to get started? A camera and a tripod. I first became interested in astrophotgraphy after pointing my slightly above average point-and-shoot camera at the sky and setting the timer. If you already have a DSLR and some lenses, you might just be looking for a tracking mount for your camera for a few hundred dollars.

My First Shot

November 9, 2017September 11, 2019Katorella Astro

This was my first attempt at a Deep Space Object taken all the way back in 2005. You might be able to make out that it’s M42, the Great Orion Nebula… the core of it at least. Having only used point and shoot cameras my entire life, I didn’t realize the importance of manually focusing using the Meade DSI camera and the scope’s focus. I also lacked any understanding of field of view. I think these were 4×5 second exposures.

How Everything Works Together

November 9, 2017November 29, 2019Katorella Astro

There are a lot of bits and pieces of information out there that you have to piece together yourself to figure out how all of this stuff works together. As soon as you figure out how one piece works, there’s another piece of the puzzle. Hopefully I can put this into perspective and outline all the pieces.