Hello alpha users

[Astrnmrtom]

I've enjoyed playing with cameras since the late 60s early 70s, and took the leap into digital in '99-ish with an Olympus c-2020. Going digital horrified my photographer friend because no way could you take decent photos with a 2 megapixel sensor! Every time I'd share a photo he'd complain about how horrible digital cameras were, that he'd never own one, and film was the only way to go. For me however it was game changer. It allowed me to be creative, freeing me from the lag time between shooting and seeing the photo and the worry of "wasting" film while experimenting and learning. It wasn't very long at all before I felt the camera and I were one in a sense, it seeing what I saw because I could shoot, look, delete, adjust, and reshoot on the fly. I LOVED digital!

Until just after the first of the year 2021, my primary - do everything camera was a Fuji S-X1 Bridge camera but there was one thing the Fuji couldn't do, and that was long exposure night stuff. I'm an amateur astronomer who is primarily a visual observer, but still likes to image transient events like comets, eclipses, aurora, etc. I have a friend who's owned a NEX-7 for years, and have been impressed with the Sony's ability to do casual astrophotography. After my complete failure to capture the Zodiacal Light with my Fuji this last February, I decided to pick up a lightly used a6000, two lens kit, and a 12mm f/2.8 manual lens for night work. I've ended up grabbing the Sony for day hikes because it's so light and compact. The more I use it the more I like it. It's a very capable little camera.

Here's a shot of Orion taken with the a6000 from a boondocking campsite north of Zion National Park in Utah, in early April of 2021. There's no way my Fuji could do anything close to this kind of image. Two thumbs up for the Sony alpha!

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Welcome Tom and thanks for your tips in the other threads. It's good to have an astronomer in the ranks of the APSC shooters! What state are you in? Any decently dark skies close to where you live?

 

[Astrnmrtom]

Home used to be Northwest Washington state, otherwise known as the Pacific NorthWET. I called it Astronomy Hell because it's cloudy and rainy for almost 10 months of the year, and when it IS clear in the summer time, days are long and nights short due to it being at 49d North Latitude. True Astronomical darkness from a dark sky site doesn't start till nearly 11pm and ends not long after 3am. But yes there are fairly dark skies not far from where I lived. Major Starparties and conferences were held on the drier East side, several hours drive away. I had an observatory in my back yard but it fell into disuse over the years as my neighbor's trees grew taller, and the urban and suburban areas of Vancouver BC to the North grew larger. Now my wife and I are retired, we sold the house and are full timing in an RV, so I've had access to some VERY dark skies and flat horizons. I brought four different scopes and two different mounts along for the trip (Two are dedicated solar scopes). Although I've been into astronomy for over 50 years and photography nearly as long , I'm a newbie to astrophotography with a digital camera. Picking up the a6000 has opened this new world up to me. Most of the tricks I mention come from 20 years of imaging the Sun. My biggest advice to anyone wanting to do any astronomical imaging, is to just try, be patient, and manage your expectations. When I first started imaging the Sun around 2000, I got so frustrated I quit trying for almost a year. Then one day I tried again, and for some strange reason, things made more sense to me and I got some decent results. I'm happy to pass along encouragement and any little tips or tricks that may help others.

The photo below is of my main scope and my "portable" scope. This photo was taken in a campground in Arizona on the night of the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. I was imaging through the small scope and letting other people view through the large one. I was imaging with a dedicated imager I use for the Sun. The resulting image is from the night of closest approach and give a good representation of how it looked in the eyepiece of the large scope.

Tom

 

[FowlersFreeTime]

Awesome stuff! Looking forward to more pics.