This whole journey started with a simple Celestron Travel 70 Telescope that my sister had given me. My whole life I have always been a bit of a nerd enjoying the vast expanses of history and (more critically to this story) the various sciences. Of those sciences Astronomy always appealed to me and my child like sense of wonder. However, it wasn't until I was 25 until I actually got to use a telescope to marvel at the glory the heavens had to offer. On December 21st 2020 one of those marvels was on full display, The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. I set up the little telescope I received from my sister once before with no success, this time for this special event I was determined to make it work. Needless to say I succeeded... And what I saw through the eye piece of that humble telescope... changed my life forever.
I was so blown away by what I saw I frantically dragged my wife and daughter outside to look at it with me. There in the eyepiece we saw the rings of Saturn, the four Galilean moons of Jupiter, and there were a mere 6 arcminutes separating them from each other in the sky (which they hadn't been so close together like that for nearly 400 years). Uncontended to just share this marvelous spectacle with them I got the idea to try my hand at holding my phone's camera up to the eyepiece and see if I could get a photo of it. To my delight there it was on the screen of my phone, but it was no simple feat as I had to keep my hands exceptionally steady and keep them at the proper distance away from the eyepiece all while attempting to keep the telescope aligned with the planets. Finally, after achieving the proper technique I acquired photos of the event.
After that event I was hooked on using the telescope to observe the night sky and eventually aimed it upon the pitted surface of our Moon. Always having been an admirer of the beauty of the Moon you can imagine the joy I had looking at the details blasted into my eye. Again, I just had to share this sight with others and so out came the phone to snap some more photos. As I did this more and more I quickly realized that my current setup just wasn't enough for me so I hit the web and picked out a better telescope that also came with an adapter for my phone to take pictures easier. The new telescope was a joy to use and definitely made the task much easier... but the quality of the images were severely lacking. Suddenly I had the desire to be able to take high quality photos of the things I observed in the night sky so that I could share them with friends and family.
To sum up the story, I went out and purchased an entry level Canon 2000D DSLR with adapters to attach it to my telescope and began taking pleasing photos of the Moon and other objects in the sky. I became addicted to taking photos that people enjoyed and quickly started using the kit lens (an 18-55mm) that came with the camera and another lens (a 70-300mm) that I purchased from a friend to take other types of astrophotos. However, I couldn't always go outside at night to take photos due to various circumstances, but I NEEDED to take more photos.
So I started using my camera to start taking photos of random things in my yard (mostly flowers) and so I began to actually fall in love with photography. One day I was out with my 70-300mm and noticed a little woodpecker on a tree over my house, so I took a photo. Taking that one photo changed something in me, because just like seeing the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, I was so thrilled to see that I could capture such a tiny bird from so far away. However, like my dissatisfaction with the quality I was getting with the Moon on my phone, this first photo of the bird was horrible.
What did I decide to do about it? I slapped my first little telescope onto my camera and used it like a wildlife camera lens and I actually started getting results! From that point on I was hooked to everything that was photography and I started shooting everything that I could. Always thirsting for higher quality I began investing in better gear and more importantly constantly refining my technique... the photos in my portfolio tell the rest of the story.
