My name is Axel, I'm 57 years old, and I've been passionate about photography since childhood. I personally experienced the era of analog photography, including point-and-shoot cameras and Polaroid photography.

The rapid development in this sector offers significantly more possibilities today than was the case 10-15 years ago, or even before that.

Digital photography and YouTube led me to moon photography and time-lapse videos (https://youtu.be/NpoNwxdlGbw) sometime in late 2017/2018.







... In early 2018, I photographed the moon for the first time with a Nikon P900 (in superzoom mode) (see the "More Pictures" tab) and YouTube link: https://youtu.be/Itw_fpwC4Rc. I also tried photographing an airplane: https://youtu.be/6EOei63zTbc, but that wasn't enough for me. There were these beautiful time-lapse videos of the starry sky, the Milky Way, and deep-sky objects on YouTube that captivated me. So, in 2018, I bought one of my first DSLR cameras, a Nikon D750, and used it to take my first long-exposure photos (and time-lapses) with a 20mm f/1.8 wide-angle lens. https://youtu.be/ffGdE_jpkxE https://youtu.be/goAZ5W6sqa4
Here, too, I quickly reached the point where simply using moon shots in my self-made time-lapse videos wasn't enough anymore. I was increasingly drawn to the deep-sky images of other YouTubers, and the desire grew within me... I wanted to be able to do something like that too, without knowing what equipment I would need or how much time it would take to do it properly.

A photo mount I had since acquired (Sky-Guider-Pro) (see the "More Pictures" tab) didn't give me the results I was looking for in this setup.

So, back then (winter 2019 - February), I contacted a competitor of telescope specialists who advised me to simply get a slightly larger lens for my Nikon D750. Decent lenses can easily cost between €2500 and €3500.

Slightly confused by this statement – ​​which I had to let sink in – I questioned whether this was the solution (which it wasn't, because a complete beginner's setup (mount, telescope, eyepieces, etc.) doesn't cost nearly as much, and the possibilities and accuracy are completely different).

So I tried my luck with telescope specialists and found exactly the right person to talk to in Karl Kloss. He took a lot of time to first figure out what I really wanted. During our initial phone call, we talked for a good two hours about my previous photographic experience, what I was currently working on, and my future plans in photography.

This process of understanding was ultimately crucial for the setup Karl then offered me. One slightly problematic issue was my chosen location: a south-facing balcony with no view of Polaris. But Karl assured me that with today's technology, polar aligning a mount was no problem at all.

We had several more phone calls to clarify various questions (was the balcony large enough – (See the "More Pictures" tab.) - mount and telescope in cold temperatures (it was still winter, which explains why the mount is significantly more expensive than the telescope, etc.). Karl always made time when he had it; otherwise, we arranged another meeting.

Finally, we found a complete setup, and on March 23, 2019 - (see the "More Pictures" tab.) - I was the happy owner of a Skywatcher EQ6R SynScan GoTo mount, a Skywatcher Explorer-200PDS f/5 8" Newtonian telescope, a ZWO ASI 120MC-S USB3.0 guiding camera, various eyepieces (for purely visual observation), adapters (e.g., a smartphone adapter, because I wanted to try that out), a coma corrector (for field flattening), and a corresponding adapter and spacer ring for astrophotography with my Nikon D750 full-frame camera at the focuser.
With these initial impressions, I'll conclude this report for now, with the attached photos. Here's what a balcony observatory can look like.

More on that in the next blog post.