Today we're going to Mieming to visit Niki Haselwanter

Hello fellow stargazers, today we're off to Mieming to visit Niki Haselwanter. Hi Niki, how did you get into astrophotography?

Hi Rudi! Thanks for the invitation, I'm happy to be part of this series. I'm a late bloomer when it comes to astrophotography. It's all my dentist's fault, more on that later… I'd always enjoyed taking a few photos, but it was mostly just casual landscape snapshots. Around 2013, I started to delve a little deeper into photography and tried all sorts of things. Wildlife on my mountain hikes, birds of prey with a telephoto lens, and later, macro photography. Then I saw some pictures using glowing steel wool and experimented with that too. When I saw it with stars in the background, I thought I could give it a try. Around the same time, I also changed dentists, who are in my town, practically a stone's throw from my café.

By "cafe," I mean Cafe Maurer in Mieming, the place where I earn my living. I'm a master confectioner by trade and run the family business, now in its third generation, with my wife Marion. Located right on the main road in Mieming, on the Fernpass route, we always welcome visits from other astronomy enthusiasts.

And in the office of this certain Nicholas Roemmelt, there were some Milky Way photos and other great stuff hanging around. Triggered especially by Nick's Milky Way pictures, I naturally tried it myself, and since we were Facebook friends by then, I often got into conversations about it.

In 2014, Nick organized a Milky Way photography workshop, which I then attended, and that's when I was truly hooked. I joined various photography and night photography groups on Facebook and gathered information and equipment. My first purchase was a used IOptron Skytracker, with which I was able to take quite a few Milky Way photos. Through this whole project, a very good friendship developed with Nick and Christina Roemmelt, which led to me being able to go on several night hikes in the mountains with them. I'm still good friends with some of the other workshop participants as well.

It wasn't long before I wanted to look deeper into space, with longer focal lengths, etc., because I was simply fascinated by the shapes and colors of these nebulae, galaxies, globular clusters, and so on. So I got the Star Adventurer, which I was already hopelessly overloading with my Tamron 150-600 telephoto lens, and due to sheer lack of planning, I even strapped a used 8" f/5 Skywatcher Newtonian onto it... Of course, that didn't work. But the topic wouldn't let me go, and I started listening more closely to what people in the groups and forums had to say.

So it was time to upgrade. My EUS 5D Mark III, which I had been using extensively up to that point, was replaced by a new Canon for daytime use, and the 5D Mark III received an astro-modification. My friends like to refer to the old Canon as the "salt trough" because it actually fell into the sea during a photo trip to the Lofoten Islands. The next logical step for me was that I needed a large mount. The EQ6-R was the one I chose – and it's still my mount today. With that, and with the 8" Newtonian telescope, I took my first satisfactory deep-sky images. Naturally, my personal standards rose over time, and in 2018 I treated myself to a Lacerta 10" carbon fiber Newtonian.

So, a bit more focal length again. Since I had read a lot about cooled astro cameras, I also took the opportunity to get my first real astro camera, a Moravian G2 8300 color, which I bought used. I had real problems with this camera at first and could never really get used to the rather low resolution. It was a kind of love-hate relationship, but I learned a lot with it. Last year I bought the QHY268C, which I'm now very happy with. Gradually, a few other things were added: a wide-field setup on an EQM-35 Pro with a DSLR and a Walimex 135mm lens, guiding, and other small trackers for possible nighttime photo excursions. Since my mounts permanently occupy space on our patio at home, I'm planning a small observatory in the medium term. Construction work in the neighborhood will be finished soon, and then I can tackle this project. I'm really looking forward to it.

We'd also like to draw your attention to the film "Stellar Moments" by Niki. He made it a few years ago for a mountain film festival. https://vimeo.com/241638808
Thanks for the interview, Niki!

Here's a link to Niki's Cafe Maurer: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/cafemaurer