Topic: Beginners in Astrophotography 5 Gerald Junge

Today we'd like to introduce you to our astronomy friend, Gerald Junge. He started the astronomy hobby with me (Rudi) in 2017. Hello Gerald, how did you get into astrophotography?

Hello Karl, hello Rudi.

It's great to be part of the beginner series, I'm very happy about that.

I discovered my passion for the moon and stars in 2017 when a small refractor telescope came my way.

When I saw the moon with its craters at magnification for the first time, I was hooked. The astronomy bug had bitten me!

My first photos were taken with my phone and a mount on the telescope. The small telescope quickly became too small for me; I wanted more. I'm sure you all know that feeling!

But what should I get?

I decided on an Omegon 114/900 Newtonian telescope on an EQ3 mount and, of course, was initially completely overwhelmed by the setup!

Polar alignment...what's that? Polar scope...never heard of it! And then there are the setting circles...!

I was almost ready to give up entirely until I received some very kind and helpful advice from an astronomy group on Facebook.

I listened patiently and learned. I learned a lot! A whole lot!!

Since I'd finally had enough of fiddling around with my smartphone, I bought my first ever DSLR camera, a Canon EOS 1000D, and had to learn again...a lot more!

But when I accidentally saw my first photo of the Orion Nebula on the camera's display, I was almost beside myself with joy!

I think my shouts of jubilation could be heard all the way to town.

Around this time, I met Rudi in the group.

He was at about the same level as me, and from then on, we helped each other and, when things weren't going so well, gave each other a good kick in the pants.

... And I have to say, if I hadn't met Rudi, I don't know if I'd be where I am today. Thanks again for your support, Rudi.

Now it was time for the next step.

Since I wasn't very knowledgeable about the night sky at that point, and I spent ages searching and cursing the setting circles, the decision was made.

I needed a GoTo mount!

I found one fairly quickly: a Meade LXD75, which has decent payload capacity and is very robust.

The guiding was then upgraded with an 8x50 finder scope and an ASI 120 mc.

From then on, things went quite well, apart from a few minor setbacks. My first deep-sky images were taken.

Of course, as you can imagine, I had to learn a lot again!

Electronic image processing on the computer is a whole different ballgame!

But thanks to many tips and help from our great group and many YouTube videos, I'm slowly getting the hang of it. The last step I took last year was to finish setting up my small balcony observatory.

The mount is now permanently attached to the balcony, and the telescope and cameras are connected to a small mini-PC housed in a weatherproof enclosure on the balcony. I control everything from the living room via TeamViewer.

Especially in winter, with the cold temperatures, it's a lot of fun to control everything from the warmth of my living room.

For monitoring, I've also mounted a small Wi-Fi camera with infrared light on the balcony.

I can then view the live image on my smartphone, so I always have the telescope in sight and can intervene if a cable gets stuck.

My current telescope is a Skywatcher 130/650 PDS, which I lined inside with black velour.

I also painted the focuser and screws with chalkboard paint to prevent reflections.

I'm very happy with how it's working so far. (Except for the weather, of course)

For the warmer days, I've taken on a new challenge.

I bought the Omegon Minitrack, which allows you to take tracked photos using just a camera and lens.

I'll be taking trips into the field with it and hoping for some great photos.

I'm really looking forward to it and to seeing my first Milky Way.

So, that's all from me. Thanks for reading, and clear skies to everyone!