I restarted astrophotography in November 2020 with my already existing Canon G3X cam on a simple star tracker called Omegon LX based on my photo tripod. A little later, after testing and taking images, the results where not as good as I thought so the journey began and the equipment grew up. To keep the expenses in check, I have bought almost everything used and so far I have only had good experiences with it.
Next step was the Skywatcher Star Adventure supplemented by a Canon 600D and some EF lenses including a Samyang 135mm, which I still have today.
The first refractor – Omegon 72/420mm ED – arrived shotly after. After some shots, a flattener and a reducer followed. However, the weight was at the limit for the Star Adventure. I was also missing a “goto” function so that I wouldn’t lose valuable time searching for objects and could rather invest it in the exposure.
So the next logical step was to get a goto mount with higher capacity. In the end I got an Ioptron CEM 25P for a reasonable price, which I still use as a mobile mount. Then a William Optics Redcat 51 refractor, a Vixen SD81S and a 6″ f5 reflector gradually joined them. The Canon 600D was replaced by an ASI183MC Pro and a guiding cam joined as well.
After a while they were joined by an EQ6R Pro and an 8″ Newtonian f4 with GPU coma corrector. The ASI183MC was supplemented by an ASI294MC Pro and an ASI533MC Pro together with an ASI Air Pro.
My latest addition is a RASA 8″ to make the most efficient use of the few weather windows.
Since I was tired of always setting up everything, aligning it and then taking it down again, as well as the time that is “lost” in the process, I converted our unused attic into a small rooftop observatory in summer 21. Even though it is located in the middle of Oldenburg (Bortle 5/6), it offers enormous advantages such as the use of small weather windows.
For more information, see the rooftop observatory section.