Quote from: Farmer Bill on Today at 08:45:08 AM

Enthralled by OutOfMemory's Astro Photography, incredible results.
To anyone interested in learning Astronomy, you don't need a telescope to get started.
Most astronomy is simple observation and a paper star Map or one one your phone to help you navigate.
Up early today busy day ahead, was hoping to view the Perseids meteor shower, sadly it is cloudy here and it will be getting light soon.
I'll try again early tomorrow morning, look to the NNE preferably after midnight when the radiant position is higher in the sky. If you are in the southern hemisphere at the latitude of Darwin the radiant position is very low in the sky and in Sydney will be below the horizon.
Another run at $25k, will it break through today?
A good day to everyone, whatever you are up to.

Yes, i can only second that.
I started with a book (astronomy atlas) and a sky map.
After a while i bought a used telescope (only to find out that i have an error in the cornea), sold it again, but was able to gaze at the moon, some planets and brighter stars, while i learned how to set up, adjust and control a tracking mount, as well as how to collimate a newton telescope. No photography involved.
Later, i knew that photography was the only chance to look at bright stars without visual artefacts, so i use the "rule of 600" to get nice milky way shots with a DSLR and a quality tripod. After the first few blurry shots of a nebula with a 85mm lens, i knew i wanted more. A modified cam and tracking (go-to) mount was the next step. I had to shoot multiple long time exposures in freezing cold, so i knew i have to automate things, with a raspberry-PI based system, controlled via wifi tablet. And a few weeks ago, the APO refractor telescope.

In between there were many hours of learning (with my forgetful mind) and trial&error, freezing off half of my ass just to get mediocre results at best, hundreds, if not thousands of deleted pics. Memory cards and battery packs everywhere...

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The Preseids are covered by the bright light of the full moon this year, it's cloudy now too, i don't even try to get a view at them. Maybe next year...
On the other hand, August is the month when some of the most desired objects start to appear in the more clear areas of the night sky again (above 30° elevation), while the milky way core is slowly moving down behind the horizon again, which thrills me again to get good pictures of the less bright parts of the near spiral arm, which means many exposures to stack in harmony with a single foreground shot.

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We'll se how long BTC is range bound, but i expect a breakout rather soon. Everyone and his cat seems bullish, only some whales are sucking out small fiat gains (relatively spoken), but the main course is UP.