Astrophotography
Deep-sky imaging from the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, mostly narrowband, mostly on clear winter nights.
Deep-sky imaging from the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, mostly narrowband, mostly on clear winter nights.
I've always been fascinated by the night sky, but it wasn't until 2016 — as an adult with a little disposable income — that I realized I could actually start capturing it myself. My first foray was with a Celestron NexStar 8SE, a great telescope for observing planets and the Moon. For deep sky objects, though, it wasn't the right tool. With its long focal length and alt-azimuth tracking, it excelled at zooming in on small, bright objects but struggled with the faint, expansive galaxies and nebulae I wanted to photograph. I soon learned that deep sky astrophotography demands faster optics and equatorial tracking mounts that move with the Earth's rotation.
In those early years I experimented with small trackers, tinkered with EQ mods, and — living under the light-polluted skies of Redwood City, California — often turned to iTelescope, which gave me remote access to professional observatories in darker skies. That experience kept me going until I was ready to invest in my own proper setup. Eventually I purchased an iOptron GEM45 equatorial mount and paired it with scopes like the Radian Raptor and William Optics ZenithStar 73, finally stepping into the realm of serious astrophotography. By then, I had moved to the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona, where the skies were darker and far more forgiving.
At first, I captured images using a one-shot color (OSC) camera — a simpler, more approachable way to get started. But as I grew more confident, I transitioned to a monochrome camera with a filter wheel, which allowed me to collect narrowband data (Hα, OIII, SII) and effectively cut through light pollution. That shift felt like a turning point: suddenly, I wasn't fighting my suburban skies anymore. From 2021 into 2022 I spent countless nights refining my imaging and post-processing skills, using tools like PixInsight and Photoshop to bring the raw data to life.
After a short break, I'm now back at it — eager to push further into deep space imaging with my current setup. What started as curiosity has become a passion for combining science, patience, and creativity to reveal the beauty of the cosmos.