What It Takes To Succeed At Astrophotography
Having watched the Astrophotography forums for a while now, here is my opinion on some of the factors:
1) Desire - without the desire, you simply won't stick at it long enough to succeed. There are almost certainly going to be rough patches.
2) Dedication - There are lots of people who want to be rock and roll stars. There aren't many with the dedication to make it happen. The same is true with astrophotography.
3) Teachable - Having the desire and dedication is STILL not enough. You need to be teachable. There is a LOT to learn in astrophotography. There ARE right ways and wrong ways of going about things. You need to be willing to learn, and you need to be willing to take constructive criticism and grow from it.
4) Access to Good Advice - Learning from our mistakes is great. It is laudable. But mistakes can be expensive. They can be expensive in time (wasted effort), and they can be expensive monetarily (buying inappropriate equipment for what you want to accomplish). Fortunately good advice is available online at forums such as Cloudy Nights. Potentially even better is if you can find someone locally to mentor you and show you the ropes.
5) Discernment - Not all advice is created equal. There are good mentors and their are bad mentors. There is good advice on the forums, and there is some very poor advice given as well. You are going to have to figure out what is what.
Four of those items are internal to you. I cannot manufacture desire for you. I cannot make you have the dedication required, and I cannot make you teachable. I can try to steer you to good advice, but you still need to figure out who has the good advice and who doesn't.
What this hobby does not require:
1) Lots of Money - If you have the above 5 things, this hobby does not HAVE to be expensive. A modest outlay of money can produce some stunning images. I have seen some really beautiful star trail images done with a simple DSLR, and tripod. You do need to be realistic about what you can accomplish with what you have or can acquire and decide if that kind of imaging will suit you. Some people actually produce gorgeous images just using freely available data from great telescopes like the Hubble, and Subaru. On the other hand, if you want to do narrowband imaging with a Mono CCD camera, you are going to need to be willing and able to fork out some cash. Some phases of this hobby require a substantial cash outlay. Others do not.
2) Dark Skies - It is completely possible to do imaging even in pretty light polluted skies. You will need to narrow your focus to what is achievable. Lunar, Solar, and Planetary photography are all possible. Light pollution filters can help with Deep Sky Imaging. Narrowband filters make imaging under even very bad light pollution possible.
Having watched the Astrophotography forums for a while now, here is my opinion on some of the factors:
1) Desire - without the desire, you simply won't stick at it long enough to succeed. There are almost certainly going to be rough patches.
2) Dedication - There are lots of people who want to be rock and roll stars. There aren't many with the dedication to make it happen. The same is true with astrophotography.
3) Teachable - Having the desire and dedication is STILL not enough. You need to be teachable. There is a LOT to learn in astrophotography. There ARE right ways and wrong ways of going about things. You need to be willing to learn, and you need to be willing to take constructive criticism and grow from it.
4) Access to Good Advice - Learning from our mistakes is great. It is laudable. But mistakes can be expensive. They can be expensive in time (wasted effort), and they can be expensive monetarily (buying inappropriate equipment for what you want to accomplish). Fortunately good advice is available online at forums such as Cloudy Nights. Potentially even better is if you can find someone locally to mentor you and show you the ropes.
5) Discernment - Not all advice is created equal. There are good mentors and their are bad mentors. There is good advice on the forums, and there is some very poor advice given as well. You are going to have to figure out what is what.
Four of those items are internal to you. I cannot manufacture desire for you. I cannot make you have the dedication required, and I cannot make you teachable. I can try to steer you to good advice, but you still need to figure out who has the good advice and who doesn't.
What this hobby does not require:
1) Lots of Money - If you have the above 5 things, this hobby does not HAVE to be expensive. A modest outlay of money can produce some stunning images. I have seen some really beautiful star trail images done with a simple DSLR, and tripod. You do need to be realistic about what you can accomplish with what you have or can acquire and decide if that kind of imaging will suit you. Some people actually produce gorgeous images just using freely available data from great telescopes like the Hubble, and Subaru. On the other hand, if you want to do narrowband imaging with a Mono CCD camera, you are going to need to be willing and able to fork out some cash. Some phases of this hobby require a substantial cash outlay. Others do not.
2) Dark Skies - It is completely possible to do imaging even in pretty light polluted skies. You will need to narrow your focus to what is achievable. Lunar, Solar, and Planetary photography are all possible. Light pollution filters can help with Deep Sky Imaging. Narrowband filters make imaging under even very bad light pollution possible.
