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From Passion to Dedication, A Journey Chasing the Stars
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Related Auxiliary Equipment
My Journey with SVBONY
Making of feature
I bought a used Nikon D3200 and a $5 tripod from Goodwill. Kit lens. Ok Milky Way shots. But I was not satisfied.
My second purchase was a used Nikon 300mm F4 prime lens. The lens couldn’t be better, sharp as you can imagine. I still have it. I love using it. But I was not satisfied.
I got a great deal on a used Iexos 100 PMC 8 equatorial mount, a WO Zenithstar Z61 and a battery for an incredibly low price. It took a little time, but I started getting some decent results. But I was not satisfied.
Along the way, I purchased other astrophotography gear, mostly used, to help me improve my images. SVBony was and is my go to for all accessories. Good quality, good value.
At about this time, I received an email from the government. Would you like to go back to college? We will pay for it! I am disabled, so I don’t work. I had a lot of time on my hands. So, I said yes. I started with a few Astronomy courses. My love of science and astrophotography seemed a perfect fit.
Time went on. My college advisor asked if I was going for a degree. I hadn’t thought about it, but sure why not. The community college I was going to didn’t have a 4 year degree in astronomy or physics, but I took physics and calculus non the less.
School and astrophotography, along with watching YouTube videos kept me busy. I started buying accessories to help with my images. SVBony seemed a natural choice. Good quality, good prices. I bought lotsa stuff. Dew heaters, filters, etc. But things changed on Amazon Prime days. There was a super sale on the SV48p 102mm OTA. I understood the limitations of an achromat, understood that I would need to shoot narrowband to avoid chromatic aberration, but for the price, it was a no brainer.
This OTA changed my imaging. Going from 360mm to 600mm opened up the sky for me. Galaxies, at least some, were now within my grasp. Like any piece of new equipment, there were growing pains, but grow I did. Also, probably 40 hours a week of watching YouTube videos didn’t hurt.
I started helping people on Facebook with questions and processing and equipment that I was familiar with. I did some Facetime sessions, and a few people helped me with equipment that they no longer used. I upgraded to a small harmonic mount and a small sensor monochrome camera. The SV260 helped with my color images, and the SV227 5nm SHO filters helped with my monochrome images. Actually, they took me to the next level.
My community college AA degree was in my sites. But I was not satisfied. I have recently been accepted to the Washington State University’s Astrophysics department for my Bachelor of Science degree in Astrophysics with a minor in Astronomy. I plan on taking some computer science classes to help me understand AI modeling for programming astrophotography post processing software, and I hope to get some sort of part time job in the on campus observatory. Maybe I can even get some data to process from the observatory.
Well, I am fairly satisfied for now. I continue to learn about my hobby every day. I will continue my two year journey in astrophotography and my education. I hope to use my education to help other astrophotographers, and I hope to purchase more SVBony products to further my hobby. Who knows, someday I will be designing optics or software that everyone will use.
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