A Few Of My Most Recent Images

I'm definitely overdue for the sharing of some images...
These are...Umm...not very good. But, they are the best I've been able to do for now.
They are the pics which I share with my friends and family, which is why I tend to label the objects. Well, I've come a long way from my film days.

Stack of 13 frames, less than 40" each.

You can see how my post-processing skills need a lot of work...

This is a stack of only 10, 20-second shots,

The North American nebula (NGC7000) Stack of 26 frames.

The above shots were made with an Astro-modified Canon T5i, using very inexpensive lenses, on the homemade, motorized barn door tracker.

Clear skies!

Finally! A Decent Lens For My Canon T5i 📷

To make a long story short, until now, the only 2 lenses I had for use with my (Astro-modified) Canon T5i were:

• A very beat-up Canon 75-300mm with plenty of small scratches on the front element, and a missing AF/MF switch. However the seller was a very nice guy: He knew that I was pretty desperate to get a lens (any lens) just so I could start shooting right away. So he found it for me, and gave it to me for $20.

Sometime later, I got myself...

• A new Yongnuo 50mm F/1.8 - Which has a housing made from plastic, and has lousy (soft) optical properties. Yes, I know, I know, it's only a $50 lens which was made in China.

I hope to post some of the resulting images from each of these two lenses very soon. I've finally managed some which aren't too awful...

And so, today, my new Opteka 85mm F/1.8 "portrait lens" arrived
I chose it, mainly because it was $99.95 - and I'm on a low budget.
Luckily, just about everything I'd read about it was positive.

Well, the lens arrived (from B&H) today, and it looks very promising. I'm very excited to try it out; but of course, I don't even have to mention what the weather will be like for the next few days, do I?

Well, I hope to add a bit more to this post later, and...write some new blog posts about some of the other things going on.
Oh, and books! ...A few short book reviews will be coming...

Clear skies!

Just Some Pics Of My (low-budget) Barn Door Tracker Mount.

This is my current, low-budget, tracking mount. It's a barn door tracker, which was made by another amateur astronomer. I got it from Astromart.

I made a few minor improvements, and I'm able to get up to 50" exposures (some times) without star trailing.
I'll add some more details to this post in the future...

Clear skies!