Used to obsess over gear specs, now I just shoot with what I have

Back in 2018 I spent $1,800 on a telescope mount with all the fancy tracking bells, then spent every clear night fiddling with settings instead of looking up. These days I just grab my old DSLR and a tripod from the garage, point it at the Milky Way, and take whatever comes out. Anyone else find they enjoyed astrophotography more after they stopped chasing the perfect equipment and just started snapping?

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river_scott1d ago

That $1,800 mount hit me right in the gut. I did the same thing with a star tracker back in 2020, spent all night guiding my scope and never once just looked at the sky with my own eyes. Now I use a beat-up Canon and a 50mm lens, and honestly my favorite shot last summer was a 15 second exposure from my porch with light pollution and all. There's something way more real about grabbing whatever corner of the sky you can see and catching a bit of magic on accident. I totally get what you mean, the hobby got fun again once I stopped treating it like a checklist.