May 9, 2020 -- Spent the day building a new concrete pier on our hill. The solid mount will hold my camera steady enough to take photos of deep sky objects, and since the mount is permanent, I won't have to go through the tedious process of polar alignment every time I want to do astrophotography.
This video gives a good idea of what the project involved but it's not exactly a how-to video.
November 7, 2020 -- Often I am asked “How did you get this picture?” when I show someone one of my astronomy photos. I decided to make another video to answer that question. My aim was not to produce a how-to video, but rather just show, to a mildly interested person, some of what is involved. What you see is the way I do astrophotography now. It's not necessarily the proper way and certainly not the only way.
My son Kip filmed the setup process of dragging camera equipment to the pier, assembling the parts, focusing, and polar aligning. Then, while I was photographing the night sky, Kip assembled his clips into this amazing video. Our only regret is that we need a lapel microphone that will reduce the wind noise. Always something! But I am extremely happy with the result and hope you enjoy this next chapter of my journey in astrophotography.
One of the most useful tools I use for planning my astrophotography photos is a free computer program called Stellarium.
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. I've made several landscape files that you can download and use, and, with the latest Baraboo in Spring landscape, you can see the sky exactly the way I see it from the pier featured in these videos. Click here to visit my Stellarium page.