My childhood telescope.
Similar to what I observed when young, I captured this image of Saturn decades later.
A telescope setup I began building as a science teacher. The red box on the front links with the telescope mount and the camera on the back, all controlled via a mobile app.
Jupiter, as seen through the setup above.
One of the modern, self-contained "smart telescopes." All control and viewing has to be done via a mobile app.
Image Credit: ZWO https://www.zwoastro.com/product/seestar-s50/
The interface app for the ZWO Seestar. Besides device controls, weather and astronomical data are available to plan an observing session.
Part of the community features built into the Seestar app. Users can share their images, and can search by location of user or the nature of the object observed.
A live preview image. By taking more images, the contrast and colours in the final image are enhanced. These are viewed in real time as the total amount of data increases.
A completed photo, adjusted in an image editing program to enhance contrast and colour balance. This was taken from the balcony of my apartment.
Image taken of a full moon. On another evening, my school hosted a viewing session to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, as a cooperative event between the science and Mandarin departments
A relatively fast (20 minute) image test of the Horsehead Nebula. I plan to return to this in the future for a much longer session, to produce a more detailed image.
Image credit: NASA Ames Research Center
Image Credit :P. Horálek/European Southern Observatory
Regardless of my criticism of John Dobson's attitude towards astrophotography, his work in promoting astronomy and amateur telescope making are very inspiring.
This guide describes how to incorporate a ZWO Seestar smart telescope into an outreach event. The ideas would be easily adapted to schools hosting an observing event for students or public.
I came across this site and the accompanying YouTube channel during COVID lockdowns. It details the modern approaches to amateur astrophotography, and was a major inspiration in my decision to return to the hobby.
ZWO appears to be one of the leaders in making cameras and other EAA equipment for the serious amateur market. Being based in China, I was also happy to see that the success of ZWO acts as a counter example to the common outside presumption of Chinese companies being derivative and lacking innovation
Certainly not the only one, but Cloudy Nights is a prominent online community dedicated to astronomy.
The discussions are not exclusive to EAA but the topic is well discussed. For example, this article on the homepage discusses the impact of affordable smart telescopes.
Combining EAA, community and the global aspect of the internet, numerous observatories provide telescopes that can be booked for individuals to use to collect data. This is an interesting option for teachers looking to expose students to astronomy but would have trouble due to cost and other logistical issues.