And So It Begins

And so it begins...

This is the first time I've ever done a blog post. The idea of putting out events in my life for the entire internet to see has never exactly been the most appealing thing. Yet, at some point, creating a portfolio is the ultimate fate for anybody who decides to venture into the field of astrophotography. No portfolio feels complete in my mind without a blog-like element.

What do I want from this?

I think it's all about telling a story. The story could be about my personal growth and maturation as a teenager trying to navigate life but told through the lens of space (which is, in my completely unbiased opinion, very cool). Then again, having a blog means I have the creative freedom to rant about my telescope not working. Or I could put up the most random bits of information, completely unrelated to astronomy. Either way, it's telling a story. Since this is my first blog, it's clear that I must recount the events that have led me to this point. After all, no story comes without its fair share of lore. 

I first got into astrophotography at the tail end of the COVID pandemic when comet NEOWISE was making the rounds on the news. I remember going out to a local elementary school with a pretty decent horizon and scanning the northern sky for signs of the comet with our newly bought Celestron binoculars. Eventually, we found it, and I remember being amazed that something so pretty could exist in our night sky. I remember thinking "Huh... that's cool" before my dad snapped an image on his phone.

If it isn't abundantly clear by this point, I like astronomy. Always have since I was young. There's not much a kid can do when it comes to viewing the cosmos, especially someone like me who lives in the light-polluted, humidity-laden, allergy-inducing suburbs of Austin, Texas. So, up until NEOWISE came along, my relationship with astronomy was distant at best, restricted to documentaries and books. 

When I visited the Big Island of Hawaii during summer break, I was able to go visit the summit of Mauna Kea and the world-famous observatories that were there. I asked (definitely not forced) my family to stay past sunset to stargaze. Mauna Kea is a dark sky zone at around Bortle 1 or less, so I knew I had to watch. I snapped a few cool photographs of the beautiful cloudscape against the dappled reds and oranges of the sunset before waiting for astronomical twilight to set in. Needless to say, there's something mesmerizing about seeing the Milky Way for the first time.

It was then I decided to fully pursue my astrophotography hobby and a career in astrophysics.

I've come a long way since then. I've learned how to set up and use my Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8. I upgraded from using my phone held up to the telescope lens to connecting a DSLR to the optical tube, allowing me to photograph in RAW. I learned, rather painfully, how to use stacking software to use the data available to me, even learning the dreaded flat frame (for those who don't know, it's a type of photo used to calibrate for vignetting and dust particles). I've taken many photographs and attended many outreach events with the astronomy club that I co-founded.

And now, I'm blogging.

Interesting turn of events, but oh well.

Last night, I snapped a photograph of the Ring Nebula as a way to visualize my progress and as an inaugural symbol for the start of my online portfolio, and it's a pretty good way to describe this entire experience. M 57 was one of the first objects I ever took a photo of, and it is now my most recent. Everything has come full circle.

By all metrics, last night was a marked improvement over my original image. I used stacking software with all of the types of calibration frames to decrease signal to noise ratio. The colors are clearer and the stars don't streak as much. You can make out the faint central star at the center of the nebula in the new image while the old image has a questionable grey sky.

But, this photo is also indicative of the fact that I can still improve.

Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the stars are not perfectly focused. My camera still creates an unholy amount of red noise that I didn't completely remove from the final image. I accidentally forgot to balance the telescope mount, which made tracking a nightmare. I use an alt-az mount and not a German equatorial, which severely limits the length of exposure I can take, making astrophotography inherently difficult. I use Google Sites of all things to make a portfolio.

I FORGOT THE BUG SPRAY!

In summary, I've come a long way, but there are infinitely more ways in which I can improve. Astrophotography is a difficult hobby to get into with its insane learning curve. I'm impressed with myself for making it this far, especially as a high schooler trying to juggle this time-consuming activity with schoolwork, but I'm still a novice.

And so it begins...

To whoever is reading this, expect better photos in the future. Expect me to blog about trying to learn how to align equatorial mounts and ranting about why it isn't working. Expect me to post some (not-so-great) pixellated pictures of objects that are no longer identifiable. Learning is a process that cannot be rushed, so I'm going to take all the time I need to get this right.

Who knows? Maybe a year from now, I'll have an even better image of the Ring Nebula to show.