I have had an interest in Astronomy for as long as I can remember.  Growing up, my family had a  huge influence developing my interest in astronomy. We had a small department store refractor telescope that was used on special occasions such as lunar eclipses or meteor showers. Ironically it was the mars hoax emails that prompted me to develop a serious interest in Astronomy. My Dad and I read that Mars would appear 75 times larger than the moon to the unaided eye. Without doing much research we rushed out to buy our first real telescope, a Meade Etx 90. We quickly learned that Mars would never appear 75X larger than the moon to the unaided eye, but by then we were already hooked on Astronomy.

    The Etx 90 was a great starter scope, but after a while I wanted to see the universe more clearly than three inches of aperture could show. We swapped our ETX 90 for a Ten inch Meade Lx90, and with the new telescope I developed an interest in astrophotography. I dreamt of filling my walls with beautiful Astrophoto’s that I took myself. We purchased a Meade DSI I and tried to use it with the LX90. Unfortunately I did not create any successful photographs with that setup. After weeks of frustration I threw in the towel and decided to go back to visual observing.

    When I was sixteen I caught a bad case of “aperture fever” and swapped my 10” Lx90 for a 16” Meade Lightbridge Dobsonian. This scope really opened my eyes to the beauty of the visual universe. I was able to see more detail in deep sky objects than ever before. I was amazed at the amount of detail a big scope could show, and wanted to capture that detail on paper. Once again I found myself longing to try my hand at Astrophotography.  My supportive parents helped me finance an astrophotography setup, and at the end of 2008 I began to try Astrophotography again. This time I had greater success due to more patience and research.  My first image of the Orion nebula hooked me into the world of astrophotography.