27th September 2025

Nothing meaningful in life is easy... 

Several years ago I was miserable, I had lost touch with who I was, just blindly following along blindly on a trajectory to.... nowhere!

My relationship at the time fell apart and the tiny fragments of myself I had attempted to hold onto all had to be thrown to the wind... and afterwards I didn't know who I was anymore, I looked around at my world and I couldn't find a single piece of "me" left.

I kept pushing through, surely it would all get better... right?! I went to work every day, I fed and bathed my kids, and I went to bed exhausted and defeated. 

I needed some inspiration, I didn't hate my job, in fact I loved it, but i would go to work crying everyday, the smallest thing would go wrong and I would be in tears at my desk hoping no one would notice. After about 4 months I handed in my notice and signed myself up for a diploma in counselling.

I gave myself time and space and although financially it was REALLY challenging - it was probably the best thing I could have done for myself. I started going for walks and on mini adventures - enjoyed being outside and I studied I completed the Diploma and went on to start a bachelor of psychology... I got 9 months into that and realized - University is not for me. I'm back at Tafe studying a Certficate in WHS now - which is cool and much more my speed!

In the mean time - 18 months after I up and left my job, someone quit and so the opportunity for me to return came about and I took it - I've been back for almost a year now! 

Anyway, none of that's really relevant to Astrophotography - except to say that during this journey/time period, a close friend of mine introduced me to the hobby and I spent a bunch of time asking him thousands of questions. I couldn't tell you what any of them were or if they were even relevant? but i became I found it interesting, and part of me wanted to give it a go.  

Let me tell you there is more than 1 barrier for getting into astrophotography. 1 - setting up a astrophotography rig requires SOOOOOO much knowledge (the idea of it still scares me) and the costs.... Astronomical! 

But I still wanted to try... I couldn't afford the gear, and I couldn't even tell you where to find Scorpio in the night sky (I still struggle with this) but with some free tools I can find it now and many other cool objects that are hidden out there in the universe. With some research I realized that i could make a start by using my phone! Its got a camera and i could download the apps for finding things and I was all set.

  My first attempts... were messy but I enjoyed being outside listening to the frogs in the warm spring/summer air. and I took a tonne of pictures of constellations of the milky way - I knew I didn't have the best gear, I was using what I had but I was gonna give it a red hot go. I used some free processing software and I processed a picture - I was so proud of myself!  

Heres one of my first pics taken with my Apple iphone X:

I proudly shared my images with some friends, I knew they were not the best, and mostly I got people giving me praise for giving it a go. But not everyone was so.... forgiving. One person basically told me to give up unless I bought a proper camera, then they were like - you've never shown any interest before now, is this all because of "close friend". If i had questions they basically said no point answering that you don't have the right gear anyway. 

I gave up for a while - defeated, that little bug was still there on my shoulder though. "eventually you'll need a new phone and we can try again" "hey look the google pixel has astrophotography mode" "what does a basic astrophotography rig cost?" "hey a smart telescope!" 

Yes i bought a google pixel AND I tried out the astrophotography mode - Finding the targets  and lining them up on the google pixel is quite difficult - unlike the iphone all i see is black, but i have taken some shots of the milkyway.

Here's one of them:

Yes I bought a smart telescope the Seestar S50 which I've had for about a week now, I also purchased pixinsight which is a astrophotography specific processing software, and a power bank after a few nights realising the seestar didnt have enough battery power to run all night and an EQ mount(this ones still in the post).

So far I've been able to photograph 2 different Nebula 

*  M8 - Lagoon Nebula

*  NGC2070 -  Tarantula Nebula.

I haven't fully processed the data for the Lagoon Nebula yet because I only have 2 hours worth of data, but here is my third version of  the Tarantula Nebula which is made from 6 hours worth of data.

and that's how I got here!

Clear Skies 

Gidy