Hello from Silicon Valley Introduce yourself! · Hugh Johnson · ... · 3 · 150 · 0

Hello!

I'm Hugh, 52, located in San Jose, California, USA. I'm a software engineer by day and enjoyer of the sciences both earthbound (esp. geology) and skyward (esp. astronomy).

Like many recently-minted astrophotographers I had long wanted to dip my toe in but never had the time or space in the house/yard to devote to a big rig. As such, the advent of smart telescopes over the past few years provided a way in for me. I purchased a ZWO Seestar S50 in December 2024 and it's been an great tool for beginning to learn the craft.

Over the past eight months since getting my wee robot scope, I've managed to image:

• 187 named/Bayer'd stars
• 102 of 110 Messier objects
• 59 of 77 northern-hemisphere Caldwell objects
• 9 Sh2 objects
• 20 IC objects
• 69 NGC star clusters
• 25 NGC galaxies
• 22 NGC nebulae

Looking forward to adding more to my collection.

Clear skies all! 🔭🌌

Welcome to the hobby neighbor!  I'm also in San Jose.
Isn't it incredible that we can get such images from our light polluted skies in our own backyard?

The SeeStar is a great way to get into the hobby.  I bought one for the Solar Eclipse this year and easily carried it to Texas for some pretty good eclipse shots.  I've hardly tried any deep sky imaging with the SeeStar though because I can barely keep up with the images collected from my other scope.  I'd thought it was limited in some way for Deep Sky because all reviewers seem to cover the same 3 objects.  I'm impressed by your imaging and pleased to have my assumption corrected.

I was amused by your impressive collection of targets acquired in such a short time.  Great work!
I've been in the hobby for 2 years and managed to image over 250 distinct objects with a total of nearly 1000 hours of combined exposures.  I'm tracking my coverage of the various catalogs (Messier, Caldwell, Abell, Sharpless, Hickson, NGC, IC, etc.) and enjoying the challenge of data management almost as much as the imaging itself.

The best part about the hobby is that people universally think it's "cool" and are amazed at the images that are possible.
Your post has encouraged me to promote the Seestar as a great entry point for people interested in pursuing the hobby for themselves.

Good luck with the ongoing discovery of the night sky.

Tod