About me and that weird hobby

Back in year 2000, I was still a little school boy, I got interested in astronomy – due to the library of my school, which had some very good books about physics and astronomy. But, living in a big city in Austria, I wasn’t able to do visual observing, light pollution was to heavy. It lasted till 2008 – at this time I could buy afford my first telescope (10” Dobsonian) and became a member of the AAS – “Astronomical Club of Salzkammergut”. Since then i could work on our observatory in Upper Austria, where we have useable dark skies. Visual observing wasn’t satisfying to me – I think one reason for that was being alone because – everyone else at the observatory was doing CCD-imaging. So, in 2011 I decided to buy a DSLR-camera and to start with astro-photography. Everything else that is needed for that, like a telescope, a mount, a guider, was available at the observatory and I was allowed to use that equipment. It was fascinating from the first moment, to manage all this technical stuff, the processing of data,… In the course of time, I bought my own setup and i’m thankful, that the club allowed me and my friend Günter Kerschhuber to build up our own observatory at its site. Special thanks go to my family who is really tolerant when I’m off for a few nights in a row! Markus Blauensteiner