Great review of the Sky-Watcher EQ6-R by AstroBackyard
Who’s owns one of these or plans to soon ?
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Review | Tips, Features, & Example Images
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The Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro is a superb choice for deep astrophotography. Take a look at what I've accomplished with this affordable, intermediate-level GoTo mount.
@txmrae took this epic image of the Carina Nebula with the Esprit 120ED & EQ6R Pro
Tom says:
It’s distance from earth combined with the speed of light means that we are viewing this nebula 7500 years into the past. Perhaps a telescope is the closest we will ever get to a time machine.
This is what you get with only 6 minutes exposure on a stock camera from the darkest skies in the world.
Nikon Z6 (unmodified)
+ Skywatcher Esprit 120ED + Skywatcher EQ6R Pro
30s ISO 6400 x12 image stack.
Processed in photoshop.
"Listen" - From our ambassador Astrophotobear
The OTC Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon was established in Australia to meet the needs for more reliable higher quality communications for the Apollo space program. The Carnarvon Tracking station was commissioned in 1964 and operated for 11 years and supported the Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.
Exif Canon EOS R Sigma 35mm Sky-Watcher Star adventurer panorama head 35mm F2.0 ISO 1600 30s 180 image panorama Bortle 4 location looking into the heavier light pollution area
You might see a trend here, we'll be featuring our ambassador Astrophotobear and his incredible images over the next week! 🤩
Descriptions:
Image 1 - "Exploring the Great Expanse"
Salt lakes can be a fantastic location for landscape astrophotography. Taken in 2015 – on a perfectly calm night you can stand still and all the stars will reflect in the water around you. The salt lake is only a few inches deep so can readily stand in it. Be careful though because you need to make sure it is firm enough otherwise it tries to suck you into the mud that is the lake bed. For this image I wanted to create the feeling of being within the enormity of the stars. Immediately after this photo I went to take the photo called Nightmare.
Image 2 - "The Light Within"
Nambung National Park in Western Australia. A crescent moon sits on top a pinnacle providing a back lit scene. The zodiacal light (sunlight reflecting off cosmic dust in the inner solar system) creates a triangle of light up to the Milky Way core. It took me a couple of years to capture this image, seeking to have a back lit image with the monoliths that are the Pinnacles. The image received an APOD twice.
Image 3 - "Destination"
Nambung National Park is located in Western Australia - some 200 km north of Perth. Hundreds of limestone pillars up to 3.5m tall, scatter the desert landscape. The low amount of light pollution makes it a fantastic location for star gazing.
Canon 6d Tamron 15-30 x 63 image panorama at 30mm F3.2 ISO 5000-6400 25-30s (last few photos were at shorter shutter and higher ISO) tracking mount
Our ambassador Astrophotobear describes this fantastic image below
Bilya Rock in Morawa in Western Australia. It's located around 370km north of Perth. Bilya Rock itself is really dark - Bortle 1 with it being pretty distant from light pollution sources for both a rising and setting Milky Way core.
A large cairn is standing on Bilya rock - it's reputed to have been placed there by John Forrest in the 1870s. It's also notable to say that he would have been led by the talents of Tommy Windich who was the outstanding Aboriginal bushman who accompanied him on his expeditions.
I called the image Waypoint due John Forrest being reputed as one of the great explorers in Western Australia's history. "Bilya" - I understand means - from the river creek or big floods, home. Moon luminosity around 39%.