I’m quite susceptible to positive feedback; when I get it, I’m encouraged to keep at whatever it is I’ve gotten it for. I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback for my astrophotography. On Flickr, the most popular photos I took in 2009 were, by far, this shot of the Moon and this attempt at star trails photography. Even if I’ve been posting my photos to all the relevant astrophotography groups, the resulting feedback has been gratifying — and maybe a little surprising: I didn’t think they were all that good. I’ve seen better, and want to do better (which, you will agree, is the right attitude to take if you want to get good at something).

This year’s Christmas gifts were in the same vein. First, that Moon photo was surreptitiously, printed, framed and presented to me as a gift. It now hangs above my piano. And second, Jennifer presented me with a Sky-Watcher eight-inch Newtonian reflector, with the intent of my using it for astrophotography. It’s not a true astrograph, and may need a new focuser and a Paracorr to really excel at that task, but from all accounts it’s a very good scope with a great bang for the buck, and it should be light enough for the HEQ5 Pro mount (I’ll find out soon enough, probably in the spring).

I’m getting the distinct impression that I should keep at the astrophotography.