Want to take beautiful widefield astrophotos? Don't have an equatorial mount? Just click on the picture above to download plans for an inexpensive, simple and very effective "barn door" camera tracking platform (.zip file)!

My current. lack of a suitably dark site for doing  film astrophotography, and my current main interest in the Moon and planets means that I've pretty much deserted this art for CCD imaging. But the beauty and depth of film--the richness still unavailalble through electronic media--means I'll come back to it whenever I can, you can depend upon that--especially the next time we get a GREAT COMET!

Bye-bye Bopp! Rod Mollise and Pat Rochford

M33, the Spiral Galaxy in Triangulum. 20 minute exposure on unhypered Fuji Super G800+ with a Celestron Ultima C8 at f6.3.

Little M15 has always been a personal favorite of mine! 15 minutes on Fuji Super G800....

How can you do astrophotography in the Winter and not take just one more M42?! If I'd been a little less tired, I would have tried to adjust the format of this shot to show more of  NGC 1973/5/7....

Click on Mr. Posssum to return to Rod's Astro Land!

"Astrophotographers are a Funny Bunch! It takes a special mindset to get out there in the middle of a field with a carload of equipment and freeze your butt off to get one more M42!"