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Well, ive spent £787 so far and having a lot of fun with what I have. No doubt an extra digit will make its way into that number over the next few years! But yeah - the fun begins without spending a massive amount. I'm using a Star Adventurer 2i, Canon 700D and a handful of vintage lenses. All bought second hand. I already have my next round of investment lined up: small APO refractor + cooled camera. But I made a deal with myself: If I stick it out and get to the point where I have shot and processed 8 images I'm happy with, I will make the investment. So far - im on 1. Long way to go! |
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I've never worried about how much my setup has cost me. Namely because I recognize astrophotography is ultimately a hobby, not a necessity. Thus, I won't buy things I ultimately don't need with money I don't have at that very moment. I'm as debt-phobic as they come, so I buy most of my stuff used and it's all paid for. I haven't carried a credit card balance in nearly 20 years. Better part is knowing my kids' college funds have 10X more in them than the market value of all my astro gear. I don't have the top-end gear many folks do. Someone who buys a used AP900 mount probably has more invested in that item ALONE than the value of ALL of my gear. But I enjoy taking pictures through it, with financial piece of mind thrown in. Clear Skies, Phil |
1.20
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| Don’t tell my wife but I spent over 25k in the last 2 years. 🤑🤑🤑 |
11.04
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What's really interesting is that my wife has spent £2530 on me for the main elements of my setup (OTA, mount, tripod, imaging camera) over one birthday and one Christmas (I am a lucky man) and I have spent £1290 on automating what she gave me and buying filter wheels, filters, adaptors, EAF, OAG etc.. Regardless, I think for sub-£5K you can get a setup that lets you have a lot of fun with this hobby  |
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Maybe it is a problem with the communication between us and our better , and often more sensible part in the marriage? LOL Roy on your communication solutions 🤪😂😂 |
7.58
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| Before graduating college... I've probably spent about $15k on astro gear. After college probably another $25k. It is a lot to fathom, but I'm trying to get the best photos possible to sell prints so I look at it as more of an investment. Looking back, I could have saved a lot of money by not purchasing a premium mount and keeping my trusty eq6. Also, the location of your telescope can be way more important than how expensive your scope is. |
11.88
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| There is a huge second hand market which helped me to contain expenses over the last decade. Good scopes never get old, and a lot of accessories are overpaid when you buy it new in a shop. It is more tricky for electronic equipment like cameras where you have no warranty anymore. It is just a matter of being patient to wait for the right opportunity. I also sell equipment when I feel that I will not use it anymore, this helps me to keep the budget in line. |
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Dominik Weinbrenner: This is true, the only good thing about the pandemic was that alot of things that i wanted to buy were not available , and in hindsight they would of been wrong for me anyway. |
3.34
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Dominik Weinbrenner: Other way round here. Only good thing about the pandemic in my case: didn't spend money on clothes, gasoline and travelling and invested in astronomy instead. And more time at hand thanks to Home Office. |
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I started this wonderfull hobby late 2017 with a secondhand 10" dob with the intention to observe the night sky. By mid 2018 I got sucked in to AP, I'm now about €60K lighter on gear and that's not including my observatory so probably about 100K. Don't tell my wife 🤐 |
1.20
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Running a quick math in my mind, I spent about $6500 on everything. That includes 3 telescopes, 1 EQ6r mount 1 Az-GTI mount 2 astro cameras, a few filters and 2 autofocusers. I am very budget, because I have other hobbies and also because my daughter has to be the most expensive idea I ever decided to have LOL! Just in relative terms- or to make myself feel better, I have friends who do daytime photography and spent about 10x of that on lens and mirrorless cameras, another friend with his hot-rod building hobby spent as much on parts that he could have bought a 2nd house already. |
7.75
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... I have friends who do daytime photography and spent about 10x of that on lens and mirrorless cameras ... One of my problems is that I perform daytime and astro photography ... Clear skies Wolfgang |
6.26
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Costs less than a boat and it’s much lower maintenance and feasible all year. It’s also safer than a boat and doesn’t require wearing a life preserver. Bob |
2.97
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Over 18K and about 8K ago I said, "I have everything I need." Sound familiar? This... this is me (16k and at 7k told my wife this is all I will need) |
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7.75
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Jared Holloway:Over 18K and about 8K ago I said, "I have everything I need." Sound familiar? As long as you count in "k" and not in number of spouses who left you everything is still under control ... I just reached my personal astro photo budget limit for this year, oh well ... Clear skies Wolfgang |
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Jared Holloway:Over 18K and about 8K ago I said, "I have everything I need." Sound familiar? You always hear of people leaving people for working and spending too much on their car... so does that translate to astrophotography as well? XD How am I going to break it to my future s/o... I might be screwed... My other expensive hobby is my car.. - Chase |
1.20
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I’m retired and am generally a frugal person but my wife tells me I have expensive hobbies: golf and astrophotography. They both can be expensive but once you have a good mount, scope, camera, filters, and software you can stop spending. Golf on the other hand costs every time you play. I solved this problem by getting a part time job at a nearby golf course that pays me minimum wage and includes FREE golf. I use this extra income to pay for AP gear and golf equipment as I like, guilt free. I now tell my wife that my two hobbies no longer cost us anything 😁 |
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6.26
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Could be worse. She should be happy you’re apparently not obsessed with boats. Astro imaging is cheaper and safer than boating and, unlike golf in most of the US and Europe, is an all-season pursuit. CS, Bob |
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You can calculate it yourself... RASA11, Lacerta Newton 10", Hypergraph6, ES APO 127/952, 4 extenders, 2 reducers, QHY 600M, QHY600C, QHY268M, QHY268C, ASI2600MC, ASI183M Pro, ASI183 MC Pro, QHY163M, QHY163C, SX694Pro, 4 guiding cams, EQ8R-Pro, CEM120EC2, Eagle 4S, 3 MiniPCs NUC i9, a dozen power supplies, hundreds of cables, unaccountable time and sleepless nights and unimaginable amount of fun and enjoyment :-) I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not travel to far away destinations, I have no girl friend as I am happily married and all children are out and earn their own money... and I am retired :-) CS! |
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$$$ “finally got everything I need” $$$ |
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About 10 years ago I walked into OPT (RIP) and told the sales guy I wanted to get started in AP. I pointed at a Meade 16" all inclusive setup and the guy asked what my experience level was. I said basically none other than pointing a zoom lens at the Moon. He said "look, I can sell you a $10,000 setup but you never know how serious you want to be". He sold me a $1000 AVX to put my DSLR and zoom lens on. This was excellent advice. Not because I wouldn't end up spending $10K and more on a setup but because I had no idea what I would want to spend that money on and, for sure, it would not have been a Meade 16" system. Less than one year later I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do and bought a Paramount MYT, Televue 127, SBIG 8300 with an AO and Astrodon filters. That was $25,000 at the time. This was actually a really good decision at the time. After a year of using that setup in my Bortle 6 backyard I realized that to progress my images I needed to get to darker skies and to get many more repetitions than occasional dark site trips would allow. I also knew I was moving to cloud-covered Portland soon. So I started looking for a remote location. SRO was known to be a good site and was a 5 hour drive, which seemed doable. So decision tree goes like this: The seeing at SRO is 1" so I need a longer focal length and I need bullet-proof quality since I won't be there to constantly fix things. This led to a 14" Planewave. With that long FL I needed the biggest sensor I could get so an SBIG 16803 was added. Total weight was around 100 pounds so I wanted a Paramount ME2 to be confident the mount could handle it. All in this setup was $50K. After 7 or 8 years of probing the northern skies I wanted to have a go at the southern sky so Obstech El Sauce was selected. I wanted both a widefield and long FL scope. A Planewave L-600 could more than handle a CDK17 and the new 14" DeltaRho. Add two IMX455 cameras and FLI FWs with Chromas. With shipping and Chilean taxes I think that totaled $130K. Some observations: Thanks to inflation in this equipment I've sold all of the no longer needed items for close to or more than I paid for it. The equipment I currently use could probably be sold for near what I paid thanks to continued price increases and the quality of the equipment. So the true cost of the equipment is not that bad. The cost of the remote hosting is a sunk cost however. This all may seem crazy but I don't have a boat, plane, big RV, or second home. And I use this equipment every night of the year unlike so many of those other similarly pricey options. So three dream systems in, what would cause me to move up again? The only thing I can think of would be a true adaptive optic system that was priced much lower than I think would ever be possible. But who knows.... |
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Hey Andy, it’s a great question and fun to read the answers above. But surely it's impossible to recommend an amount of cash. Why? Thing is… this hobby can change your life. It can fuel an interest in science, technology, art, even the philosophy of our very existence. It can fend off mental health issues, give you a sense of balance and purpose, create friendship networks and take you on a satisfying learning curve that rewards your efforts. It can enable you to relax and escape under the stars from the life's cr*p and the crazy, scary stuff in the news that bombards you every day. If the above rings true, without selling your organs or making your family scavenge for scraps of food in the neighbours' bins you have to decide how much that is worth to you. But of course the above might not be true for an individual and it’s best to take baby steps of expenditure and find out before wasting too much hard earned cash (e.g. buy a DSLR and if you find you hate astrophotography, you can still use it to take pictures of whatever rings your bell). Sounds like you are well in by now though, as you mention you have spent a few thousand dollars and you've got some cool looking images on your page. In fact your original post was a while ago too. You should hopefully be in a position to decide how much to budget for from here and, to come back to my initial point… only you can know. Good luck! I'm going to be a bit English here and not reveal how much I spent. Thankfully my wife has encouraged me with this and hopefully she gets a better version of me in return - well, okay, I'm kind of obsessed and sleep deprived and I try to arrange our social life around moon phases and... |
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Bray Falls: That's shockingly low considering the quality of your work, and all the remote projects you are involved in. I think your return on investment, at least in quality terms is amazing. Maybe not financially yet, but I really hope you could net profit because you deserve it. |
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I'm too tired to do the math, but I am certain it exceeds $20k. The financial cost is one thing. The greater cost is to my increased cortisol levels and ultimately my decreased life span as I try to make this equipment work correctly, dodge satellites, process images and scream at the latest weather forecast.  |
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Ian McIntyre: ...which raises an interesting question whilst we are on the subject of cash. How much would you pay for a cloud blaster? |
