About Me

My name is Karol Novotny. I’m born 1979 in Solothurn, Switzerland. I work in an IT security company as Solution Engineer and my big passions are astrophotography and electronic music.

First, why I decided to publish this blog in English? I just want reach as much people as possible. In my opinion English is the best language for that. But my english isn’t perfect at all… Sorry if there are faults 😉

Now back to my little story: “Space-things” always very interested me since I was a kid. In 2011 I had the luck to get a telescope from a buddy. It was a Maede LX10 Schmidt-Cassegrain 8″. With it I did my first experiences in the night sky… Light pollution, alignment, star hopping… I had a lot to learn… and I still have… 😉

With the Maede I observed the most of the time Jupiter and Saturn. Saturn is my absolutely favorite planet!

In May 2015 I bought my own first telescope. And quickly I bought a DSLR for capturing these fantastic objects in the sky. This blog is my personal journal to track and share my experiences in astrophotography.

I realized very fast, the Explorer 130P is not usable for serious photography… Either I’d to buy a telescope and mount for photography and start big, or start small with DSLR lenses at less focal lengths than telescopes on a small mount.

I choosed the second option because of the financial aspect. Additional I have the possibility to walktrough the whole topic astrophotography from short to long focal lenghts.

The name star-watcher shall be a tribute to SkyWatcher, since I use their Explorer 130P SynScan and the great little red mount.

Since August, 2015 I use the SkyWatcher StarAdventurer combined with the Canon EOS 100D for all my pictures.
Since June, 2016 I use the Canon EOS 70D (as primary DSLR) and the Lacerta MGEN II Auto Guider.

Check out my mobile observatory and visit me on AstroBin or Telescopius.

Clear Skies!

Contact eMail: karol(a)star-watcher.ch
TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY.

Equipment

Mounts/Tripods

• SkyWatcher Star Adventurer
• Manfrotto MT055XPRO3
• Manfrotto MT190XPRO3/XPRO4
• Manfrotto 496RC2/498RC2 ball heads
• Skywatcher SynScan AZ GoTo

Telescopes / Photo Lenses

• SkyWatcher Explorer 130P 650mm f/5
• Orion Mini Guide Scope 162mm f/3.2
• Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L
• Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L
• Canon EF 100mm f/2.8
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.4
• Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8
• Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fish-Eye

Cameras / Guiding Cameras

• Canon EOS 70Da (80-85% H-Alpha-Sensitivity)
• Canon EOS 100D
• Lacerta MGENII

Accessories

• Kenko 1.4x Converter
• Gerd Neumann 77mm Bahtinov Mask
• Lacerta Bahtinov Mask
• Skywatcher Powertank 17Ah

Mobile Apps

• Skywatcher Star Adventurer Mini Console

PC Hardware

• Intel Core i7 8700 CPU 3.2GHz (@ 4.3GHz), 6 cores, 12 threads
• 32 GB RAM
• Windows 7 64 Bit
• 2 x 1TB SSD (work drives)
• 4 TB dedicated storage for astrophotoraphy
• 4 TB backup storage
• Asus EeeBook X205T

Software

• PixInsight
• Adobe Lightroom
• Stellarium

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