u/Jaded_Illusions

I live in a Bortle 8 with tons of street lights near my balcony, so I was shocked to even capture it. I did use the UHC filter along with 20 second exposure, 90 gain, and 300 stacks at 4K. Lastly I uploaded to Stellar Studio then exported as a PNG to Lightroom and Snapseed for final touches.

I get out to Bortle 1 skies from time to time, and I recently joined my local Astronomical Society which has a site with Bortle 4 skies. However I typically use my Evolution 9.25 scope out there, but I've been tinkering more and more with the Dwarf 2 since it's a blast to use.

Definitely happy to be here though, and excited to learn more about this amazing little telescope from you all.

Went out to the Davis Mountains for a week and it was like a different world. I wanted to do Black Gap Trail out in BBNP, but we primarily went for astronomy, hiking, and bird watching/nature. I'll probably ditch the tube steps for sliders and throw on some Wildpeaks next time I go though. Either way I highly recommend this area if you're out in west Texas. Oh, and don't mind the Jeep, they wanted to be cool and asked to park next to me 😅. First one I've seen with no ducks in a while!

Went out to the Davis Mountains for a week. Ended up hiking, stargazing, birding, and exploring nature. The only thing I wish I had was a better camera; which will definitely be on my list in the future. I do think I'll bring a humidifier for our room next time though, because the nose bleeds were consistent, even with keeping our nostrils moisturized. The altitude also took a day or so to get acclimated to, but I only had to take Meclizine once. Oh, and we did bring plenty of water and electrolytes; which we went through like crazy.

This was our first time actually staying in Fort Davis, but our last trip was to Alpine since it was much closer to BBNP. I think next we will stay in Terlingua so we can get the full experience of the park. We were out there a whole week, but I still felt like we didn't do enough. With that being said, another trip in the fall may be in order.

Most of these shots I took with either my GoPro Hero 13 Black or Dwarf 2 smart telescope. I did bring my Celestron 9.25" SCT, but half the time it was hazy and the moon was too bright, so we only got to see Jupiter and a few galaxies/nebulae. Plus, that thing is a pita to lug around and set up. Either way, it was worth it.

Till next time!