Photo Courtesy of Bill Williams

Yep...this is me, Pat Freeman, standing by my primary astrophoto imaging rig at my backyard observory behind my home in Chiefland, Florida.  You can read more about my "on-the-cheap" observatory here.  The main telescope is a Celestron Edge 11" tube, sitting on a Losmandy G11 with Gemini2 mount, all mounted on a permanent pier.  At my right elbow you can see my newest (May 2024) camera setup, a ZWO ASI6200MM Pro full-frame monochrome CMOS camera, with a ZWO 7-position filter wheel (L/R/G/B/S2/Ha/O3), and a ZWO big off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI174Mini guide camera.  Temporarily piggyback-mounted on top of the Edge 11 tube is a Canon 70-200L zoom lens with my previous main camera, a Starlight Xpress MX26C CCD camera, used here for a few nights of very wide-field imaging while guiding through the Edge 11 scope.

I've been interested in astronomy since my teenage years in my home state of Ohio.  When I was about 12, my father gave me a 4" Criterion Dynascope reflector he'd won in a raffle at work, and that telescope introduced me to the brighter planets, including Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn.  I got my first serious telescope, an 8" Celestron C-8 Deluxe Computerized SCT, in 1997, now also retired to public stargaze duty.  I can still remember my first night out with it, and the thrill of seeing the Ring Nebula and M13 through it.  In 2002 I moved upscale with the 12" Meade LX200GPS go-to telescope.  I added a Televue-85 refractor in 2004.  All three of these telescopes have been used for the older astrophotos you will see on this website. 

Equipment additions (between 2009 and the Fall of 2013) have been a Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini II Go-To, and a Celestron EdgeHD 11" optical tube with an Orion EON-80 refractor as guide scope.  I also added a completely new second imaging rig, a Celestron EdgeHD 8" optical tube on another Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini II Go-To, using an Astro-Tech 72mm refractor guide scope.  In addition, I added a light-weight imaging rig, iOptron's SkyTracker Pro mount, which I can use on a photo tripod with any of the three Canon DSLR cameras (20Da, Hutech-modified 50D, or 60Da) and any of several lenses, for wide-field unguided photography.  I also own a Starlight Xpress MX26C one-shot color CCD camera and an old SBIG ST-8300M monochrome CCD camera with a 5-position filter wheel for tri-color (Red, Green, and Blue) imaging.  Most of the latest astrophotos on this website were taken with this new gear.

I used to have several favorite observing / astrophotography sites.  One was the Cincinnati Astronomical Society's dark-sky site in Adams County, Ohio.  One was the Caesar Creek State Park area in southwest Ohio.  As of mid-2022, I've retired and permanently moved 875 miles from my previous home in west-central Ohio, to the Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida, where I've installed the Edge 11" on a permanent pier seen in the first photo above.  Most of the pictures you see on this website were taken at one of these three favorite locations.