Behind the Camera
The story, the obsession, and the gear.
How it started
It started with a borrowed telescope and a clear night in rural Vermont. I pointed it at Saturn for the first time and saw the rings — actually saw them, not in a photograph, not on a screen — and that was it. I was done.
Kosmic Trails grew out of years of chasing dark skies, learning from failure, and slowly building a setup capable of capturing what I saw in my head. The name comes from the trails we leave across the sky — star trails, satellite trails, the arc of the Milky Way — and the idea that every image is a record of a specific moment in time and space.
This site is part portfolio, part field notebook. The guides are written the way I wish someone had explained things to me when I was starting out — honest about the difficulty, specific about the technique, and focused on what actually makes a difference.
Current Setup
William Optics Redcat 51
f/4.9 APO refractor — primary wide-field imaging scope
Celestron EdgeHD 8"
f/10 SCT — planetary and high-resolution deep sky
ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Monochrome CMOS — primary imaging camera
Canon EOS Ra
Full-frame mirrorless — wide field and Milky Way
Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro
GoTo equatorial — primary imaging mount
Chroma 3nm Ha/OIII/SII
Narrowband filter set for emission nebulae
Why I share this
Astrophotography has a steep learning curve and a lot of gatekeeping. The goal here is to lower both — to share what I've learned in a way that's actually useful to someone who's serious about improving. If one of these guides helps you capture an image you're proud of, that's the whole point.
Browse the guides