Originally published at: Secrets of a backyard astrophotographer | Boing Boing
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I heard Dara Ó Briain complain about the same thing
Cool. I live in a highly light polluted region and don’t have a car, but I find this youtuber fascinating,
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Author uses a 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain on an equatorial drive, and a cooled CCD camera. Any reflector telescope that is below 6" is a toy, so 8" is with range for a serious amateur. But that cooled CCD camera is what allows for the quality of the pictures and puts the setup in another level. The human eye just won’t see constellation M51 anything like the photo shown. Even Lord Ross struggled to sketch M51 with his Leviathan telescope since he needed to use his eye (picture below).
ETA: it’s a picture of M51 drawn by Lord Ross, not a picture of Lord Ross’ eye.
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And once you have the camera chilled to -20C, make sure that you turn on the heater to prevent dew from forming. 
https://www.ontariotelescope.com/QHY367C-Cooled-CMOS-camera-36MP_p_1227.html
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