About Me

I was born in 1979 in Budapest, Hungary. Astronomy has been my main interest since my childhood.  At age 13 I started visiting local public observatories, where my telescopic observations began. I bought my first telescope, a basic 150/1000 Newtonian from a Hungarian telescope maker in 1998.

I started to photograph the night sky in 2000 with a 150/900 Maksutov-Newtonian telescope. I used film techniques and guided the exposures manually. Unfortunately after 3 years of imaging I still got trailed stars. I could not handle differential flexure of the mirror based Newtonian telescope system, so I moved to a lens telescope, I bought a 130/780 TMB apochromatic refractor. Finally I got pinpoint stars and great astro images with that scope. I used films and slides up to 120 format. Great images were taken with that instrument.

In 2006 I moved to the field of digital photography with a modified Canon EOS 350D. In 2008 and 2009 I built two fast Newtonian astrographs with 300 mm and 200 mm apertures and upgraded the camera to a full frame 5DmkII to get more effective instruments. With those gears I was able to record faint objects like dusty dark nebulas within reasonable exposure time. You can read more about my telescopes here.

In 2013 I bought a CCD camera (QSI683 WSG-8). With this camera I was able to shoot more detailed images and also using narrowband filters with several combinations.

Living in the light polluted Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, I have to move out for every imaging session to get dark sky.  Ágasvár (Mount Mátra) is my most frequently visited observing site, it is 2 hours driving from my home. You can read more of this site here.

In 2010 I visited farm Hakos in Namibia to observe the Southern beauties. Many great astro images were taken from this site since that year. These images are collected to this gallery.

I have already publicated many images in international magazines, like Sky&Telescope, and on astronomical sites like APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). I regularly give presentations and have exhibitions in Hungary and Europe as well.

Contact me at:  ivan dot astroeder at gmail dot com