Gerhard Zahler-Treiber
At the age of 11 I got my first book on astronomy. A year later I started my studies on relativity. At the same time I had my first telescope – a 2 inch Tasco refractor.
At fourteen I began to observe the sky with the famous refractor from Zeiss Jena, the Telementor 2. Although the telescope was designed to be very simple mechanically, it gave optically fantastic results. With an aperture of 63 mm it showed the galaxies M81 and M82 as well as the planetary nebulae M27 and M57. The Andromeda Galaxy and the Orion Nebula were an easy game. At this time, an 8-inch Newton was the big dream.
Later I studied physics and astronomy at the university for a few semesters. As my interest increasingly shifted towards epistemology and philosophy of science, I switched to philosophy and made a PhD.
More than two decades later, the dream of the 8 inch telescope came true: a Dobsonian opened up new visual dimensions for me. Over time, the desire arose to switch from visual observation to astrophotography. Thus the Dobsonian became a Newton on a Goto mount – the EQ 6 from Skywatcher. In the meantime, a Lacerta 80/500 with flatfield correction was also used for photography. A Celestron 8 inch SC for planetary recordings completed the telescope inventory a few years ago.
After a few years of mobile use, which meant loading and unloading more than 30 kilograms every time, the need for a fixed observatory became strong. Since the light pollution around the metropolitan area of Vienna is very pronounced, the choice finally fell on a remote observatory in the southern French alps: I start now in ROSA Remote observatories in Verclause: https://rosa-remote.com/.
Astrophotography by Gerhard Zahler-Treiber 