If you want to see some amazing astrophotography, head over to Sara Wager’s site. Sara shoots astronomic images from Spain. The nice thing is, she takes you through her journey from novice to expert. Sara learned not to use a digital SLR because this type of camera doesn’t have a cooled image sensor. Any time you shoot long exposures, as you have to in astrophotography (or when imaging low light samples in a laboratory), the imaging sensor generates heat. If the sensor isn’t cooled, the heat buildup increases the dark current resulting in thermal noise, significantly lowering the signal-to-noise ratio of the sensor. This isn’t good with subjects that are extremely faint as if the noise is too high, the subject will be lost in it. Well, enough techie talk. Go check out Sara’s pictures.