I've been in the hobby for a little over 10 years now, off and on. Almost exclusively visual. My main telescope was an Orion xx16g and I had a ASI224MC for basic planetary work and I also had an ASI178MM to use with my Lunt LS80tha for solar work in Ha. My solar images were very good but I only every used my 224mc as basic EAA when I brought a friend out so they could help visualize what there were seeing. I had to move to Asia for 1 year in 2020 and in that time I figured I'd save up to buy gear for astrophotography. I'm talking about diving in head first. Stupid, I know to not start off with cheaper gear but I've been in the hobby for a decade and the degree I'm working on is in astronomy so I knew I'd stick with it. Serendipitously right before I moved back to the US, I saw the Galactic Course had been started and I was one of the first subscribers. As soon as I landed in Arizona (while I was still in a hotel looking for houses) I started the course and started piecing together my rig(s). I took a lot recommendations from the course for gear with only some slight changes and so far the results have been much better than I expected. It really helped loads since I had very little idea about anything astrophotography. Especially the widely diverse opinions on what gear is best and how to go about everything. I've been imaging for for about 2 months now and these are literally my first 5 photos ever.