Astrofest 2018

As some of you are probably already aware, last weekend saw the return of Astrofest at Kensington town hall. It was great to be able to attend another year and it was an absolute pleasure to be able to chat to so many current and aspiring astrophotographers. A big thank you to everyone that attended and we hope to see you again next year!

On a personal note, I’m a relatively new member to the Atik team and this was the first time I made the journey down to London for Astrofest. It’s safe to say I wasn’t disappointed. I learnt a huge amount by just talking to everyone there, both those just interested in astronomy and those running some of the stalls. It’s a great place to share knowledge and get stuck into conversation with those that share the same hobby as you, I highly recommend Astrofest to anyone that hasn’t yet been.

I wasn’t the only newcomer to the Atik stall, as many of you already know QSI are now part of the same group as Atik and we were proud to be able to showcase their cameras at Astrofest. We had a lot of people saying how great it was that QSI will continue making cameras and we are honoured to be able to help keep their high quality range on the market.

For those of you that couldn’t make it this year, here’s a few things we had going on at the Atik stall.

Our new app

With the success of our newest version of the Infinity Software we have been working on a new image acquisition app and we were lucky enough to be able to set up an alpha test version for you to use at Astrofest. While it is still very early days in terms of the app’s design it was great to see people playing around with it and we’re really excited with how it’s turning out. It’s still a long way off completion but events like Astrofest are a good opportunity for us to showcase what we’re working on and get feedback from you about how we could improve it (and it means those that attend get a sneak peak and what we’ve got in store for the future).

The Atik Horizon

We really enjoyed speaking to everyone and answering any questions you may have. Astrofest is one of those great opportunities for us to be able to speak to people in real time and get some high quality feedback about our cameras. We were especially pleased to hear the comments from those that own the new Horizon camera. With it being our first CMOS camera the Horizon is an exciting product for us as all and being able to hear first hand that people are enjoying using it is great news. We look forward to seeing more of the stunning images that you’ve all been taking with the Horizon and if you’re hiding some at home please feel free to send them over to us. Astrophotography is our passion and we love seeing the images you all create.

The 16200 and EFW3

With the introduction of our new EFW3 filter wheel, a 7 position filter wheel that can be attached directly to the 16200 for minimal backfocus, Astrofest allowed us to show people how it looks and feels in person. It was also a great chance for those interested in the 16200 to get some more information. The 7 positions in the EFW3 allows for both narrowband and LRGB imaging without having to spend time playing around with your setup and it was good to hear that the changes we’ve made to the design have helped improve reliability.

Our annual competition

Astrofest was also a great chance for us to show off something that wasn’t our own work, the competition entries! As always, we’ve been really impressed with the high standard of entries but could do with a helping hand choosing the winner. We saw a lot of you placing your votes at Astrofest but just in case you haven’t yet voted you can do so here. This years prize is our new Horizon camera and a short stay at Les Granges, so make sure the image you think is worthy of such a prize is the winner! If you’ve got one of our cameras at home but didn’t enter the competition we’d love for you to next year.

As always we are already looking forward to the next Astrofest and if you didn’t manage to catch us this year we hope you can find time at one of the other shows we will be attending throughout the year.