I took my first astrophoto in 1974. Those first images were not very good due to limitations of skill, equipment, and film. But I kept at it experimenting with different telescopes, lens, cold cameras, and hypersensitized film. Eventually I was an early adopter of CCD cameras in the 1990s. Those proved better for astronomical research than pretty pictures. Finally in the last couple of decades, equipment, techniques and software have combined to making astrophotography truly rewarding.