IMAGING DSO WITH A GOTO FLEXTUBE 250

[palatine]

Is it possible? I when to a star party event locally and I guy was using a astro video camera on a small refractor with a AZ mount and the images of the Orion Nebula were amazing!

I have a dslr and a Philips webcam that I've used for planetary

So basically... Am I wasting my time trying to image DSO with what I've got or do I need to spend hundred and thousands on more kit?...

Thanks in advance of your advices

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[AstroAdam]

In theory, you can do short exposures with any tracking scope.  The question is, how long...?

Any Alt/Az scope will suffer from field rotation due to not being aligned to the earth's axis like an EQ mount.  If the tracking is sufficiently accurate, you may be able to get away with 10-30 sec exposures.  You can take lots of these, and get a reasonable result. However, I'm not sure if the tracking will be up to even this on a Goto Dob. 

Many video astronomers use Alt/Az mounts and take short exposures.  Something like a SX Lodestar will give you decent results from a 'live' point of view, but will never compete against true astro imaging CCDs etc, but then thats not the point.  Tie on of those up with the free Lodestar Live software, and its really surprising what you can see.  Take a look at the thread below for some examples.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/234260-lodestar-live-v011-beta/

Lastly, if you want to go cheaper, you can pick up a Samsun SCB-2000 on eBay for around £35 often.  Take the IR filter out of it, and add a nosepiece and focal reducer (0.5x), and you've got yourself a very capable little astro video cam.  Quite noisy, but I've had some great live results from mine.  

In the long run, it's best to have an EQ mounted scope, mounted on a guidable mount if you want to image DSOs without a relatively large amount of frustration and limitations.  The one often quoted as the 'minimum' for imaging is an HEQ5, though people have used smallish scopes on an EQ5 with acceptable results.  

The problem with AP is that it can be a black hole of cash if you allow it to be....!

Cheers!

[dph1nm]

The answer is yes, if it will track for 30secs or so. With a 10" at 1200mm FL you should have no trouble with Messiers and many NGC objects. You will have to get used to stacking (and storing) quite a lot of images though!

NigelM

[palatine]

The answer is yes, if it will track for 30secs or so. With a 10" at 1200mm FL you should have no trouble with Messiers and many NGC objects. You will have to get used to stacking (and storing) quite a lot of images though!

NigelM

Would that be with my dslr?

The scope is 1250 fl

So am I looking at playing around with exposures to see how long till a get star trails in the outside of my fov?

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[palatine]

SORRY i dont know why i thought it was 1250.. long day..

[MattJenko]

I am not sure if it is possible with the flex-tube version, but I have done it with a solid tube Skywatcher 250px. You could get some tube rings and put them round the base. If you have a long enough dovetail you should be able to get balance on an NEQ6 and then you could image using an EQ mount for longer exposures. This would mean hundreds on a new mount, but if you wanted to....