RoloFanatic

I have no doubt that the iOptron skyguider pro will work well with a DSLR lens and guiding.

I use my iOptron skyguider pro with a WO z73 and DLSR which is definitely at its limits but with guiding I easily get 5 min subs (for fun i even tried 10 mins once and they looked alright).

Don't forget to factor in the tripod if you are budgeting, good tripods are not cheap unfortunately. This is what I use: Innorel RT80C carbon fiber tripod160cm, but you may be able to get away with something a cheaper because you wont have the weight of a telescope on it.

Just another recommendation for NINA. I use it for controlling my camera, but the BEST feature of NINA in my opinion is the plate solving! It makes finding your target and lining up perfectly so much easier. You will need to install ASTAP or similar to use it, but there are loads of tutorials on youtube for how to do that

Hmmmm I think maybe I got a bit overexcited when I read about this because it was something new and I liked the idea of not needing a guide scope. 

But from what you're saying it sounds like it would be more of a pain than it's worth, I ll have a look at some mini guidescopes instead and put the OAG on hold.

Thanks for the advice

Great picture, I think M81 and M82 might be my favourite objects in the night sky at the moment!

Hey,

I am wanting to try autoguiding with my telescope but I am very close to the maximum weight limit of my mount and I cant upgrade my mount because I need it to be highly portable. This is what lead me to look into off axis guiding.

Im using a William Optics Zenithstar 73 with the Z73A adjustable flattener on an ioptron skyguider pro and a astromodified canon 4000D. From the reading I have done I require a 55mm spacing behind the flattener to the camera, this is usually achieved by the 44mm distance in the camera body, and an 11mm gap for the connecting t-ring adapter. What I am planning to use for OAG is the TSOAG9 with the TS EOS adapter which gives a total spacing of 11.4 mm if I understand correctly. Is this spacing ok for my DLSR as it is slightly more than the 55mm stated?

Also, I am planning to use the ZWO ASI120mm guide camera, which I know some people have said may not be sensitive enough but I think they are referring to it not being suitable for use with very long focal length SCT scopes. Would this be sensitive enough for use with a 73mm refractor? 

Any help would be great as this stuff is $$$ so I want to try and get it right first time.

Thanks!

It does sound kind of ridiculous but surely there must be some potential or there wouldn't be any investment. I wonder if it could be an option for getting things off of planets with less gravity and/or thinner atmospheres such as the lunar surface?

Getting my first good image of Andromeda was definitely a highlight for me!

I currently use an ioptron skyguider pro with a WO Z73 and find it works pretty well, i can easily get subs of 2 mins which is enough for my use but I did need to buy the extender bar for the weight in order to achieve balance.

My setup is just within the weight limit though so I think if you want to do autoguiding as well, then the skyguider pro may not be suitable.

I agree. I worry that when people recommend the HEQ5 to every person who asks for advice on an entry level astrophotography mount they could be putting people off from even trying it.

There are some great youtube channels which show really well that you don't need to break the bank to get amazing pictures (astrobuiscuit is one, some of astrobackyards videos, and nebula photos as a few examples).

That looks great! 

Do you mind if I ask what mount did you use for this image, and also how long were the exposures?

Im thinking of trying the horsehead for the first time myself with a similar scope and a DSLR 😛

Over Christmas I finally decided it was time to try imaging Andromeda (not sure why I left it so long), I had a week and a half off, so plenty of time to wait for the perfect night....... It was cloudy all night, every night apart from a few hours on one evening when I rushed out for a very quick imaging session on Andromeda.

I was aiming to get 2 hours of exposure doing 60 x 2 min exposures however when I went to stack the images I realized that almost half of them were unusable. They had this weird double star effect which I haven't seen before. I thought this was maybe caused by wind making the mount wobble as I use a lightweight camera tripod which makes my setup quite top heavy. But if anyone has another diagnosis please let me know! Example image: 2021-12-26_19-46-02___120.00s_0029.cr2

Anyways, in future I think I will be using shorter 60 second or 30 second exposures to try and increase the proportion of usable frames.

Overall I was really happy with the resulting image, this was the first time I have gone in depth on the processing side of things. I feel I have to give a big thanks to Nebula Photos on youtube who had a great tutorial on processing Andromeda in GIMP. The final image was made up using 32 x 2 min lights, 20 x 2 min darks, 30 bias frames, darks and lights were taken using Nina, stacked in DeepSkyStacker and edited in GIMP and StarNet++. Image taken using WO Z73, iOptron SkyGuider Pro, Canon 600D (unmodified).

I have also included the original stacked image if anyone wants to have a go at processing it as well, I would be interested to see anyone can pull out more from this data! Any tips/feedback would be appreciated  

Clear skies!

Andromeda removed bad frames manual save 17.01.22.TIF

Nice picture, I havent gotten around to trying orion myself yet, hopefully soon!

Perhaps a noob question; what is with the spike effect on the very bright stars? I can't recall seeing it like that before with so many, are they diffraction spikes? 

These are great, I'm quite jealous of your image of Jupiter with the moon passing in front of it! Really great colour too!

If youre looking for something very faint then plate solving has worked really well for me. I just use stellarium to find the coordinates of the object i want to look at, then use NINA and ASTAP to plate solve and find what the coordinates are of the stars I am seeing through my telescope and adjust from there. Usually only takes a few minutes to find what Im looking for.

Thats an amazing image! I didn't know you could get such a detailed image from only 60 second exposures

51 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

I think this is something you have to work out on your own set up and where you are imaging from and how well your kit performs. For RGB I typically use 3-5 minute subs but this will vary depending on the brightness of the target. I always take at least one test exposure before imaging and use this as a guide.

As for the number of subs - the more the better. It is diminishing returns, but for more DSO's I would only image one per night and get as much data as I can. It's all about improving the signal to noise ratio. Again, this will vary depending on your location, processing skills and equipment. I would suggest you experiment and see what works. The images you have are a really good starting point so you are definitely on the right track.

There is an intereting post showing the benefits of integration time here:

Testing increasing integration times (OSC, Bortle 8) - Getting Started With Imaging - Stargazers Lounge

Thanks a lot for the advice, sounds like I just need to get some more experience under the stars.

Is there any merit in using a combination of subs with different exposure lengths?

7 hours ago, Jay6879 said:

Wow you got 4 minutes out of a Zenithstar 73?! I have a Star Adventurer 2i (more or less the same as the Skyguider) and I opted for the Zenithstar 61 because I thought weight and focal length would an issue. Haven't tried it out yet as I'm still waiting for the field flattener to show up, backordered.

 

Your Bode's galaxy pic doesn't look too overexposed to me though. Imagine what you'd achieve with four or five hours worth of data!  I'm only a month or so into imaging as well and have much to learn still, everytime I go out I learn something new.

 

 

Thanks! I was torn between the Z73 and Z61 but then I saw the Z73 on sale second hand and just went for it. I was worried about the weight as well but having tried it out now it seems to work really well! The only issue I've had is that I can't balance the load with the Z73 and guidescope so I've been using it with no guide scope and just platesolving to find my targets. I have a red dot sight coming in the post though which I think will be ideal!

I can't wait to get back out there and have another go at Bode's galaxy (this time i ll bring the spare camera battery as well!).

It was really interesting seeing what people had to say to this question as I am also just beginning to image.

I am definitely not an expert but I am also using an iOptron skyguider pro and one thing that I have noticed, is that it is really easy to knock it out of alignment. To minimise star trails I had to check the polar alignment and make adjustments essentially every time I touched the mount which is not easy because the targeting reticule will not be illuminated once you have sighted your DSO. 

I have seen a lot of people recommend the Williams Optics Wedge for the ioptron skyguider pro and I am assuming that this is the reason why. I haven't tried it but it could help, I am quite tempted to pick one up for myself to find out. 

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share my first ever imaging session. I recently bought a small refractor and an iOptron skyguider Pro to try my hand at taking some pictures of the night sky.

On the first night all my images were really streaky which I eventually found out was because my tripod wasn't level (very annoying). On my second evening I spent a long time getting my mount level but was still getting streaks... after a lot of trouble shooting I am embarrassed to admit that I had polar aligned with the wrong star....  Some minor adjustments to my alignment and the stars were finally points with exposure well over 120 seconds! 

The first thing I decided to point my scope at was the star cluster in Hercules since it is fairly big and very bright. Overall I am really happy with the final image. This was 24 60 second exposures with dark and bias frames. Any advice on exposure times and number of frames needed would be really appreciated, I wasnt really sure what exposure lengths would be appropriate so it took a lot of trial and error (is that the normal way of doing it? idk). One thing I do need to sort before I take more images is adjusting my flattener because there is definitely some stretching at the edges.

I also tried to take some images of Bode's galaxy but unfortunately my camera ran out of battery so I only managed to get one image which was probably exposed for too long (4 mins). Even so it kind of blew me away so I thought I would share it. It's probably the coolest thing I've ever seen! GIVE ME MORE CLEAR SKIES

Thanks for the replies!

3 hours ago, Astro Noodles said:

Hi

I was in the same position as you a few weeks ago, so I asked FLO what they recommended and they suggested this https://www.firstlightoptics.com/tripods/horizon-8115-2-way-heavy-duty-tripod.html. It seems pretty sturdy to me and I am pleased with it.

I did see that tripod on FLO but I was put off because I couldnt find the maximum payload of the mount anywhere online. Do you know what it is? or if not, roughly what weight have you found to work well on it? 

2 hours ago, Tiny Clanger said:

I don't know the weight of your specific kit, but I have a 127 mak on an AZ5 , which is at least 6.5kg , and it sits happily on my decades old Manfrotto 55 .  If I recall correctly the current alu. 55 has a theoretical limit of 9kg , and while a new one will set you back a fair bit, the things are bombproof and second hand ones are quite common, samples without photo heads sell for £70-£90 , sometimes less.

When my beloved old 55 got taken over by the 'scope, I needed to replace it for photographic use, and found a Manfrotto 190xpro for £50, second hand. It has a lower weight limit, but out of curiosity I've tried it with my heritage 150 newt (which is around 3kg) and found it fine.  The ratings for the Manfrotto tripods are realistic, but based on the tripod fully extended, centre column and all. I don't raise the centre column to use a 'scope, neither do I extend the thinnest, lowest leg section, and am confident either tripod could take more weight easily.  You do miss out on a central brace, which makes astro and video tripods a bit more sturdy, but as you said, the photo tripods do tend to close down to a neater, shorter package.

My 190 has now been commandeered by a little ST80 frac, so I need yet another Manfrotto for my DSLR ...

Heather

That's encouraging to hear that it works well for you, I think my mount + scope will also weigh in at about 6.5 - 7.0 kg so sounds like a camera tripod may be a good option for me too  

Hey,

I have recently purchased an iOptron skyguider pro which I am planning to use with my WO zenithstar 73 (I know it will be pushing the limits of the mount but I needed something portable). However, the iOptron tripod seems to be out of stock everywhere as well as the sky watcher tripod for their star adventurer.

This got me thinking about other tripod options such as camera tripods. These would actually suit me well as they can fold down to the size of a backpack and be very portable, the only obvious drawback is the price as they tend to be more like £150 - £200 for ones with a payload capacity of 15kg (maybe you could get away with slightly less idk). For reference, here is an example of the kind of tripod I am talking about: https://uk.sirui.com/products/sirui-am-284-profilegs-carbon-fiber-big-tripod?pr_prod_strat=collection_fallback&pr_rec_pid=6582329966757&pr_ref_pid=6582340124837&pr_seq=uniform

So are camera tripods suitable for small telescopes? Or are they a terrible idea?

Any suggestions/advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

Thanks for the replies!

I will definitely check out that youtube channel, looks like it has a lot of useful tutorials and comparisons.

I already have the DSLR and the scope has a separate budget, im keeping an eye out for second hand small APO refractors at the moment. 

The more I think about it the more im leaning towards just a startracker for the portability. I ll just have to deal with upgrading mount later down the line if necessary.

Hugo

Hi,

I am just getting back into astronomy after a number of years, but I really want to give astrophotography a go. I have 2 limiting factors really: cost, and portability. I live in the centre of a city without a car or garden, so I need to be able to take everything in a case/backpack to a different location to use it. This also means that the mount needs to have a power supply built in. I don't have a set budget, but less than £500 would be great. The portable mounts seem to be fairly cheap anyway from what I can see. 

I am planning to use a 60-70 mm small refractor and DSLR for imaging. So the real issue is that I don't know whether to buy a startracker (e.g iOptron SkyGuider Pro) or a cheap equatorial GoTo mount like the Explore Scientific iEXOS-100 PMC-Eight. I am a bit sceptical of the Explore scientific mount though since it is so cheap compared to all the other equatorial goto mounts. The startrackers seem great portability wise but I like the option of autoguiding and GoTo on the proper equatorial mounts. 

Any suggestions/advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks!