ShaunyC

Wowser so many responses..... 

Thank you all for your input... 

I can see how many if not all of you agree this is a bad idea of a base station... 

My main reasons for going about this

I live on my own at present in a 3 bed house no pets and minimal distractions... 

My house is a corner plot with 2 great stonking street light which is sure to spoil any sort of a view where as out said window the bee to the left is quite dark over some fields.. 

The fact things are pretty much set up each time i get the urge makes it not such a drama to get up and running for even a short period of observation/imagine and will help me to keep the ball rolling and increase the interest... 

Then having a small flield of view will eventually lead me to wanting to see more of the sky and improve my images due to all the issues mentioned... 

That is where if I get the right gear now to build from I will have the right gear to move outside and further this hobby and improve the images on the images already gotten...

I hope that makes sense to people that the idea of the window is to wet my appetite... 

Thank you for all your comments I really do appreciate them all

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

You mention getting into astrophotography, what camera do you already own?

You don't need a telescope to capture many DSO, just wondering what you may already own.

I don't at present own a dlsr, I read somewhere cannon 450d's are quite cheap and do a descent job? 

Jst to add I don't own a laptop yet either so the telescope is the only part of the toys needed. 

3 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

The other consideration when viewing thro the window is - as the OTA is a Reflector, you will need to be at front end (ie sticking outside the window), if you know what I mean. If this were a Refractor you would be at the far end behind the OTA.

If you are imaging then you are fine as its the camera which is there, but in practical situations there is sometimes a need for you to view through the eyepiece as well, at times.

This is something that totally skipped my mind lol.. Will have to have a long neck to look in the eyepiece out the window... 

I just had it in my head I will be doing all my veiw via laptop screen in the room... 

Camera will be doing all the dangerous work lol

55 minutes ago, M40 said:

Hello Shaun, first off, I remember reading a few years ago of a disabled astronomer viewing from his window, so anything is possible if a bit restricted.

What you have given everybody here is an out of the box question, so as you have mentioned astrophotography, have you considered something like the sky watcher star adventurer mount with a camera and DSLR lens and completely ignore visual astronomy?

With a little imagination and some diy skills on some metal framework (google unistrut, readily available from most electrical wholesalers over the counter or online) you could build a frame with a suitable counterbalance which holds your camera and mount out of the window. A used DSLR with live view capabilities together with an ok lens gets you off and running with probably the most expensive item being the tracking mount. You can then upgrade at a later date as budgets allow.

It can be difficult for me to sometimes see Polaris so I have downloaded and use polar scope align pro, cost £2.49 and works well. It does have to be perfectly aligned on your mount though and away from steel so I have used a long vixen style dovetail bar to hold the phone, more diy skills needed 😜

Just a thought 👍 Enjoy

Hello m40, its good to hear this has been attempted before, I suppose I'm just looking for an excuse to use my empty room up.... Also it might get abit more use if things are already half set up ready to use in one spot rather than lugging everything about. 

I have seen some decent images done with just a dlsr and mount.. But I can't help myself from feeling this isn't astrophotography with just a camera, silly I know.. 

And I'm all for getting involved with DIY projects.. I even considered making my own scope lol

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

There's a post that mentions aligning when you can't see Polaris and it uses an app, I've not tried it 

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/362486-how-to-get-quick-and-easy-polar-alignment-and-add-a-push-to-finder-screen-to-an-eq2-mounted-scope-all-for-£20/

 

Thank you I will try one of the apps mentioned

1 hour ago, KP82 said:

If you could minimise the thermal difference (e.g. no heating, windows wide open to let the room temperature be acclimatised to the outside), I think it would work for certain bright DSO targets.

Yes you can certainly polar align indoor with drift align. However your window of capture will be limited while your targets are still low near the horizon which means more atmoshpere interference.

I will try my best to create an ambient temperature with outside.. 

Think last time I looked out there orion was in view, but as you say quite low, so potentially atmosphere would become a problem aswell 

16 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

Another consideration is the telescope tripod span : in order to rise above a windowledge, you will need a tripod extended quite high , I just checked my tripod (not an astro specific model, but a big solid manfrotto photo tripod) and the closest I could get it to a wall was 29cm .That's from the wall to the centre of the mount, with two tripod legs touching the wall, and the third sticking out where you'd trip over it . I'm certain astro tripods would have a similar span, so please consider what arc of the sky your telescope would have access to not by looking while you are stood at the window, but 30cm back from the window. It gets even more of a problem if you get a newtonian 'scope with the viewfinder out of the side at the front ...

Sorry if this all sounds very negative, but I don't want you to have an expensive disappointment !

Heather

I did consider this about the telescope being too far in and minimising the field of view even more.. Especially not being able to aim up much.. 

I figured I will wait to see how bad it is when I've actually got the scope in situ. 

I imagine the actual appature of the tube will stick out as far as the legs tho? Maybe? 

One solution I did think of for this and which might help a little towards radiated heat in the house is to construct a slidding table top or even just some sort of ledge that hangs out the window.. I have a tiled lean to not far below for support.. This would also help in the fact I would have the legs of the tripod lowered to aid rigidity.. 

Thank you everyone for your comments they have all given me something to think about..

52 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Are you able to see Polaris from window? Without the pole star I cannot see how you would polar align.

Thank you for your comment.. 

Not being able to see Polaris is one thing i had at least considered... When I looked into it there is a method called drift alignment appernetly that dosent need Polaris never done it before so not 100% how it works.. Just thought as long as there's a way I will reaserch it more once I get set up.. 

37 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

 

Thank you for sharing you experience.. 

I have solid 9" walls in that part of the house not sure if It would make much difference? 

This is something I've kind of overlooked or didn't expect to be as much of a problem as you guys are all saying... 

Will it totally ruin my images? Or will I atleast be able to get something to wet my appetite? Is there anyway to minimise the impact? 

If I get it all up and running I imagine I will want to widen my observations before long so will eventually be taking the rig outside where this shouldn't be a problem... 

Thank you for your responses.. 

I did read something about air disturbance and cool down time? 

Totally didn't think about that out of my house window but yea can imagine that would cause conflict... 

Do you think it would work if I turned heating off to that room and got it as cold as outside? 

Hello all, 

Kind of a re indroduction as I joined a while ago when I purchased 127 poweseaker(James Bird) then bought a few bits to make up for realising I'd bought a naff scope, red dot finder, colimantor (I think) and a set of revelation plossl eye pieces... But I ended up giving up in the end.. 

I'm constantly looking up and know the night sky reasonable well.. And the itch has returned to own a scope again (but better than the last lol).. 

I'm thinking of taking it one step further and reaching into the relms of astrophotography... 

I've been searching and reading through posts on here for the last couple of weeks and watched alot of videos on yt but I felt myself getting quite overwhelmed lost in all the information

I don't have an infinite budget... But the 1st steps to getting the right gear to build from would be a step in the right direction(this time) .. 

My 1st purchase will be the book making every photon count which I've seen recommended time and time again... 

My view is to turn my spare room into my work station for this hobby, I have a decent size tilt n turn window so imagine I can poke the telescope out of there, it has a view between east and south, from about 52° uk

What's peoples view on this kind of approach (out of a window)? 

I understand my window for viewing will be limited but I should get some nice objects passing through the field of view... I think my main target will be DSO's  and few planetary shots would be nice... I realise there's not a one stop scope to fit the bill for both.. 

What would you suggest for my scope? Was looking at a 130 or 150pds(which shouldn't be effected by wind being in a room) explorer on 3-2 mount... As I won't be seeing alot of the sky imagine goto mount isn't worth it? And can fit RA motor and some simple upgrades at a later date... Unless I find a nice second hand deal.... 

Would the above scope be OK or should I be looking more into apocromatic triplet? 

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.. 

Sorry if I've gone on abit and spewed loads of random info out, my heads been full of stuff and hope this post will help me iron it all out... 

Thank you in advance

Shaun

Thanx

Great thread luck forward to the second part...