6footgeek

Oh awesome that’s a great idea - I’ll check that out thanks! Of course it’s either been storms or mad heat at night so I have t actually tested it out in anger but it recognised everything absolutely fine and I’m sold! Now time to get a new cooler zwo camera methinks

Woo! I got one of these this week as well! It’s looking super pretty - I’m gonna add it to the setup shortly

Thanks! I got 15 minutes on it earlier this year without a filter / my mount - just on a star adventurer but it didnt go well!
The moon wasnt helping this shot last night at 4am...
 

Quick edit of an hour capture I got on m42 last night - was meant to be imaging the Western Veil all night, but a windows update on my pc rebooted it just after I went to bed. Anyway at about 4am I remoted in and pointed it at Orion. This is ~ 1 hour of exposures at iso 800 for 180sec. Overcooked the vibrance, but hey, im excited

From the ever polluted skies of Birmingham, UK. 

Skywatcher 72ed

Canon 450d

Guiding with zwo mini guider + 120mm mini

Skywatcher HEQ5 pro

SkyTech CLS Canon EOS Clip Fit Filter

15 darks, 80 bias, 80 flats

Leaving a tiff here with just light pollution removed and bg calibration if anybody wants to play

glory_be.tiff

Hi @freiform sorry for late reply on this. I really can’t help with those questions. I’m stuck in limbo on this myself. Torn between the 183 and 1600 monos  for me I think the 183 makes more sense. But, really need to invest in reading more about them! Best of luck

The star travel 120? As far as I can see it’s not a doublet and doesn’t have the coatings on the glass of the 72ed. 

The 72ed comes with a lovely travel case. Additionally the st120 comes with eyepieces / diaganols. But the biggest difference beyond that is that the 72ed has a much better focuser on it.

that being said I think people do image with it, it just depends on what you want. I personally would go with the 72ed for the glass and focuser, but if you wanted to get rid of the 200pds and have a single rig, maybe the quality of glass could be lessened in favour of that setup.

if you had the money then you could just get the 120ed ds-Pro and get the best of both

12 minutes ago, Simon Dunsmore said:

Hi, 

Looks like a great set up. I was just wondering what visual observation was like through this. AP is definitely the way I want to head but also would like to use it for wide field with EP. 

Thanks 

Simon 

Hmm you know I have never used it for visual - I have a 150p for that. You would (I assume, I’ve never had a refractor for visual) also need a diagonal for visual, but then I believe you wouldn’t require the 2 inch nosepiece for focus as you would have the EP.. but, all roads lead back to Rome and you would need all the other stuff for AP.

I think the main reasons that this scope is recommended for imaging is that at 72mm and 420mm it’s very forgiving, with a lovely wide field with a dslr. So it’s great to get started with. Another reason is that it’s a nice price point, and the 3rd reason being it’s a great scope to grab and go. I for instance keep mine fully built upstairs and just carry it down in its entirety when we get a clear night!

Hey Simon, I have a 72ed on my heq5.

I use the following combo. 72ed -> OVL field flattened and a canon t-ring adapter. Works great for me. Pic included!

my understanding is that you can swap the OVL for a 2 inch nosepiece to achieve focus but I wanted the flattener anyway so it was the logical choice for me 😊

Very cool! What time was it captured?

Welcome! I spent too long running around Dartmoor to ever return for a camping trip - but I imagine the sky’s would be lovely. Whenever I was there I was very wet and scratched from crawling through gorse bushes 😂

Sorry taff just saw your reply above! The bolt is just an m10 x however long you want it (M10x114) etc if you wanted to just get a longer one

Hey @Taff there think you have 5e exact same problem I had with my heq5. I wrote about it: https://astrobits.co.uk/blog/skywatcher-heq5-pro-latitude-adjustment/

Hey,

I was reading this paper and am becoming a little bit obsessed with the idea of slowly building my own system to do this. https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/neosst1/paper/438/NEOSST1-paper438.pdf

Im a software engineer so I am confident I could reproduce (or at least have fun with) the code, but am wondering about the hardware side of things. If I got (and i'm formulating this idea as I type) 5 * ZWO ASI 120MM Mini cameras, what kind of lenses would I need to get the all sky coverage required?

Not trying to do real science here, just have fun (I like data)

Much obliged as always!

@vlaiv - following on from our discussion a while back about a galaxy hunter for a HEQ5 with a 1600mm - is this in contention for that? or is it too slow? thanks in advance as always

On 07/07/2019 at 10:08, DaveHKent said:

It looks like I have recently made the right choice. I wanted a tracking mount for widefield images of the milky way and star fields, and had fancied the Omegon Mini Track (the small windup mount). Then I realised it only worked in the northern hemisphere and I'd be disappointed if I go on a more exotic holiday again, but a model that works in both was a little bit more. But for a little bit more still, they have the newer sturdier version, then add a bit more and you get both hemispheres. As the cost mounted up, it was getting close to the star adventurer, so a new one arrived on my doorstep on Friday (A very quick response to questions and shipping from Rother Valley Optics).

Seeing some of the images on this thread has convinced me I have made the right choice. I have a Celestron Nexstar SLT90 (altz goto mount) and thought DSO imaging was beyond me. It looks like this will take the weight of the tube if I want to go that far, but some of the images with just Canon DSLRs have been amazing.

I have got a couple of questions though. I don't have a ball head and my photography tripod is a cheap basic one. I have set up my SA on there and it is clear it is going to be very wobbly. I have a load of Amazon vouchers, are there any tripods or ball heads people would recommend on there? The Skywatcher SA tripod is £59 (but not sold on Amazon), so I was looking in the same price range. There are a number of ball heads with good reviews for £20-£30, would pretty much any of these be suitable?

There is a Neewer tripod that will take 12kg for £47 and the ball head is removable, which would give me both for £50. Would I regret scrimping on this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neewer-Aluminum-centimeters-Camcorder-kilograms/dp/B073515X3H/ref=pd_ybh_a_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=607M2SPFZFE0HN5NYFJ3

 

A short term alternate I could use is to put the SA onto my Nexstar Altz mount. If I didn't use the wedge and put it straight on the mount, it would fit but be mounted sideways. Would that work or would the tracking now be working the wrong way? I would not have the Nexstar mount unpowered so it did not track. How would I go about aligning, still turn the 6 so it is pointing to the ground.

I have the neweer tripod - it’s fairly good! I’ve definitely overloaded it now though. I was just using this setup temporarily but I found that it wasn’t particularly stable - ended up going all out on a heq5 as well but I got it out (the SA) last night to get some shots of Jupiter and it serves its purpose well 😊

Was very nice carrying the whole setup in one hand and have everything running off of batteries!

Looking fantastic! Do you fancy nipping over to Solihull and building one again in my back garden?

11 hours ago, Miguel1983 said:

i did 

 

Thank you so much for sharing - looks like it will meet my expectations perfectly! 

Did anybody manage to get some images with this yet? I’m so tempted to buy one!!!!

Thats great thanks @vlaiv and @cotak

Vlaiv - Which mono to go for? I understand that the 1600mm is the one most people seem to be using. Any thoughts? I definitely want to go mono rather than OSC - just so that i can play with different things. Thanks for the models - that comet hunter looks very promising. Budget wise, this is a future planning type of post so as I have a setup thats more than good enough for now, I can just merrily chuck money into savings until I get to the price point required. That being said, I would prioritise a new camera over the telescope in terms of which one I bought first!

Cotak - The edgeHD 8 looks brilliant but i'm not sure i could jump to that prior to buying the camera. Noise is the bain of my life at the moment (even with aggressive 8px dithering) as my canon just seems to generate the stuff out of any situation  Your galaxy pics are brilliant, exactly what I envision from this proposed setup so thanks for uploading them - im bookmarking them for inspiration. I do have a SkyTech CLS Canon EOS Clip in filter, but whilst it does an excellent job of suppressing light pollution (i can quite happily take 5 minute subs without skyglow taking over) I do have trouble processing any natural colour out of the image... I think that may well just be to a lack of skill on my post processing skills though. I saw some images with Ha regions in galaxies and I think it looks brilliant - good to hear that the cooled CMOS can bring out that detail too though.

Thanks!

Hey everyone!

Im looking for ideas and or suggestions for a new telescope. I have been imaging a little while and have become a little bit obsessed with galaxy's. The maths just blows my mind and they are really interesting to process. 

I have a 72ed on a heq5 Pro with a canon 450d (unmodified) I have paired this with a ZWO asi120mm with the ZWO mini guidescope for guiding.Everything is working well (yay for ASCOM) and I’m enjoying spending the limited summer darkness playing with plate solving and tweaking the guiding. Oh and I also have a skywatcher 150p that I’ve never used in anger but I just bought it for last years star party (the rainy one so it never got used)

Im looking for something that will get these galaxies a bit closer - obviously the 450d with a 72ed results in a massive fov and I fully intend to keep that scope but I have some questions around which kind of telescope to get for imagining galaxies from my bortle 6 back garden!

I understand from using fov calculators that changing the camera can also result in bigger objects but would like suggestions for either just a telescope or a telescope / camera combo or indeed, just a camera change! I’m not averse to the idea of narrowband imaging either in case that helps.

Thanks in advance as always

Hello again! The 18-55mm stock one is good to start with. I then bought a sigma 70-300mm one which obviously allowed me to get much closer to objects, but I never quite worked out the f stop for that.  

I have borrowed a really wide sigma (10-20mm) one off a friend which is probably my favourite dslr lens at the moment.

For objects without tracking there are all sorts, you just have to keep the exposure length under about 15 seconds on the lenses I used - but you can get an remote for your camera and just have it fire off hundreds of shots. Don’t forget to keep the object in view from time to time though haha! At the moment with summer time star clusters are cool, also the moon

53 minutes ago, Olli said:

Thanks for the image looks like a nice set up, do you guide with it? I’ll probab get the scope down the line after I get used with the camera and mount first 

I haven’t guided with that setup yet no, I bought a heq5 and added the 72ed with guiding to that as I was struggling to find objects whilst keeping polar aligned with the setup I had. That isn’t so much a problem when on DSLR with a wide lens, but I struggled once the 72ed was on, mostly because here in Birmingham there are only about 8 (slight exaggeration here) stars from which to work out where your object is 😂

That being said the star adventurer is absolutely brilliant, I won’t sell mine - I learnt how to take correct exposures and calibration frames and everything from that setup and It was brilliant. As it happens to be a perfectly capable mount for times where I don’t want to drag a power supply and 20 cables / a laptop etc out into the night I see the value it creates, especially as a gateway mount if you have the bug and know you are likely heading down into the bigger mount category later as funds / experience allows.

I think the beauty comes from its capable simplicity on that front.

More evidence for your idea - my tripod struggled but it’s just a clone of better quality ones like the one you linked.

but the mount + scope combo definitely works

I’ve used a 72ed on a star adventurer- it works fine! Only problem I had was the tripod really was overloaded but my 72ed + star adventurer plus nice big heq5 tripod is now my travel companion:)

6 minutes ago, Portech7 said:

I've found a Canon 10D which comes with the remote shutter switch, charger, battery and a few other bits, for £99+£8 shipping.

Is this worth trying?

Id say no, but only because you can find better camera's then that with a bit of persistence for the same price - have you looked on facebook marketplace for instance? There are some very cheap camera's on there - I put in a 60km search around Cardiff (no idea where you are in South Wales!) and lots came up  Also you could put an advert in the wanted section of the classifieds on this forum too