CloudMagnet

Also is worth bearing in mind the long exposure you use, the long it will take to produce your dark images as well. If you use 20 darks for example, this will take a lot longer if you are using 5 minute exposures compared to 30 seconds which will eat into your imaging time as well.

I'm just happy to have a clear night at all to be honest . It is still worth it, particularly if the target is far away from the moon. It is also a good time to practice with new equipment or work on new techniques, so no night should go to waste

DSS stacks images by looking for stars and matching them up in each picture to layer them over each other. So if the exposure is low you wont have enough stars in the picture for this to work. Also, I assume that you are not using tracking given the low exposure you are using? If the stars are not round then DSS won't be able to detect them. When you have checked all your pictures, use the advanced setting "star detection threshold". Clicking on compute will show you how many stars DSS is finding. You want at least a few dozen to make sure there is enough stars.

Have you used flats? If you have might be worth checking if they are the source of that effect. If you haven't noticed this before it might not be equipment related, but possibly a side effect of the image processing. It might be worth taking one of the raw images and stretching it to see if you can find any hints there.

Backfocus is bascially a measure of where your camera needs to be to be in focus when you take a picture. If you use a Barlow, it has the effect of increasing your focal length. This in turn means that your focal point moves further away from your telescope which if normally fine for DSLR cameras as the focus tube can easiy move backwards enough for this. If you remove the Barlow, your focal point moves closer to the telescope and this could mean that your focal point lies so close to the secondary mirror that your focus tube physically can't move the camera close enough to focus. My Canon 450d has about 15mm of backfocus left without using a Barlow so this is not an issue for me. If you look at the PDS versions, they are designed to overcome any backfocus limitation, but having not used these versions, I cant say how they would be for visual work.

I wouldn't recommed the EQ2 for any major photography. Given your budget, I would give the EQ5 a go as a HEQ5 will set you back a lot unless you look at used as an option. You will find that astrophotography will quickly drain your account by the time you have invested in motor drives/GOTO upgrade, a camera and other accessories. You are doing the right thing asking for advice upfront. For your question for the planetary imaging, you will only get very small images with DSLR cameras. If you know the specs of the camera, you can use this simulator to get an idea of the image size that you will get for a certain scope/camera combination. https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

I currently use the Skywatcher 200p with an EQ5 mount and image with a Canon 450d. It does the job and you can get some good pictures with it, but I would advise for starting out to keep the focal length of the telescope short as this will really help with the long exposures that you will use for deep sky stuff. The mount is also really important for stability so keeping to a lightweight scope such as the 130p may be a better idea unless you go for the 200p and a HEQ5 at least.

I would recommend investing in a Telrad finder, it makes finding objects many times easier and you can also see the sky around it, making it really intuitive to use- made my life a lot less stressful afterwards. I also made the mistake of using the standard Celestron red dot finder but I would never go back to it now.

The common rule is that your telescope weight should be around half of your mount capacity. A 200p does push the EQ5 to near its quoted limit but it doesn't mean that you can't still produce good images. I can see why people would also recommed the PDS version, but I still have about 1-1.5cm of backforcus to play with with a Canon 450d.Unless you are planning to produce the best possible images like some featured on here, then you can get away with the extra weight on the mount. As I said earlier, the extra focal length of a bigger telescope can be as much of a curse as a benefit early on when you are learning. If I was starting again with what I know now, I would more likely go for a smaller scope as it minimises any tracking errors (to an extent) and you can image large objects in one frame rather than just shooting one part of it.

So much for black friday sales! Might be worth checking the price over the next couple of weeks and see if it comes down again.

Best of luck with this, I think you have made a good choice. Just bear in mind that imaging at that focal length will mean you need to make sure that your mount is levelled correctly and your polar alignment is spot on. Taking 10 mintues at the start of the session to get this right will save you hours later on. 😉 All the best!

I use a version of this finder due to the low weight, it does the job and I haven't had trouble finding a star for PHD2 to use. Focus for me with a ZWO 120MM mini means I need to unscrew the finder by about 6cm to get focus (without any spacers)- this can take a couple of minutes because of how long it takes to manually turn it. You can't lock the focus but you could simply store it at the right focal position to save time and then fine tune it when you start looping exposures. Overall, if you need something small and lightweight, it would be a good option but it would put a bit of strain on your tracking as most people would recommed a longer focal length guidescope to match up with your telescope FL.

I don't think you have done anything stupid. I use the 200p on an EQ5 with a DSLR, finderscope and telrad and I have never had a problem balancing in RA using the two 5kg counterweights and have (some) room to spare on the counterweight bar. Could be worth balancing the scope in declination first just to make sure that isn't throwing up any problems and also checking the counterweights are the correct mass.

I have noticed the extact same effect on my images as well around the edges with the 200p (not the PDS). I would be interested if the coma corrector would work for the 200p as well?

I use the Skywatcher 200p with a DSLR as well. I started imaging with a Barlow which just makes any tracking twice as difficult as the more you zoom in towards the stars, the faster they appear to move and the quicker any errors will show in any picutres. You may come across something known as the "rule of 500". This gives you an estimate of how long you can take an exposure before star trails appear. It is calculated by taking 500 and dividing by your focal length. For example my telescope has a 1000mm focal length so for me: 500/1000 =0.5seconds. So I can only take a 1/2 second exposure before star trails appear. If I add the barlow and double my focal length to 2000mm, then this reduces the time before stars trail to 0.25 seconds.

Agree with above. I used to image for a while at 2000mm focal length for deep sky stuff and it was difficult to say the least. The more magnifcation you have means your tracking has to be perfect or you will get star trails very quickly. Keep in mind the reduction in focal ratio means darker images, which in turn needs longer exposures to compensate, putting even more pressure on tracking. My advise is keep the magnification as low as possible for deep sky as this is much more forgiving.

That's an EQ3 mount by the looks of it.

At first, getting on top of things like assembling the telescope in the dark and making sure everything is balanced will be a great help. I would also advise to also invest in a Telrad finder as this will help getting objects in your eyepiece many times easier. You can also simulate what the Telrad circles will look like in the sky on Stellarium as well. Also dont try to take on too much early on otherwise you might just get more frustration than it is worth. Build up slowly over time starting with the "easy" targets at first. Then once you have got the hang of polar aligning, moving the telescope around the sky and keeping an object in view, then think about what else you would like to do. Out of interest, what is it you have bought?

This was my first telescope but I only used it for visual. For astrophotography it comes with lots of disadvantages. First, the tripod is wobbly and doesnt provide enough stability. As above, I dont know if you would have enough inward travel to focus with a camera. The fix for this is to use a 2x Barlow as this pushes the focal point further away from the telescope. The issue with this is you would be imaging at a focal length of 1300mm which puts a lot of pressure on getting the mount level (this doesn't have an in-built spirit level), polar aligned (without a polar scope) and the balance of the scope perfect. Thas before you take into account that the red dot finder is difficult to use for anything dim and it is very tough to collimate as the center point on the primary mirror isn't marked. Overall, if you want something just for visual, it is fantastic and it will be a great scope for you. Before long, I think you would be looking to upgrade if you are serious about photography past lunar and planetary.

It will be yes. So if it can be done on an EQ5 with a 200p then there is no reason why you cant do it on the HEQ5. There normally is rule of thumb that your setup should be around half the weight of the total load limit of the mount. I am running near the limit of the EQ5 and it hasnt been too bad so i think you could get away with the 200 as well.

I currently use a Skywatcher 200p with an EQ5 mount. I haven't really run into many issues but it can't really be balanced in declination due to the weight of the camera and guidescope. As a first scope for astrophotography, I would recommed to start of with something with a shorter focal lenght. It gives you more margin for error in any tracking than if you turn up the magnification while you get used to perfecting mount balance, polar alginment and getting the camera set up correctly.

Not bad at all! Next target would be to increase exposure to bring out more detail in the Dumbbell. You can also try to increase saturation only in the nebula as this can help tease out the colour without affecting the rest of the picture. Might be worth investing in a filter to help with the light polution as well

Could try looking through the scope during the day with an eyepiece and see if the mark still appears. If it does, that rules out the camera being the cause. Were you pointing near any light sources for the pictures?

Another one for the Canon 450d over here. Great camera going strong after many years of use before using for astronomy. Easy to use and should be easy enough to pick up at a low price now. I would love to have a go at a newer CCD camera to see if there is much difference between them but the picutre above gives me hope that the old timer will still work well.

Good point about astrophotography, when I first bought my telescope I had no intention of ever using it for picutres. Fast forward 3 months and I don't do too much visual work and have started up the long path of photography. Just be aware that this can become a money pit very quickly so it might be worth saving now and building up a pot if you fancy this in the future.