bilbs84

Thanks for your guidance. I'm pretty sure that's the route I'll go. I'm not too concerned about buying the 30mm scope, and then needing a 50 or larger eventually, as like the tracker, will still be useful for portable setups. I know I should just wait for clear skies, and use what I have and get more experience before spending more money, but at the same time, the sooner I can get my list to Santa, the better my odds of getting it lol.

So would something like the ASI120MC would be a good choice, coupled with a 30mm scope at 130mm focal length?

OK, so it seems that I'm leaning very hard toward a guiding setup. I figure that one of the cheap 30mm scopes would be more than adequate, is there much of a difference between a colour and a mono guide camera? I figure this would also make my setup, and framing a lot quicker too. I believe that setup should be a little quicker at least now that the alt on my mount is set, and should be close depending on how well I can level the tripod. I don't plan on buying too much stuff that won't serve me in the long run. About the only reason that I justified the Star Adventurer over a proper GOTO mount, is that even when I have a proper mount, I can still use the Adventurer for portable use if I ever want to go on a camping trip. Eventually, I think that when I'm ready for a proper mount, I'll go for something like an EQ6-R, or equivalent.

I noticed this when I was able to image the LMC a few nights ago for half an hour. (Had clear skies for maybe an hour and a half, but took an hour to get the rig set up and aligned. Seeing as I'm in Australia, and have to pole star, and the Octans alignment stars are a PITA to find in the pole scope on the Star Adventurer, I wound up getting the 3 point polar alignment in NINA to work, and got to within a couple of minutes of alignment. Since I already had NINA open, and plate solving was working well, I actually used that to frame the shot, just adjusting the RA untill I was on, then the DEC. I shouldn't be surprised, but was blown away by just how accurately the LMC was centred in the frame. The only thing I want to try next time I can see stars, even if not well enough to image, is to see if NINA can platesolve the 80D's webcam stream. If it can, then I don't have to worry about 100 shots to the shutter count every time I'm aligning, or framing.

So, as the title suggests, what should I buy next? I'm starting to get more and more into the idea of pursuing astrophotography as a hobby. I've taken a couple of roughly 20 minute integration photos, and am waiting for some more clear skies to take some more. I currently have a 70D and an 80D, an 85mm f/1.8 lens, and an old 135mm m42 f/2.8 lens. I'm using a Star Adventurer tracker, on an old telescope tripod that I converted to accept the star adventurer mount. So now I don't know what piece of equipment my next purchase should be. I'm mostly interested in Deep Sky at the moment, but may want to have a go at planetary in the future. Here is the shortlist of what I've thought about. 1. A 200mm f/2.8 lens. 2. A CLS filter for the camera(s) (I live in a Bortle5 area) 3. Guide camera & scope. 4. Astro mod the 70D. 5. An actual scope & flattener (Something along the lines of a Sharpstar 61EDPH, or a similar price range) I know that I'm the only one who can ultimately decide what I should get, but I guess what I'm actually asking, is what piece of equipment will give me the biggest boost to what I can photograph? My current thought process is that the CLS filter would be the best place to start, since a couple of the targets that I'm interested in frame well with the lens options that I currently have available, so that bumps it above the new lens. The Scope should probably come AFTER I have a Guider, since it's longer focal length will highlight the errors in tracking a lot more than the short focal length camera lenses. The Guide camera and Guide scope should probably be pretty high options on the list also I would imagine. Anyway, I just wanted to get some people's thoughts/opinions on the matter.

First of all, thanks for the advice and feedback. You've basically confirmed my own suspicions. I remember when I shot my first test image with no tracker, stacking over 300 2.5 second exposures took forever, I understand that the processing can be time consuming, but it sucks when you only get 30 minutes or so of exposure for it. For this reason, I thought I'd push the limits of the mount and setup to 45 seconds and see how things turned out. I'm fairly pleased with the result, and next time, might see if it will handle a minute. I used N.I.N.A's 3 point polar alignment to dial in the mount, I managed to get it to under 2' error. While I'm sure that I could do better, that was about the limit that I could get with the camera taking 2 second exposures constantly while I was getting it dialed in. Maybe next time I'll give the web cam feature of the 80D a crack and see if it can get enough exposure to plate solve with that. At least that would cut down on the shutter count. I was shooting the Large Magellanic Cloud on an 80D, with the EF 85mm f/1.8 lens. Unfortunately the clouds rolled in only half an hour after I started imaging. I ended up only being able to use 29 of the 40 frames that I shot due to clouds. That being said, I'm pleased with the result, especially since I was able to get the polar alignment dialed in, and was able to get decent exposure times. Hopefully we get some clear skies again soon, and I can gather some more exposures soon. I guess the one other thing that I hadn't really thought of until I was looking through the images I shot of Orion a couple of weeks ago, is that the exposure may need to drop for really bright objects, the core was a bit over exposed. So am I better off limiting the exposure time, or reducing ISO to keep the exposure time up, I don't quite understand entirely how read noise works, so still unsure if shorter exposures at higher ISO's vs longer exposures at lower ISO's Anyway, thanks for taking the time to help point me in the right direction.

So I'm somewhat, no, I'm pretty much entirely new to the world of astrophotography. I bought a 60D a couple of months ago, and then after takin a stack of 3 second exposures with the kit lens of the milky way, I was somewhat hooked. I bought myself an 85mm lens that was a world better than the kit lens that the camera came with, and then patiently waited for the astronomy stores near me to emerge from lockdown so that I could get a tracking mount. I arrived home with my shiny new mount, set it up, then got everything out to get ready to give it a try that night, only the second hand 60D that I had decided it didn't want to work anymore. Cut to now, and an ebay dispute over a 70D that took way to much effort to actually get, and an 80D that I bid on as a backup in case the 70D never arrived, and an Australian Spring that has had about 5 hours of cloud free nights, tonight, I finally managed to get a decent alignment using N.I.N.A. and there seem to be little to no clouds, finally, I'm taking decent subs. So that got me thinking, what is my limit on exposure time, am I limited by the mount, or is there another limit that I need to take into consideration? Im not in the worlds darkest skies, Bortle 5 is what is listed on lightpollutionmap.info Does that play a role in exposure time. Im using an EOS 80D, with 85mm f/1.8 lens, on a Star Adventurer pro. Thanks.

It would be semi permanent. Breaking it down would be a P.I.T.A. but doable. Each leg would weigh a little under 6 kg. I plan on doing a lot of my imaging from my back yard, and just traveling from time to time. I'll have a look into piers, and see what I can come up with. I'm just trying to avoid spending a few hundred bucks on a decent tripod. I'll put the change into a piggy bank and try saving for an EQ6-R instead.

At the moment, I wouldn't be able to hold anything against the polar scope, and still be able to make out the stars in it. I can't even breathe on the setup without every star in view disappearing in the blur lol. I understand that may be different once things are more rigid.

I'd considered something out of dead trees, but I have ZERO wood tools, but have plenty of metal working tools, access to welders etc. Steel is just what I'm comfortable with. I've got some ideas in my head, and it would end up at about 20kg once assembled. Would the tripod being quite heave be an advantage for stability?

I'm at 38° south, so the axis is quite steep, and if the tripod legs aren't extended, it's only about 500mm off the ground. The camera isn't the issue, it's looking through the polar scope, and it doesn't really have any provision for changing eyepieces or adding diagonals. I did consider trying to attach a webcam to it though.

so after driving 150km each way to go and buy a Star Adventurer star tracker a few days ago, then Bricking my EOS 60D while getting everything set up while waiting for dark. Then at least trying to polar align the mount that night and not even getting close, I found myself almost ready to give up. I found a decently priced 70D on eBay, and boxed the tracker back up. I was planning on using it on a Manfrotto be free tripod, but did find it to be somewhat shaky. Lowering it quite short helped, but laying on the grass to align doesn't interest me that much. Anyway, last night, I thought I'd at least try aligning the mount again, since the stars were visible for what will probably be the last time for a couple of weeks. I was actually able to find the octans stars in the scope, and get a coarse alignment done. So at least now I'm hopeful again. But I need a better tripod. So, that got me thinking, has anyone else built there own tripods, and what sort of designs have you done. I was considering something out of steel. It wouldn't exactly be portable, and it wouldn't be light, but I was thinking that might actually be a good thing? I'd be interested to hear people's thought.

G'Day everyone. Just thought I'd drop in and say hi. Im Adam, I'm from Victoria, Australia, and finally decided to stop dreaming about the stars, and actually start looking at them. I've always seen the azing pictures, and always wanted to take them myself. I got myself a 60D, with a terrible kit lens, and a few nights ago, started taking pictures. I pointed toward the Milky way, and this was my first result. Just under 600 subs, at 3 seconds each. Not great, but I'm pretty chuffed with it still. I'm just using camera lenses for the near future, but have orders a Canon 85mm f/1.8 to give me a boost. I'll wait and invest in a tracker next, but already, find myself excited to see what I'm going to be able to do. I'm sure I'll be asking some dumb questions, but I'm a quick learner. Cheers!