My first image!

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Ok, its nowt brilliant...its albireo taken with my setup a few weeks ago...was more as a test of everything...jupiter next me thinks

yes its albireo, seperation looks good and its got nice colour to it...not bad for a £40 webcam on my first go

EDIT: i took a photo of vega too too see if i could get diffraction spikes:-

is there a name for the spikes seen really close to vega in my pic? are they reflections of some kind, or another optical anomally??

[Simms]

A few star shots was exactly how I started out in Feb this year - once the bug bites you will find that you will end up spending a few extra quid getting more equipment.

I think the other spikes are just called `secondary` spikes - just one of those optical effects one gets - personally I like spikes on my star images! Gets more of a "Wow" from the non astro muggles!

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A few star shots was exactly how I started out in Feb this year - once the bug bites you will find that you will end up spending a few extra quid getting more equipment.

I think the other spikes are just called `secondary` spikes - just one of those optical effects one gets - personally I like spikes on my star images! Gets more of a "Wow" from the non astro muggles!

am looking to go to a star party to check out peoples astro-kit, might have to look at getting a little 6" mak/SCT for starters, im still keeping the dob, but it would be nice to do some simple astrophotography on something thats not 1) a star, 2) the moon or 3) not a planet

[blackparticle]

Good first efforts.

You won't want a Mak / SCT to start as they are really only good for stars, the moon and planets although you could count globulars and open clusters as stars. You can use them for high-magnification DSO's (Ring nebula etc) but you've really got to have a very good mount (and guiding usually) to cope with the high focal length and they require much longer exposures at f/10 - f/12.. much longer than an un-modified webcam will allow.

Have you given any thoughts to what sort of budget you're going to set yourself?

The 3 things you'll require to start is a mount, camera and scope.

Here there are lots of options.

If you're not that concerned with going really deep to start then you could consider a DSLR and a decent camera lens. Scopes start at around 400mm but the sky has a wealth of objects that suit 200mm lenses. I wouldn't personally recommend a zoom lens unless it's a very good one.

The other option to a DSLR would be a simple CCD / CMOS camera. The CMOS offerings are usually cheaper and will often have a bigger chip with more pixels although CCD's are more sensitive.

Regarding the mount, most would consider something like the HEQ5 Pro or Celestron CG-5 GT as the minimum required to get into astrophotography. Anything less and you might quickly start wishing you had bought something bigger. There are other options. The Vixen GPE mounts are supposed to be very good at unguided tracking and fall into the same category.

Some people say a motorised EQ3 is the absolute minimum but I've got an early HEQ5 (non-pro) and found myself upgrading fairly quickly as it really is limited to 20 seconds subs at around 400mm. It's perfectly fine for wide-field shots with short camera lenses though.

Hope this helps.

Alan.

[stolenfeather]

Your picture of Vega is astounding! Congrats!

Isabelle

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Your picture of Vega is astounding! Congrats!

Isabelle

thankyou

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Good first efforts.

You won't want a Mak / SCT to start as they are really only good for stars, the moon and planets although you could count globulars and open clusters as stars. You can use them for high-magnification DSO's (Ring nebula etc) but you've really got to have a very good mount (and guiding usually) to cope with the high focal length and they require much longer exposures at f/10 - f/12.. much longer than an un-modified webcam will allow.

Have you given any thoughts to what sort of budget you're going to set yourself?

The 3 things you'll require to start is a mount, camera and scope.

Here there are lots of options.

If you're not that concerned with going really deep to start then you could consider a DSLR and a decent camera lens. Scopes start at around 400mm but the sky has a wealth of objects that suit 200mm lenses. I wouldn't personally recommend a zoom lens unless it's a very good one.

The other option to a DSLR would be a simple CCD / CMOS camera. The CMOS offerings are usually cheaper and will often have a bigger chip with more pixels although CCD's are more sensitive.

Regarding the mount, most would consider something like the HEQ5 Pro or Celestron CG-5 GT as the minimum required to get into astrophotography. Anything less and you might quickly start wishing you had bought something bigger. There are other options. The Vixen GPE mounts are supposed to be very good at unguided tracking and fall into the same category.

Some people say a motorised EQ3 is the absolute minimum but I've got an early HEQ5 (non-pro) and found myself upgrading fairly quickly as it really is limited to 20 seconds subs at around 400mm. It's perfectly fine for wide-field shots with short camera lenses though.

Hope this helps.

Alan.

thankyou, your post highlights the main problem as i see it with AP and that is that you really need to construct your gear towards a particular subject.

ill try to break it down, initially i was wanting to spend ~£1000-£1200 on some equipment with a view to using it for a year then selling it off for ~£500 to fund another better series of purchases.

if not a mak/SCT then what would you suggest? i am tempted to get a NEQ6 for my dob, or a CGEM mount and go from there...but really i wanted an introduction to the basics rather than going into full-on hardcore thousand pound mounts and cameras...?

as for things i would like to look at, it would be nebulae/clusters for me.

[blackparticle]

I upgraded to a NEQ6 and it will last me a long time I reckon.. so you could do a lot worse than that and a set of scope rings for the 250px. That should leave enough in your budget for a s/h DSLR. (You'll have to check if a DSLR can achieve focus on the 250PX though.. It may be that the 250P-DS is the tube you require.. I'm not sure about this).

Otherwise I'd look at at the HEQ5 Pro or CG5-GT and a small APO refractor. If you're going down the DSLR route, make sure the scope has a 2" focuser. I got an Equinox 66 and really could do with using a field flattener with my DSLR but they are all 2" and the Eqx66 only has a 1.25" focuser. It should be ok if you get an astro cam that can fit down the barrel like an eyepiece or has a much smaller chip.

I did the comparison between NEQ6 vs CGEM and after some research and some honest advice, discounted the CGEM as it appears to have a few niggles.. It's also more expensive.

With astro-photography, this sort of level is the introduction to the basics.. At least in the sense that you're going to get decent results rather than try and work with hundreds and hundreds of very short subs.. which can also produce results but you end up spending a lot more time processing with a computer and wishing your subs contained more data to work with.

If you spend wisely now, you shouldn't feel the urge to sell it off next year.

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I upgraded to a NEQ6 and it will last me a long time I reckon.. so you could do a lot worse than that and a set of scope rings for the 250px. That should leave enough in your budget for a s/h DSLR. (You'll have to check if a DSLR can achieve focus on the 250PX though.. It may be that the 250P-DS is the tube you require.. I'm not sure about this).

Otherwise I'd look at at the HEQ5 Pro or CG5-GT and a small APO refractor. If you're going down the DSLR route, make sure the scope has a 2" focuser. I got an Equinox 66 and really could do with using a field flattener with my DSLR but they are all 2" and the Eqx66 only has a 1.25" focuser. It should be ok if you get an astro cam that can fit down the barrel like an eyepiece or has a much smaller chip.

I did the comparison between NEQ6 vs CGEM and after some research and some honest advice, discounted the CGEM as it appears to have a few niggles.. It's also more expensive.

With astro-photography, this sort of level is the introduction to the basics.. At least in the sense that you're going to get decent results rather than try and work with hundreds and hundreds of very short subs.. which can also produce results but you end up spending a lot more time processing with a computer and wishing your subs contained more data to work with.

If you spend wisely now, you shouldn't feel the urge to sell it off next year.

yeah i will buy a moonlite focuser for the 250px at some point, currently i need to invert the standard 2" to 1.25" extender and hold the camera in place with sellotape to achieve a nice steady focus , im pretty sure a moonlight with the 2" barrel length should be good but i need to check it out properly before i commit to the purchase. also need ot make sure that at full extension it will be ok for my current EP's (and for future purchases, but if i need extension tubes then so be it...

am gonna ring up FLO tomorrow and buy steppenwolfs book, give that a read through, and need to go to some star parties, i have too many questions and the internet can only provide so many answers before one needs to just have a look at other peoples setup.