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Hello everyone! (+question :)

dot4

By dot4
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dot4

dot4

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Hello all the sky watchers!

My name is Dom and I'm from Essex.

I bought my first scope recently:

standard SkyWatcher 200P + EQ5 mount.

Extras I got are Baader MKIII zoom, 3x Barlow (unbranded), moon filter (25%) and 2x3D glasses lol (3D glasses are my temporary planetary filters as they have red green and blue glass :p)

So far I found just a few objects: Jupiter, Mars, Pleiades, Andromeda Galaxy, Orion Nebula, so I'm not the best amateur astronomer :)

I have trouble with Crab Nebula, Whirlpool Galaxy, Rosette Nebula and anything else... really... but I will not give up! :)

My main problem is distances... on sky charts and Stellarium some objects look like they are really close to a bright star that I can identify, but then they are not there :) Any tips how should I calculate the distance between objects? How do I know if it's in my FOV or maybe out of FOV?

Can I assume ALL the Messier objects are visible at 80xmagnification? Are they all looking like grey dots?

And a second question please, if I may :)

Astro-imaging - I completly fail to understand how it's done, despite reading a lot about it, maybe I'm just silly or maybe it's because English is not my native language.

Imagine you see my telescope on the mount, ready to view the sky. I have an eyepiece already in and I'm observing, lets say the Andromeda M31. How do I take the picture lol? I've tried with my cheap Samsung digital camera but it's all blurry and all black really :/

So I thought I'll buy the "professional camera" (you know the one with big lenses and adjustable focus) so I can use it for pictures during the day and astro-imaging during the night ;)

It's seems like a good idea since the better cameras can be focused by you, not by the onboard computer?

But but... how do I mount the camra on the eyepiece? the eyepiece is like 1.25 inch and camra is probably like 2-3 inch, it won't fit :(

I know there is something like T rings but how would you put this on an eyepiece? :/

I'm so confused :(

OK this is already too long, nobody is going to read it lol.

Thank you for your time and patience!

Dom

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Black Knight

Black Knight

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WRT imaging: with a DSLR or compact camera you can image afocally. Afocally is where you simply put the camera up to the eyepiece and click away :). DSLRs can also image at prime focus. Which means removing the camera lens from the camera body, adding an adapter (a T-ring and a T-piece) and placing the whole assembly in the focuser, minus the eyepiece. The telescope effectively becomes the cameras lens, and you focus the image with the focuser on the scope.

There is another type of photography called eyepiece projection photography, but I'm afraid I know nothing about that, I've never user it.

If you already own a DSLR for which you can buy a suitable T-ring, then prime focus would be the way to go.

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todd8137

todd8137

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hi dot and welcome from nice choice of scope i own a 300p and have done for a few years now,a telrad finder my help you ,astro imaging is hard for me with what i have but a simple webcam filters and a laptop will get you video you can stack the pics from the video

my own thoughts on finding things is simple start with Cassiopeia its east to find,it also is in a great part of the sky,get stellarium on and look for all the main stars and every thing else it as to offer,

because i made the mistake of wanting to see lots of things in one night best to stick with one at a time spend the whole night on that target

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michael.h.f.wilkinson

michael.h.f.wilkinson

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Hi Dom,

Welcome to SGL. An 8" scope should suffice for all Messier objects, but some can be tricky. You need to get to grips with tricks like averted vision, and not expect things to look like images you see in books. The Rosette needs a wide field instrument, very dark skies, and frankly just a lot of practice. Stellarium has a eyepiece plugin which lets you see the field of view of a given eyepiece in a given scope. This can help a lot.

Best of luck,

Michael

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Black Knight

Black Knight

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The other thing I forgot to mention is that most deep space objects require long exposures and many of them, "stacked" together using suitable software like Deep Sky Stacker (free), to build an image. After you have gotten the image, you still need to process it in a graphics package like Photoshop to "tease" out the details.

Have a look at the images in the Deep sky imaging section. Most contributors will list the number and length of exposures they used, to get an idea.

For imaging DSOs your mount needs to be well polar aligned (to avoid field rotation), and able to track (i.e. motorised) in RA to follow the object automatically as it moves across the sky.

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Nosivad

Nosivad

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Hello Dom and welcome. Everyone has had a good try at answering your questions, but remember that your eye will not see the same view as photographs, which are done by time exposures. Quite often a Messier object is a faint blur which is best picked out by looking slightly to one side of it (averted vision). This is because your eye has different receptors and you need to use the ones which are better in low light levels.

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