Advice for progression to Astrophotography

[ubiquitous]

Hi

I have been totally bitten by the bug and having dabbled with a friends telescope and having been totally inspired by the BBC's offerings this week I am desperate to get my own telescope!

I am an accomplished night time photographer - particularly with light painting and also star trails. I am fascinated by Astrophotography and know that I will want my new hobby to blend with my passion of photography.

I want to buy something that I can grow into as I learn astronomy that will also be usable for photography with the necessary additional equipment as and when I am ready. I dont want to buy something that will have a limited life span that needs upgrading in a short time.

My local store has recommended a Sky Watcher 200P with and EQ5 Goto mount as the way to go for this.

Budget wise this is a little more than I was wanting but not much. What I dont want to do is make an expensive mistake and to try and establish if this set-up will be usable by a relative newbie in the first instance and indeed be usable as the hobby develops for me over the coming months and years.

Any help and advise would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance!

[swag72]

The first thing to recommend is to get the book First Light Optics - Making Every Photon Count - Steve Richards This will save you a lot of money in the long run as well as give you a very solid grounding in AP.

The general mount considered to the minimum for AP is the HEQ5 (Although there are always those who manage with less and get good results) - The mount is the single most important piece of hardware, if it is not totally stable, then your pictures will show it.

You don't mention what camera's you already have.

You don't need a scope to get some good night sky images. Many nebula for example will frame nicely in a 200mm lens for example.

I would recommend a refractor scope, the kit of choice for many is an ED80, coupled with a DSLR and reducer, you can get some great shots.

[steppenwolf]

My local store has recommended a Sky Watcher 200P with and EQ5 Goto mount as the way to go for this.

For visual, this would be fine but for deep sky imaging, the mount is not really adequate for this size telescope. Even an HEQ5 would be operating at the edge of its operational envelope with a guide scope and guide camera installed.

I would seriously consider getting a better mount and a smaller telescope, perhaps a small ED glass refractor which will put less demands on the mount.

Alternatively, if you are already well into photography as you appear to be, you may have a suitable prime lens already in which case perhaps buying a good equatorial mount or something like an AstroTrac mount and just using it with a camera and lens would be a great way of getting into this aspect of the hobby.

[RikM]

Good advice from Sara. If you are a demanding photographer you probably won't be satisfied with the 200P / EQ5. Too much scope on too little mount. ED80 on an HEQ5 is the way to go.

Edit: must type faster...

[Simms]

Even an HEQ5 would be operating at the edge of its operational envelope with a guide scope and guide camera installed.

Yup it is, I use a 200PDS on a HEQ5 and once that DSLR is in place there isn`t much wiggle room to add anything else.. It works, and works well, but have settled for a converted finderscope instead of a decent guidescope as "she cannae take the strain Jim!"

[malc-c]

Have to agree and disagree with the above. I have a 200P on an HEQ5, with an ST80 guidescope and a canon 400d camera, and it although it's sometimes a pain in the but, has shown that it can produce the results. It's my limitations in not yet understanding or getting to grips with the post processing procedure that's more of a let down than the setup. But, agree that an ED80 on an HEQ5 will be solid, as would a 200P on an EQ6, and probably take out a lot of the headache in stability when conditions are not perfectly still.

[ubiquitous]

Thank you everyone for your speedy and informative advice - clearly, I have much more reading to do!

The ED80 and HEQ5 combination is going to blow the budget unfortunately.... I have around £800 to spend right now. Am I going to be better off knocking my future aspirations on the head for a while and save some more and in the meantime buy something that is going to be good purely for visual rather than photography while I learn more about astronomy?

Also, is this an option whereby I could buy a telescope now that I could use in the future as a guide scope? If so what are your recommendations for a suitable telescope?

Thanks again.

[Simms]

How about looking towards the 2nd hand market?

[Steve 1962]

You haven't said what camera / lenses you've got but how's this for a solution?.....

get an HEQ5 or even better an NEQ6 (second hand?) now and, if that does away with your budget just strap your camera and a lens to the mount to do some wide field work.

Then save up for an ST80 or similar plus a guide camera and use that as a guide scope to extend your exposure time plus see what you can achieve with it as an imager. Then while experimenting with that, save up again to get yourself a nice apo refractor as main scope.

[malc-c]

The ED80 and HEQ5 combination is going to blow the budget unfortunately.... I have around £800 to spend right now. Am I going to be better off knocking my future aspirations on the head for a while and save some more and in the meantime buy something that is going to be good purely for visual rather than photography while I learn more about astronomy?

Also, is this an option whereby I could buy a telescope now that I could use in the future as a guide scope? If so what are your recommendations for a suitable telescope?

Thanks again.

That's a tough question to answer as everyone's personal circumstances, ability to learn, perseverance etc are different. For me I started looking at 4" Maks on alt az goto's - then realised that whilst it would be a good beginners scope, I would soon be flogging it and looking for something better that would give me the ability to attach a camera to and take pictures. I then settled on the Celestron C6-SGT, but having placed the order was advise that the goto was noisy on fast slew, and that it wasn't ideal for imaging deep sky (rightly or wrongly). I therefore canceled the order (as well as poor lead times and I wanted something sooner rather than later) and purchased the 200P on a goto EQ5 mount.

This was fine for visual and I started getting basic imaging results once I purchased the right dSLR camera. I would of continued with the EQ5 but at the time of building my observatory a secondhand HEQ5 pro goto, ST80 guidescope and a QHY5 camera came up. It stretched my budget for the observatory, but took that opportunity and haven't looked back. I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve but some of the results can be seen here http://stargazerslounge.com/discussions-scopes-whole-setups/171526-skywatcher-explorer-200p-200p-ds.html#post2111496

The thing is the expense doesn't stop with the scope. If you live under light polluted skies then a decent filter is needed, costing over £100 for the camera, etc but you can add to the basic setup as time and funds permit.

As to what scope suits you - its a personal choice. I would suggest that you try to save up around £1000 and then pay a visit to one of the larger retailers (check first to make sure that they have the scopes you are interested in before hand) and see the set up for yourself. I wish I had done that when I purchased my scope, it would save me having two scopes, one of which (the Mak on the EQ5) seldom gets used.

[malc-c]

One other suggestion... if you can get to London on 10th or 11th February then go along to Astrofest 2012 - often there are bargains to be had and you could end up saving yourself a few quid on a package. It's also likely that you'll get to see more scopes under one roof than any one shop

[ubiquitous]

Thanks for this - I like the sound of this progression...

I have a Nikon D90 - not a huge camera when stripped of its battery grip. My Lenses suit my current photography so mostly wide angle and shot telephoto but I do own a Nikon 70-300 - not sure that that will be any good or not really?

I do need to do a lot more research by the sounds of it though but at the same time I do want to get stuck in!

Thanks for your input on this!

[ubiquitous]

Thanks for your responses Malcolm, I appreciate it.

Will try and get to Astrofest - sounds like a good opportunity potentially.

There certainly are a lot of additional costs (and I thought photography was bad for this!) and I think I may really have to re-consider my initial entry point into this. The more I read these responses and cross reference with online retailers the more I am sure of this sadly - for now anyway.

Think I may just have to settle for viewing the stars for the time being and put a plan together for saving for the 'proper' kit! Any suggestions as to a starting point for a first telescope that will give me some decent enjoyment and knowledge?

[Dave-Ryan]

For viewing you will want a large aperture telescope. You could do some solar system imaging with this, using a cheap web cam, to get you started into astrophotography.

[malc-c]

Thanks for your responses Malcolm, I appreciate it.

Will try and get to Astrofest - sounds like a good opportunity potentially.

There certainly are a lot of additional costs (and I thought photography was bad for this!) and I think I may really have to re-consider my initial entry point into this. The more I read these responses and cross reference with online retailers the more I am sure of this sadly - for now anyway.

Think I may just have to settle for viewing the stars for the time being and put a plan together for saving for the 'proper' kit! Any suggestions as to a starting point for a first telescope that will give me some decent enjoyment and knowledge?

My manager is seriously into photography... thinks nothing of spending a £1000 on some special lens, or a set of studio lights / flash heads --- I don't think astronomy is that bad

I can't really suggest what's the best option scope wise. If you are happy with having to constantly nudging the scope to keep the target in view then a Dob would be your best option as it's the most aperture for every £ spent. If you want something that tracks then there are lots of options, Alt/Azimuth or EQ mounting, or an autotrack Dob, but for the same money as a basic scope you'll get a smaller aperture.

Whatever you do, don't rush into it.

[sabana]

Following up in agreement with Steppenwolf's comments.

The Astrotrac with a prime lens is a fantastic way to get into astrophotogaphy. The outlay is modest so you won't get burnt. And its a fantastic portable peice of equipment when you want to get out to dark skies.

Steve's book making every photon count is essential reading for anyone. And the comments on the ED80 on a HEQ5 are spot on.

But as you are already a photographer try out your lenses on on the Astrotrac.