Imaging with 150 dob

[SpaceMonkey777]

I'm looking to buy the skywatcher skyliner 150 dob, to say i'm excited.........

my question is, would any form of photography be possibe with this scope?? I know as it's a dob, it doesn't have the tracking cababilities of a hefty eq mount, so deep space long exposures are out of the question!! but reading this scopes spec on FLO, it says it's supplied with a camera connection.

i'd like to take shots of the moon and maybe some planets, purely for my own gratification, i'm under no prenenses i'd get my work published! would this be possible with this scope on this mount??

appreciate the help!

Jon:iamwithstupid:

[Tinker1947]

Properly not, astrophotography requires a certain amount of tracking.

[kostur]

Nope. For photography you'll need an eq6, heq5 or neq6 (the best is synscan goto version)

[sabana]

The problem is the moon and planets are moving when you take the photograph. When you take a picture with your camera you have to use shutter speeds fast enough to prevent motion blur (unless you like that effect). If you take a photo of less than a second then there will be minimal blur. But you won't get a sharp shot until the subject is stationary. The only way round this is to take lots of photos( or video frames) and stack them in Registax or similar programs. The camera attachment is useful for occasional reference shots. If your happy with this quality then a normal T mount fixed to the scope and directly to to your camera will suffice.

[ItIsOnlyMe]

Took these through my 300p dob, not the greatest but then I wasn't trying that hard.

So yes, some sort of photography is possible. Likely to be webcam on planets and moon close ups, and using the direct dslr connection via a t adaptor on moon for wide shots like this. Not really tried deep sky with it but for these I would say you do need the stability and tracking/guiding of an eq MOUNT

[Parus major]

I managed to get some decent-ish results using the same tube on an un-driven EQ3. A laptop and a webcam you can keep a planet centered with a fair amount of effort and use the align box on registax 5. keep it there for about a minute and you should have enough frames.

[SpaceMonkey777]

thanks for the help people, looks like i'm gonna have to look into this!!

[tbird]

If you're good at juggling you could probably get some short captures on the moon or planets with a webcam, manually tracking, and then stack the frames in registax. I've done this with my 300p Dob and Jupiter but it was very tricky.

The other possibility is afocal photography with a digital camera thru the eyepieces, some people are getting really good images of the moon like this.

These scopes have the same focussers as the Eq mounted ones so they have the same camera mounting features.

[tbird]

I'm a bit slow on the keyboard

[Nexus 6]

its really only designed for visual astronomy for which it excels for such a relatively cheap telescope, you may get some reasonable data using a webcam for imaging solar system objects too, a path a lot are taking to get started, but that's about it I'm afraid.

[Tiddles]

I took this with a Sony compact camera held at prime focus with a Skyliner 150P Dob. A bit more effort I'm sure it could be improved upon.

[Carl M]

Simple answer is yes, you can do it to an extent. It will depend on what magnification you use to capture your videos. I think the SPC900 webcam which most people use to capture planets at a reasonable price is the equivalent to a 6mm eyepiece (correct me if im wrong) at that magnification you should be ok tracking a planet manually, it will take some practice and patience though. When barlows start coming into the question it will become harder to track and this is where you will start wanting a driven EQ mount. That was my experience when I had the dob anyway, since then I got bit by the imaging bug and can't stop spending..

Attached pic was my old 300D at prime focus with my 200P dob

[Parus major]

The thing about the SW 150 F8 reflector tube is that it's very capable in planetary astrophotography. My advice would be to go for it, enjoy it and have a wee shot at imaging with a Philips SPC 880 webcam. If you enjoy it and want to take it further then the telescope can be mounted on an EQ mount like the HEQ5 of NEQ6 at a later time. It's what I've done.

[SpaceMonkey777]

i can see that i'm going to have to put a bit more effort into winning the lottery!!