Your thoughts on this set up!

[titan79]

hi iam still pondering a set up to start me off and i have a celestron nexstar 127 slt and a canon 1000d in mind. going to buy the telescope new but seen a few of these DSLR cameras going for good prices on ebay and amazon . So any comments on the quality of these would be great thanks ......

going to buy a web cam to for stacking so any ideas on these to would be great thanks !

[Squagnut]

To be honest, I wouldn't recommend that setup. An alt-az mount is not really suitable for astrophotography - it's great for viewing, and it'll track an object really well, but you would do well to understand the difference between an alt-az mount and an equatorial mount, and why equatorial mounts are best for photography.

Alt-az mounts give you field rotation, because the OTA remains oriented one way up. Think of it like this: with the 'scope level, taking the circle that is the front end of the OTA, mark the lowest point, the point nearest the ground. No matter where the 'scope is pointed, that will always be the lowest point. But the sky doesn't move like that! The lowest point of your field of view when you open the shutter will not be the lowest point of your FoV when you close the shutter, and so your image will have a 'twist'.

I can speak from experience, too - I never took a single good long-exposure shot with my SkyMax 127 SynScan AZ and Nikon dSLR, which is essentially the same setup as you describe.

If you want to do dSLR astrophotography then the mount is the most important part of your kit.

If you're very lucky and it isn't windy and you don't even breathe while the shutter's open then you may get away with an EQ3, but really you want something even more solid than this.

Getting a good 'scope for observing is pretty affordable, but astrophotography requires a bit more budget, all because it needs a good rock-solid tracking mount.

[Adz]

Hi, is it a tight budget?

Because the scope and a webcam would be a great start. A 127 mac performs very well for it price range and if you get it with a tracking mount and webcam can be a great relatively inexpensive way of getting into astrophotography.

An DSLR on the other hand is quite expensive in comparison and the kind of work it involves is a lot more work, ie DSO's... But I know that the recent 1100D has one of the best low noise perfomances out there of DSLR's

HTH

[ollypenrice]

The 127 would be fine for a start in webcam imaging of the moon and planets but literally useless for deep sky with the DSLR.

For DS imaging you need an equatorial mount and an instrument with a fast focal ratio, F8 at the very slowest and ideally F6 or faster. If you want to start imaging the deep sky I'd do quite a bit more homework first, maybe by reading Making Every Photon Count by Steve Richards, available from FLO. If deep sky imaging puts the price too high your best bet is to remove it from the equation and think again from scratch.

Olly

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[titan79]

Yeah think i have alot more reading to , just out of interest tho whats the canon 1000 or 1100 d like as an everyday camera