Order of set-up

[dabiscuit]

I, like many noobies am pretty confused. I've got a good scope, solid mount and have a SPC900 that's moded for astro-imaging on the way.

I'm chomping at the bit to start taking my first shots, but am still confuddled as to the set up of equipment and what goes in where.

Could anyone out there tell me from scratch the order of equipment from scope to the final picture result?

My understanding is the following:

1.What your looking at

2.The scope

3.Eye piece

4.Webcam (plugged into laptop)

5.Imaging software

What is a guide scope and is it necessary for astro imaging?

Thanks peeps!

[Freddie]

Guide scope is used when taking long duration exposures so not needed in your case.

When set up, the webcam will replace the eyepiece.

[jgs001]

A lot will depend on the equipment in use... AltAz goto mounts, need a different setup routing to EQ mounts. The same is true for scopes... Mak's need a much longer cool down time compared to refractors for instance.

What gear do you have and will be using ?

As Freddie said, a guidescope and camera is used for long exposure deep sky imaging..

[dabiscuit]

I have a skywatcher 130P newt reflector, it has Altaz mount with GoTo.

How does a guide scope help with DSO, i will be getting a canon EOS if I'm any good at closer object.

I mean how does the guide scope track? Do you plug it into something?

[LukeSkywatcher]

Ive never done imaging with a webcam but i assume its similar in setup to imaging with DSLR.

What i mean by that is there is no need to put an EP into the train of optics. So it should be:

scope>nosepiece>webcam>laptop

I may be wrong

[mallorcasaint]

OK. So you don't have the eyepiece in the focusser when you are using the webcam. First you need to polar align your mount then find your target (assuming you don't have a goto in which case you would do a two star alignment as well).You should begin with your lowest powered eyepiece and centre and focus then replace with a higher power EP. The webcam is equivilent to a 6mm EP so if you can centre and focus with a 6mm EP that is good. Once you are centred on your target remove the eyepiece and replace with the webcam which should have the lens removed and the nosepeice attached. Connect your webcam to your laptop and open your capture software ( Sharpcap is good) you will need to recentre and focus by looking at the laptop screen. This can be quite hard at first but is easier as you gain experience. You will probably need to play around with exposure, gamma etc settings to get a good image. Start your capture and save the subsequent AVI file. You then load the AVI into stacking software such as Registax and combine all the frames as one image and bingo. You have your astro-image.

Of course is is not as simple as that but that is the basics.

[jgs001]

I guess you've got the 130 SynScan AZ or similar ?? You're setup should be, level the mount, align the scope (depends on what you're aiming to image, but solar system align will be fine for the moon/planets). Use an ep for this bit. You can probably align on your imaging target. Remove the ep, and replace it with the webcam.

A guide scope will be of no use to you with that mount as is... with AltAz you are limited in maximum exposure to the point that you will not need guiding anyway, even if you can setup with a wedge to align the mount head on Polaris, I don't know if the drive mechanism would be accurate enough to handle the long exposures. My NexStar SLT (basically the same as the SynScan AZ) certainly isn't capable of it... the drives are not refined enough.

HTH