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lycos2112

By lycos2112
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lycos2112

lycos2112

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Another Newbie joining your midst so saying 'Hi' to all the other newbies and those hardcore veterans out there, have been finding myself directed here by a lot of googling lately so though I may as well join up and make myself comfortable, put my feet up n get some serious research done before scoping up!

I've recently been introduced to all the things the night sky has to offer by a fellow member who's into his new scope, I come from more of a photographic background but have never been one for turning down challenges and it looks like astrophotography is rapidly becoming my latest trend, still have a lot to learn ;) and finding my way round :) but am looking forward to becoming part of the community! ;)

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richbyers

richbyers

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just take it slow, get a good sky atlas and sit out on a clear night just learning -my advice is without your scope at first, so theres no temptation to dive in too deep too soon (of course this is easier said than done!) once you know your way about then go for it

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glowjet

glowjet

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Hi Lycos and welcome to SGL, you will do well to read as much as you can and pick as many brains as possible before " scoping up " as you say, but get outside with a pair of binos and some star maps, it will start you on that long learning curve, have a look at Stellarium, a free download which shows you the night sky ;)

John.

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stevetynant

stevetynant

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Hi Lycos and welcome to SGL - r=this really is a fascinating hobby. If your thinking of Astrophotography - the book that regularly gets recommended on the is site is "every photon counts" - google it or search FLO - can save you a lot of time and money apparantly

welcome on board

Steve

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lycos2112

lycos2112

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Wow, thanks for the greetings and and newbie advice everyone, I have already got on the case with software n stuff, loaded the laptop with Stellarium, DeepSkyStacker, Registax, Startrails, CCD Autopilot (probably be a while before I get around to using the latter but it's there should I ever need it ;)), and already had GoogleSkyMaps / AstroPanel on the mobile, have a basic knowledge of where things are, managed to view a few bits thanks to Luke n his kit, grabbed a few pics of Venus, the Pinwheel and Whirlpool galaxies, and M42, I think it's the nebulas I'm going to be spending most time on, some of you guys n girls' pics have proper inspired me to try my hand, I already have an un-modded Canon550d running MagicLantern so will be utilising that as much as I can!

Thanks for the advice Steve, 'every photon counts' will no doubt be on my reading list, already had a quick flick through it as bought it for Luke (bro-in-law) for his birthday, seems a lot of the toggers make use of the kit they already have, I only recently made the move to Canon so still filling my kit bag but discovered even my nifty fifty is capable of showing M42 on as little as a 5 second exposure at f1.8! I realise reaching that through a scope is probably impossible at those speeds so looking towards scopes with around an f5 and having to do longer exposures, a lot of my photography work has had me doing exposures of up to 2 minutes so got a bit of a head start on that one too!

So...lol, have decided the subject matter I want to start shooting, the camera I will be using, now it's the scope n relative equipment I eventually need to decide on, it's got to be an equatorial mount, probably an EQ3-2 for starters, or maybe a Barn Door mount? depending how much wedge I blow on a scope!

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi and welcome to the forum. I agree with Rich and John above about taking your time, "...as the stars aren't going anywhere". Try to buy well and therefore you only buy once and Steve Richards' book "Making Every Photon Count" will certainly be able to hold your hand as you make your future purchasing decisions. If I may, I would like to give you some very practical advice. It is often a temptation with new people starting out in astrophotography to believe that there is a short cut here or there that can help them through the problems on the cheap - the answer will be no. When you look at the typical imaging rig that most consistent imagers have, you will quickly notice that much of their kit is very similar. The reason is not because the imagers want to buddy up together and to bond around similar discussions concerning similar kit. No, it's because they have all learnt (some quicker than others) that if you want to iron out some of the inconsistencies, hassles, technology incompatibilities and sheer frustration of getting the 'rig' to work as a single unit, you need to have a certain consistent standard of kit, that will be 'able' to produce consistent results.

It's good to do your own research but in fact the good imagers have already done it for you, don't be tempted to re-invent the wheel, as this wheel in all honesty is not cheap. That doesn't mean to say it has to be thousands of pounds either but you will have to pay a minimum price for good images and to reduced the frustration, there's no getting away with it and so the first consideration will be mount and to be more specific, a HEQ5 mount. It has good payload capacity, has Goto to find objects that are not visible with the naked eye, it has accurate motors but more importantly, they can facilitate autoguiding - a process by which a nearby reference star is used to help keep the main imaging scope stay on target and makes a huge difference in the tracking accuracy and thus the length of exposures that can be had. The mount also can be regulated through software called EQMOD which is free and will help you create mosaicked images of the moon and wide star fields, monitor tracking accuracy of the motors, facilitate attachment to Stellarium or other planetarium software, the list goes on etc. All imaging starts with the mount and the choice of mount will make a huge difference. If you want to image on the cheap, this can be easily done using a simple webcam on virtually any scope but you will be limited to imaging only the planets and the moon. Hope I haven't gone on for too long but it is important to honest at the beginning so that new people such as yourself don't waste their money trying to do it one way only to find that they end up doing it the same way as everyone else- at a cost.

Clear skies for now

James

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