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Any astrophotographers in the MK area?


buzzc150

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Hi all

I want to make inroads into astrophotography but could do with seeing first hand the equipment and techniques. Anyone in the Milton Keynes/ Northampton/Bedford area know what they're doing and wouldn't mind me tagging along one evening?

Buzz

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Hi and welcome to the forum. I can't help you on the demonstration side of things but would strongly recommend that you get hold of a copy of Steve Richards' "Making Every Photon Count" (FLO £19.95) which you can view here. It will tell you what kit you need and why you need it to take good consistent images. Imaging can be separated into two camps, imaging the solar system and deep sky imaging. The first can be done using a webcam on virtually any scope where the best 'frames' are used to create a final composite image using free programs such as Registax. Deep Sky imaging (galaxies & nebulae) is somewhat different and starts with the mount that needs to track very accurately in order to make longer exposures to capture the faint light that this objects emit. Tracking accuracy here is the key and to that end, some mounts facilitate the additional use of an autoguider, which is trained on a nearby star to the target and which can adjust the mounts motors to keep that star at the centre of its crosshair, and as a consequence, keep the main imaging scope on its main target too. This book will cover these areas and will certainly help you decide on how far you want to go so that you will know what budget to plan for.

One last thing, and that is much kit discussion surrounds what you need to capture the data to create an image. bear in mind that although there are many free pieces of software out there that can help you process this captured data, there are are some excellent software that will need to be paid for. The above suggested book is modestly priced but could well save you money by obtaining this important overview on the subject in order to be best satisfy your imaging expectations. I hope that some members will help provide you with the up close experience of what's involved as that will have its place too in your understanding of imaging.

James

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Thanks for the comments and help. Dave, unfortunately I'm free tomorrow night, oter wise I would have loved to come over to Higham Ferrers.

I'll check out the book a few of you suggested.

Many thanks,

Buzz

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  • 2 years later...

Hi and welcome.

There are several good imagers in the MKAS. You should see some links in my sig to our web site that in turn had links to member pages. There is also a small Facebook community, and a regular group that uses local dark sky spots.

Dave

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