Astrophotography / Nikon D3100

[lost]

Hi everyone,

Absolute beginner here

I wanted to ask your advice about astrophotography gear within a specific budget (about 200 quid). I'm asking about the telescope, already have the camera (a Nikon D3100), just got my T-Ring delivered today, still waiting next week for the T-Adapter and a timer remote control.

For the moment I have a Celestron Astromaster 70az, but thinking of replacing it pretty soon with a more "powerful" one (who knows, maybe I get lucky enough to get some decent DSO photos).

With the infos I found on the forum I was thinking maybe "Sky-Watcher Explorer-130M (EQ2) Motorised Newtonian Reflector Telescope" (http://www.wexphotog...glebase#details) would be a good choice?

Or if you guys have other ideas, any advice is more than welcome.

Cheers,

George

[lost]

Well, in the meantime I've made up my mind and with the budget I got at my disposal (hehe, some extra hours at work) it's gonna be a Skywatcher Explorer 130M (motorised) with an EQ2 mount, just ordered it last night. I know maybe not the best choice but I wanted one with a motor drive for taking some pictures with the DSLR. Of course, hoping to get a bigger/better one in one year or so

Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for clear skies.

[hemihaggis1]

hi and welcome , im sure you will have some reults with the scope and mount , i too have a d3100 , the only problem i find is its hard to get a good focus ,as it does not have live view , now if you find the extra pennies to get hold of a motorised eq3 ,it would be much more capable for astrophotography as its much more stable than an eq2 ,and can carry a small scope and a camera

[ollypenrice]

Have a go but with the budget you have it will not be possible to produce images such as you see on the Imaging section of the forum. The problem is not the telescope, it's the mount. This needs to track accurately for several minutes, ideally with an autoguider. The standard advice is HEQ5 minimum but some make a good start in imaging with the EQ3. That really is the minimum.

You would be far better off starting with the camera and lens on the accurately aligned mount. Short focal lengths don't need such accurate tracking and long focal lengths can be very tricky to guide even on some multi thousand pound mounts. You can get good results with camera lenses. This was with a Samyang 85mm. lens, not a telescope.

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Photography/Widefield-images-including/i-2dPLFNr/0/X3/ORION-V6-X3.jpg

Olly

[lost]

@hemihaggis1 What do you mean, the D3100 does have a liveview, I use it to get a better focus all the time when I mount it to the telescope: http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/D3100/D3100LIVEVIEW.HTM

@ollypenrice Yeah, I know, I don't even begin to dream that I'll get the images as the ones in the Imaging section. Well, not yet at least For the moment, it is a step forward from my current 70mm with no eq mount whatsoever. One step at the time. I'm gonna start saving money from the moment the new one gets delivered, at some point I have to get a better one. Most of it I'd love to get some photos of our neighbours (Jupiter, Mars, etc), any DSO (if any) would be a massive bonus of course but as I said - don't get my hopes that high for now.

Thanks for your answers guys.

Cheers, George

[bigbox]

hi and welcome , im sure you will have some reults with the scope and mount , i too have a d3100 , the only problem i find is its hard to get a good focus ,as it does not have live view , now if you find the extra pennies to get hold of a motorised eq3 ,it would be much more capable for astrophotography as its much more stable than an eq2 ,and can carry a small scope and a camera

Hi there & welcome to SGL.... i too have the d3100 & it certainly does have live view unless my mind is playing tricks on me lol... As Olly also says the bare miminum you require mount wise is the EQ3-2 with at least an R.A motor which is what i currently also have with an SW150p on board... As im getting into AP i was in Wh Smiths friday & sky at night have brought out a 116 page mag, the complete guide to astro photography (£7.99), which details everything from basic pics of constellations to more complex DSO stuff. Also worth getting your mits on is Making every Photon Count by steve richards Steppenwolf here on SGL, worth every penny i may add...

Clear skies & good luck with your new scope when it arrives..

[sgazer]

with your budget and setup, I would try some wide field images first with a Nikon kit lens (assuming you have one). Nice, easy and forgiving with regards to tracking and polar alignment and the EQ2 will cope well with the light weight.

A 'powerful' scope/lens can mean 2 thing with imaging; high magnification (ie long focal length) or high brightness (ie. fast focal ratio, like f5 or less). The focal length, as with a camera lens, just determines what fits in the frame. Wide vistas of the milky way can be just as impressive as a tiny nebula. So it depends on what you want to image and the size of the object. The most important thing, to cut down exposure times and reduce the chance of issues occuring during exposure (clouds, planes, vibration, tracking etc) is focal ratio, the faster the better. eg. a tiny 50mm f1.8 camera lens will be 7.7 times brighter that a 250mm f5 scope. Of course, it will be very wide angle in comparison, but very easy to track and image with. You would easily be able to get 3 minutes exposure with a 50mm lens on your mount, compared with maybe 30s-1min with the scope. Even a 200mm zoom would be good. I'd give that a try first.

[sgazer]

ps, don't forget you can significantly crop the image from the latest cameras as they are very high megapixel, 18MP (ie. you may be zoomed out to 10% to display the whole image on the screen, you can zoom right in to 100% if need be, effectively turning a 50mm lens into a 500mm lens in this example).

[lost]

Thanks for the advices sgazer, I will definitely consider that, for sure.

[ronaldo999]

I would agree some widefield work would be best to start with, you can experiment with settings and things easily. As mentioned the mount is the real sticking point i would imaging a CG5 mount would be the minimum requirement to get good images.

[lost]

Hi all,

My new Skywatcher was finally delivered yesterday. After about 3 hours of reading the manual and figure out how to mount it and use, learning how to align it and stuff, I finally was able to take it out in the backyard and do a little Moon-watching, just for testing, and it was absolutely fantastic! Really thrilled about it, just waiting for some really nice clear nights to try the motor too

Anyway, the attached picture is what came out of last night (gotta learn how to focus better, I know)