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New Member from Manchester

Gaz85

By Gaz85
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Gaz85

Gaz85

Posted
Posted

Hi,

I'm from Gaz from Manchester.

I'm fairly new to stargazing bought my first telescope in summer 2011 a Celestron astromaster 130eq and followed that up with a Konus 900m in December.

I went up to Todmorden Astronomy Centre earlier this year and was impressed with the setup there, got to see Mars briefly although it was very foggy :(

Currently looking into Astrophotography options and to join a nearby Astronomical Society.

Thanks

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Velvet

Velvet

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Posted

Hi Gaz,

considering the dark side, hope you have deep pockets or a good credit card mate. You will need them.

Suggest book "make every photon count". Also best advice is get the best mount you can possibly afford.

NEQ6 is great or if not HEQ 5 minimum.

Welcome to the asylum LOL

Velvet

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JamesM

JamesM

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Hi Gaz and welcome to the forum. Agree with the recommendation from velvet above regarding Steve Richards' "Making Every Photon Count" (FLO £19.95) and is an essential part of your research as to what kit to get and why you need it. Imaging can be split into broadly three camps. The first is 'widefield' and involves taking an image of the night sky from a fixed mount/tripod and which attempts to provide a context for the night sky by typically including some terrestrial detail. Next up is imaging solar system objects (moon & planets) and is by far the cheapest route into imaging. It involves using a webcam attached to almost any scope in order to take a lot of exposures in a short period of time, selecting the best 'frames' and stacking them on top of each other to construct a final composite image with hopefully plenty of detail. At this level you also start to get used to the idea not just of collecting the necessary data but also the 'joy' of processing it which istself can make a big contribution to final image. Lastly but by no means least is imaging deep sky objects (DSO) such as galaxies and nebulae and for this subject area, the kit list starts with an accurate mount. DSO's are very faint and require you to track them accurately whilst the data is being gathered in sufficient quantities to provide you with the enough material to produce your final image. In my opinion the minimum is a HEQ5 and has the added advantage of allowing you to control the mount's tracking via an additional scope that is trained on a nearby start to the target - this is known as 'autoguiding'. That is not to say that accurate tracking cannot be achieved using cheaper mounts but consistency is the key to good images, which in turn helps to promote imaging as a fun activity rather one that generates a lot of frustration. A quick glance though the imaging section and in particular members' kit lists in their signatures, will confirm what kit generally has been found to work best in the longer term. Hope that helps.

Clear skies and enjoy the forum

James

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