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deep sky imaging


stargazerkelly

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hi guys just wondered what equipment i would need for imaging deep sky objects.

i have some money put buy if i would need to buy any other equipment needed.

would be great for someone who knows about this to give me some advice keen

to start snapping away .

thanks

stargazerkelly

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If you want to start AP, specifically DSO's then do yourself a big favour and buy the book 'Making Every Photon Count' that you can find in the book section of the FLO website. That is the best £20 you will spend and will tell you in very easy terms everything you will need and why.

If you have no understanding about a mount and tracking and why you'll need it, then this book is an excellent place to start. You will finish reading it and be a master!!!

The mount though is THE most important part of your setup for AP. If you have a weakish mount, then you will struggle to get the long exposures needed to get the detail. The general feeling is that the minimum mount for AP is an HEQ5, although it can be done with a lesser mount. If you are just starting up though you will benefit from having decent equipment from the off. Added to that an ED80 refractor and of course a camera and you will have the very beginnings of an AP setup. Be aware though that it is not cheap and also, the time that you will spend on post processing your data can take many hours as well as software, if you want the best can again run into hundreds of ££'s. You can get stuff for processing for free (ie Gimp).

Read the book, it will make it all clearer!!

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Good answer from Sara. Go for Steve's book first and don't spend a penny till you've read it thoroughly. Also, obtain precisely no information whatever from manufacturers' websites or adverts. They can be very optimistic bordering on fraudulent. Come here for advice.

Order of importance in my view is Mount-Camera-Optics. Budget new, from £1,500 up to... well, the six million euros my neighbour Marc Bretton conjured out of the French government for his new baby!!!

Olly

http://ollypenrice.s...17717&k=XPG9S7S

PS, by the way, there is no snapping in DS imaging! The images in the link above have between 6 and 90 hours of exposure time. :BangHead:

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+1 to the advice from the experts above. I knew precisely nothing about AP six months ago (not much better now... :) ) Buy the book and listen and post here for advice from the experts. There is a lot to learn and our UK weather does not help at all.

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Stargazerkelly

Whilst I am in full agreement with everything said above you don't have to spend a lot of money to get some basic shots of the stars - you can use long exposure shots with any digital camera if you set it on a tripod and use the self timer to stop the vibration caused by pressing the button ruining your shots before you start.

Alternatively see some pictures I took recently using a Charity shop lens which I bought for £10 on a DMK21 camera ( a glorified webcam) to take some pictures of the Pleiades and the Sword of Orion

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/169875-a-few-shots-with-a-charity-shop-lens/

Once you have the images you can stack them in Deep Sky Stacker which makes a lot of difference to the quality and detail

For processing you can initially use whatever graphics programme comes with you computer.

Once your on the slippery slope, however, you will get hooked and start spending ...........

Clear Skies

Don

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