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Hello from Belgium


Bridgers

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Hi there,

I am a English guy living in Belgium and just getting back into astronomy. 24 years ago I passed a GCSE in astronomy and used to own a Carl Zeiss Jena Telementor Refractor. Unfortunately life events meant I had to sell this a number of years ago.

I have recently sold my camera equipment to purchase a telescope, although I am keeping one D300 body for AP. My main interest is deep sky objects.

I have read many things about Cannon vs Nikon and AP. But at my level I am sure the limiting factor will be my skill level. Also it seems that D300s can take decent pictures. Although I have done a lot of paid wedding photography and I am happy with editing and camera technique, so no need for me to buy a new body.

I purchased Every Photon Counts and most likely my telescope choice will be the SW ED80 on a HEQ5 Pro mount. Apart from the obvious T adapter for the camera mounting, what other must have purchases do I need to get me started?

Looking forward to eventually posting my first images.

Bridgers

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Hi Bridgers, and welcome to SGL.

I hope you get into the AP properly, it initially looks like a steep learning curve but it's made easier if you have friends who can help you out and ideally a local observatory club where they always encourage/help beginners. You're going down the DSLR route, but at some stage consider a CCD instead, they are more sensitive & suitable also for narrowband imaging. A dew heater would be something that I would definitely advise you buying since you'll lose nights/data otherwise with dew'ed up optics. You'll also need a filter wheel and some filters.

I also lived & worked in Belgium for a few years recently, a place called Schilde...

Martin

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Welcome to the SGL.

Used to live on the Dutch/Belgium border, so know alot about the country...

We seem to be having a lot of people here with some connection to Belgium lol :D

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Hi mate and welcome,

You've pretty much got all you need to get started (maybe a lead or two if you want to use your laptop). something thats cheap (or free if you're any good at blue peter projects) is a bahtinov mask to assist with focusing (quite essential really). Eventually, with a setup like that, it would be criminal not to get a guide scope and guide camera to allow longer exposures however it's not essential to get started. Oh yeah, and of course some descent skies.

Hope this helps

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Hi Bridgers and welcome to the forum :)

I lived 3yrs in Herentals as a kid - army married quarters. Couldn't believe the house is still there when I zoomed in on google satellite view a few weeks ago. Thought it would have been flattened and redeveloped by now - it was some 50yrs ago lol.

You will deffo find it useful to have a remote shutter control for your camera - pressing buttons just vibrates the whole setup. A bahtinov mask as stated above - and maybe consider motorised focus control device - there's plenty around. Depending on your local conditions - dew control will be an issue. You'll need a dew band round the objective lens for both imaging scope and guide scope (if you have one) and probably the finder scope too - and a dew controller to plug them all into.

Hope that helps :)

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