Hi From Tasmania, Australia

[VizBiz]

Hi All,

I am in Tasmania, Australia and I am just setting up.

I have bought my friends near new Meade LX90 (SC) and also purchased the mounts to get my nikon D800 onto the scope.

This is my first scope, and I hope to get into the photo side of things.

Anyone running this setup for photography, it would be great to get some setup info to send me in the right direction.

Cheers

[farunj]

Hi and welcome to SGL! I don't know much about that setup, but people around here will know!

[DirkSteele]

Hi and welcome to the SGL.

I do not have that scope, but I can tell you a few things about using it for astrophotgraphy. I assume the scope is still mounted in the Alt Az orientation (i.e the forks point straight up), rather than being mounted on a wedge so the scope is polar aligned? Unfortunately this will limit the length of exposures you can achieve due to something known as "field rotation." This manifests because a scope mounted in Alt Az, requires 2 axis of motion to track an object across the sky, rather than one as a polar aligned scope would. This causes the field of view to rotate around the central point which blurs out the fine detail you want to capture. There is software that can de-rotate the frame which might be something to investigate as not everyone is complimentary about using a wedge to polar align these fork mounted scopes.

The second issue is the focal length, and focal ratio. The scope is f/10 and has a focal length in excess of 2 metres. This means that not only will longer exposures be required than with a faster scope, but the long focal length will mean you need very accurate tracking (the longer the focal length, the more accurate the tracking needs to be). One thing you can do is purchase a f/6.3 focal reducer which screws onto the back of the scope and will reduce the scope to a more manageable f/6.3, though the focal length will still be a pretty long 1.28 metres.

This might all sound not so good, but the aperture and focal length of the scope will make it a fine planetary and lunar imaging scope. Exposures for these kind of objects are, by comparison to deep sky photography, very short, so field rotation is not a problem, and the long focal length will give you good image scale. However (there is always another however), DSLRs are not ideal for this purpose, you would be much better off using either a webcam or dedicated planetary imaging camera.

If you are serious about pursuing astrophotography further, I would seriously consider purchasing the book "Making Every Photon Count" (written by an SGL member) as it will lay out all the challenges you face (and how to over come them) and allow you to correctly select and purchase equipment that will see you produce good results. http://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

Good luck and clear skies,

[Swedeman2013]

Hello and welcome from Canada!