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Hi from Lymington in Hampshire UK

bruce hawsker

By bruce hawsker
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bruce hawsker

bruce hawsker

Posted
Posted

Hello everyone,

I am an amateur photographer who is now in a position to enjoy his youthful hobby of astronomy which has been neglected for 30+ years!

I am considering purchasing a second hand Celestron Edge HD 11" OTA and pairing it with a Hyperstar to turn it into a flexible astro camera which I can also view through. I am considering buying one of two mountings: the iOptron CEM60 or the Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6GT. Any advice on this choice would be much appreciated.

I understand I may need to purchase an advanced high precision focuser.

I am hoping to short circuit the expense, learning curve and hassle of auto guiding - am I dreaming that the above short exposure camera system would work for me?

I intend to use a cheap Canon DSLR bought for this purpose, (as well as holiday snaps!). I expect to use Backyard EOS as my controller but have no experience of this. I am assuming the laptop carries out the intervalometer role? Any particular EOS should I aim for - looking at second hand market for new models barely used....

I have loads of experience of photography and am relatively happy with stacking and using Photoshop. My intent is to stack many short exposures (probably no more than 15 seconds??) to avoid an auto guiding solution.

I am also intrigued by video astronomy which seems to have fallen in cost very sharply recently and wonder whether a DSO-1 by Astra Video Systems might add to the fun.

I will be taking the kit out to a New Forest car park in the back of my Disco so weight and ease of set up are a consideration. As is budget (if my other half ever finds out! - she is joining a rambling club which seems to require less outlay!!).

Thank you for any advice.

Bruce

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damnut

damnut

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Hi Bruce,

Warm welcome to SGL. Hope you enjoy the forums, Grand bit of Hampshire that you live in, easy access to the solent!

Wow, nothing like jumping in with both feet. Normally would advise to get a book called 'making every photon count' this will save you cash in the long run. That is an impressive kit list, I am not an imager so will let others best qualified to answer your main questions.

Don't be fooled, by the time your partner is kitted out with a pair of Haglofs (£300) &  Haglof coat (£600), trousers, rucksack,  .........It will be nagler time!!

Enjoy your journey :grin:

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AdeKing

AdeKing

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Hi Bruce,

Welcome to SGL from Bournemouth, just across the border.

Hope you enjoy your time here and good luck with the imaging.

I'm a keen photographer myself, but have opted for observation only astro as I know how obsessive I would get about imaging, plus "she who must be obeyed" controls the purse strings to keep me in check :embarrassed: so its observational only for me..........but never say never.

Good luck, and enjoy the dark skies of the New Forest.

Adrian

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swag72

swag72

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Hi Bruce and welcome to SGL - Glad that you found us. This is an informative forum for sure.

I started life out as taking normal daytime photographs and thought that I'd have a bash at astro as it can't be that much different! How wrong I was! Anyway, I digress. Before you spend a penny on DSO imaging then please by a copy of the book 'Making Every Photon Count' available from the FLO book section of their site. Read it once.... twice and thrice..... then have a think about what you need and why. If you understand what will work best and why then you are ready to spend some money..... if not, then read it again! :D

In the world of astro imaging there are ways to make an extremely difficult hobby just that little bit easier - That way is to stick with a short focal length refractor (such as an ED80) and a good starter mount such as an HEQ5 (but bigger is fine!) That way you will have a chance of collecting data and decent data at that. If you have a long focal length scope then you are going to be making things very difficult indeed.

Imaging is all about LONG exposure, whether we like it or not guiding is crucial to this. one 30 minute sub for example is going to show more detail than 30x1 minute stacked subs.

Have a look in the imaging section - Be realistic about what you want to achieve. People generally post their kit with their images so you have a chance of seeing what kit performs and how.

Also, be aware that data capture is probably less than 20% of the process in my opinion. The fun starts with processing - I can certainly spend in excess of 10 hours processing just one image. I thought I'd add that as I think that the time after data capture can be ignored.

I hope that helps.

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