Straight to CCD?

[turbohobbit]

I'm interested in astrophotography but very very new to it. I have a DSLR (Nikon D80) with a t-adaptor which I connect to my Sky-watcher Explorer 150p but I'm very tempted to make the jump straight to a CCD camera. I live in suburban Epsom, so an area of considerable light pollution (although I can head for the hills and dark(er) sites fairly quickly. My main motivators for this jump are apparent ease / straightforwardness of CCD astrophotography over anything else, and the lower time constraints given I have an impatient young family to crowbar into my astronomy and astrophotography interests!

1) Is it worth the jump? 

2) Monochrome or OSC CCD? I understand that OSC is a bit easier to handle but Monochrome is better for light-polluted areas?

3) Which camera? I could probably stretch to £800, or maybe a nudge over a grand if I factor in an EQ5 with Go-To

4) Any other considerations?

Thanks all!

[riklaunim]

For long exposure imaging you will also need a guiding setup, which costs a bit. I you don't know if you want to go into DS astrophotography try DS imaging with a lens first - DSLR + lens or later dedicated camera + a lens on a EQ5 mount. No telescope or guiding. Just win a light pollution filter.

[JR1987]

Yea, Look into guiding first, if you havent already got that going.

Also with a budget of around £1k your looking at quite a small sensor on your ccd, that combined with your focal length of the 150p is going to be a very small field of view. Which will mean for alot of nebula you will have to construct mosaics, which will probably be counter productive to your short time contstraints. Decent CCDs arent cheap by any stretch of the imagination. 

There is nothing wrong with DSLR imaging. Some of the shots people take are amazing and alot are quite happy using just DSLR. 

P.s if your even thinking about ccd imaging...theres no way you should be doing it on an EQ5. Mount is the most important part of an imaging set up. Make sure that is a very large chunk of your budget

[glowingturnip]

i started using my old D80 and I have to admit it's not really up to the job - very noisy and ferocious amp-glow.  I moved to a modded Canon 1100D dslr which is muuuch better, though probably not as good as a ccd

[ollypenrice]

Setting budget aside for a sec (we love doing that on SGL!!) I'm going to argue that going straight into monochrome CCD with filters is a perfectly good thing to do. I was advised to do this myself ten years ago by Ian King and I was glad I did as he said. I now give the same advice. A while back a guest told me that he felt the time he'd initially spent with a DSLR, on the assumption that this is how you 'should' begin, was a blind alley and a waste of time. So, looking purely at the qustion of,' Going straight into CCD or starting with DSLR?' I would say go with mono CCD. If you suffer from LP then narrowband imaging will bring you joy and success. Is OSC easier? I've done both and I don't think it is. In fact OSC can be tricky to process and it's a little slower ovrall than mono.

Right, bringing the sad subject of budget back into the story it's a plain fact that CCD is expensive. You might find an Atik 16HR or 314L for around £500. Manual wheels are cheap second hand and budget filters will work well for starters.

But don't invest this kind of money till you have a good mount and autoguiding. For me the minimum would be HEQ5. The 'H' is important.

Olly

[turbohobbit]

Thanks folks you've given me a lot to think on! I'll consider budget first and go from there. If I can free upa  couple of G then I'll have a look at CCG, otherwise I'll play around with my DSLR, although as Glowingturnip says so for I've been struggling with settings (when coupled to my scope via t-ring) to get decent images. I'm not sure the camera is all that. Anyway, we'll see. I'll try and get a copy of Making Every Photon Count too, as that seems to be the starting point of choice for most here!

[Pompey Monkey]

I'll second what Olly and Turnip said. You can get very good images with a DSLR, but it will take hours and hours of exposures and is best suited to the brighter targets (M31, M45, M42 etc).

A dedicated CCD, on the other hand, will open up a whole universe for you. Unfortunately, it could also open up a wormhole in your wallet...

I used a DSLR for a few months while I got my hand in, but very quickly became disillusioned with the NOISE and lack of dynamic range. Astro objects are very faint, an dynamic range is you best friend when trying to tease out the subtleties.

The main advantage of a mono CCD is, the ability to do narrowband imaging, allowing you to continue collecting photons when DSLRs or OSC cameras will flounder. Case in point: I am currently doing 900 second subs of the Horsehead in Ha under a full Moon. See the attached for a single 900 second sub

To be realistic, if you want to try it out, a second hand HEQ5 and a small 'scope and DSLR or even just a DSLR and lens will do you proud. From there you will find out if you want to continue. The biggest advantage of second hand is the relatively small hit to your bank balance if you decide it isn't for you and subsequently sell on!  However, if you really catch the bug, a set-point cooled CCD is absolutely the way to go.

And yes, the "H" in HEQ5 is important.

Give it a go!

[iwols]

so what is the equivalent or better  of say  a nikon d750 in terms of ccd please

[wxsatuser]

Might be better to get a more modern dslr, they are not as bad as some make out.
A lot of misinformation is put about, but the QE and noise is far superior to older cameras, if you pick the right one.
Something like a Canon 6D or 7Dmk2 will eat photons for breakfast and in the case of the 6D does'nt need modding to see the red stuff.

You can get both these cameras secondhand, at great prices, and you have the bonus of using them for daylight.

 

[pete_l]

The thing about astrophotography is the time required to process the stack of images after you've taken them.

If you are impatient (or have external time pressures) I would suggest that using your DSLR with a fast lens is a good place to start. Leave the 'scope and the CCD for the time being. Get  a lens in the 200mm focal length range (i.e. anything between 100 and 300mm). Put this on a mount, get a remote control for your camera or a cable to a computer / laptop and a control program for your Nikon and start with that.

OK, you'll probably be limited to 30second exposures due to not using a guided set up, but with a fast lens and urban levels of light pollution that might not be such a limit. Once you've got a decent polar alignment have a go at some of the brighter targets: M42, M31, M33, M51,M101  and see what you can come up with.

 

Like I say, once you've got some data, that's when the fun begins.

[glowingturnip]

7 hours ago, wxsatuser said:

Might be better to get a more modern dslr, they are not as bad as some make out.
A lot of misinformation is put about, but the QE and noise is far superior to older cameras, if you pick the right one.
Something like a Canon 6D or 7Dmk2 will eat photons for breakfast and in the case of the 6D does'nt need modding to see the red stuff.

You can get both these cameras secondhand, at great prices, and you have the bonus of using them for daylight.

 

indeed - ppl are getting great things from a modded Canon 1100d dslr, see this thread -

 

 

[ollypenrice]

12 hours ago, iwols said:

so what is the equivalent or better  of say  a nikon d750 in terms of ccd please

By this I take it that you mean an equivalent quality CCD camera? It doesn't really work like that.

CCD cameras are pretty simple things in that they don't have any 'features' or accessories. They just consist of a cooled CCD chip in a box and everything else is done by the capture software.

How do they vary? Most importantly in terms of chip size. Bigger chips are a lot more expensive and, beyond a certain size, need larger, more costly filters, too. Chip quality comes into it as well, with Sony making better chips than Kodak (to use the old name) but Sony only make smaller sizes. For me the makes that stand out in terms of value are Atik, Moravian and QSI but people won't alll agree on this.

In the DSLR world thre are two chip sizes. In CCD there are dozens.

Olly