Opinion on magnification for SW200PDS

[RSM]

Hi, does anyone have any experience of using Barlows and Televue Powermates with a skywatcher 200PDS for planetary imaging. I've been imaging DSOs with no magnification but after my first attempt at Jupiter (small disc with a couple of darker bands) I clearly need some magnification to help me. I use a Canon DSLR at prime focus and from what I've read the Powermate 4x 2" appears to be the favoured option. I understand that any magnification will dim the image somewhat. Also am I right in assuming that if I go for the Powermate I'll need an(other!) adaptor to connect my camera to it rather than the standard T ring and 2"adaptor I currently use.

Thanks for any help and advice you can offer. 

Richard

[Chipela]

I went through exactly the same thinking, I was about to build a setup using SW150PDS + Televue 4x PM + Canon EOS body.

The problem seems to be how to record 1:1 video which is essential in planetary imaging. Full view recording on Canon EOS doesn't capture all individual pixels but downsamples the image quite badly. A better solution would be to enable liveview, zoom it to 5x/10x and record the liveview image via USB cable using Backyard EOS or similar application. The resulting video should be 1:1 containing a central crop of the EOS sensor output.

I strongly considered this option but had suspicions that the camera or recording software are not necessarily well optimized for planetary imaging. Televue's 4x PM is also quite expensive and not so versatile in other uses.

I ended up buying Televue 3x Barlow, 35 mm extension tube and a special planetary camera ZWO ASI120MC with approximately the same money that 4x PM + Canon EOS adapter would have costed to me. They have already given me very good results. The capture application (freecapture) has all needed planetary imaging related settings and the 3x Barlow is also useful with my eyepiece collection to fill some gaps. So all in all I'm very happy with the purchase.

Any way you go, the T ring and 2" adapter should be ok because in planetary imaging, only the central area of the frame is interesting and the clear aperture of T ring is more than enough for that.

[RSM]

On 24 March 2016 at 12:56, Chipela said:

I went through exactly the same thinking, I was about to build a setup using SW150PDS + Televue 4x PM + Canon EOS body.

The problem seems to be how to record 1:1 video which is essential in planetary imaging. Full view recording on Canon EOS doesn't capture all individual pixels but downsamples the image quite badly. A better solution would be to enable liveview, zoom it to 5x/10x and record the liveview image via USB cable using Backyard EOS or similar application. The resulting video should be 1:1 containing a central crop of the EOS sensor output.

I strongly considered this option but had suspicions that the camera or recording software are not necessarily well optimized for planetary imaging. Televue's 4x PM is also quite expensive and not so versatile in other uses.

I ended up buying Televue 3x Barlow, 35 mm extension tube and a special planetary camera ZWO ASI120MC with approximately the same money that 4x PM + Canon EOS adapter would have costed to me. They have already given me very good results. The capture application (freecapture) has all needed planetary imaging related settings and the 3x Barlow is also useful with my eyepiece collection to fill some gaps. So all in all I'm very happy with the purchase.

Any way you go, the T ring and 2" adapter should be ok because in planetary imaging, only the central area of the frame is interesting and the clear aperture of T ring is more than enough for that.

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like I may need to dig out my modified web cam and start to look at that versus the canon.