Astrophotography with a Dobsonian Telescope

[RohunA]

Hello!

This is my first post in a year since my initial post after joining this community. I look forward to posting and contributing more, as well as getting to know some other astronomy enthusiasts!

A little bit of background: I got into astronomy during December of 2012. Today, I am the owner of a pair of Celestron 15x70 binos, as well as an Orion xt8i Dobsonian. I own multiple eyepieces, including an 8-24mm zoom eyepiece, and a variety of filters, including a 13% transmission moon filter, an ultra block narrowband filter, and a set of color filters. The only major thing I consider to still be missing from my 'arsenal' is a way of taking astrophotographs, which leads me to the purpose of today's post.

I have been looking into astrophotography for some time now, and as I have a Dobsonian, the only practical type of astrophotography I can engage in (from my understanding) is Solar System Imaging. I am looking at different Solar System imagers which come with software allowing me to stack multiple frames. I emphasize that I do not have a tracking mount, or the budget/supplies to build one. I have been particularly looking at the Orion StarShoot Camera 4, the Orion StarShoot 5 MP Camera, and the Orion StarShoot USB Camera. I am wondering why the prices are so drastically different, seeing as they all appear to perform similar tasks. I'd love if someone could give me a rundown of the pros/cons of each of these cameras, or any other useful information regarding them. In addition, if there are any similar cameras that you have had a good experience with from other companies , I'd love to check them out as well!

Lastly, I'd like to know if there are any other methods with which I can take astrophotos. Keep in mind that they must be applicable to an instrument without tracking capabilities. Thank you guys for all the help! I hope to get more into the community over the next couple of months!

Clear Skies-

Rohun

[denodan]

Untrue. Got a Revolution imager and got these. They were taken from.  The 7" monitor screen. You will need a goto dob, but deep sky photos are possible with a goto dob. But limited exposure due to field rotation. Some have taken deepsky stuff with tracking dobs as the revolution imager is a great setup to get going. These 2 are from my goto dob and first attempts

[denodan]

The above is m4. Below just the Centre of the milky way and was my first ever.

[RohunA]

Nice! But like I said, my scope doesn't have tracking and I need an astrophotography solution and camera.

[happy-kat]

If you have a laptop then you could have a go at imaging with any old webcam you might have knocking around. You will need to make a few modifications to the webcam but shouldn't cost you anything.

Then you could try imaging the Moon, Jupiter, Mars using SharpCap. Then registax to process the video and Gimp the final image. All free.

[RohunA]

5 hours ago, happy-kat said:

If you have a laptop then you could have a go at imaging with any old webcam you might have knocking around. You will need to make a few modifications to the webcam but shouldn't cost you anything.

Then you could try imaging the Moon, Jupiter, Mars using SharpCap. Then registax to process the video and Gimp the final image. All free.

That's a great idea, but would I need a very good quality webcam? Because I have an old one but I'm not sure hat it can deliver good views. In addition, how do I modify it?

[happy-kat]

You already have it so worth a go on the Moon.

You need to remove the lens and nip any leds that might light up.

Then make a 1.25 nose cone use an old 35mm film canister or a bit of plastic plumbing pipe and attach it to the webcam. This will hold the webcam in the focuser.

There are many posts on modding a webcam on here.

Link here

[Cornelius Varley]

On 21/07/2016 at 06:46, RohunA said:

I have been particularly looking at the Orion StarShoot Camera 4, the Orion StarShoot 5 MP Camera, and the Orion StarShoot USB Camera. I am wondering why the prices are so drastically different, seeing as they all appear to perform similar tasks. I'd love if someone could give me a rundown of the pros/cons of each of these cameras, or any other useful information regarding them. In addition, if there are any similar cameras that you have had a good experience with from other companies , I'd love to check them out as well!

 

The difference in prices is due to the specifications of the cameras. The cheapest Orion USB camera has a resolution of 0.3mp compared to the resolutions of the Starshoot IV (1.3mp) and the Orion Starshoot 5mp (5mp). Also take a look at the lunar/planetary imaging cameras from QHYCCD and ZW Optics

[RohunA]

43 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

You already have it so worth a go on the Moon.

You need to remove the lens and nip any leds that might light up.

Then make a 1.25 nose cone use an old 35mm film canister or a bit of plastic plumbing pipe and attach it to the webcam. This will hold the webcam in the focuser.

There are many posts on modding a webcam on here.

Link here

 

Thank you so much! I will try this out but my webcam seems pretty useless right now.

[RohunA]

27 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

The difference in prices is due to the specifications of the cameras. The cheapest Orion USB camera has a resolution of 0.3mp compared to the resolutions of the Starshoot IV (1.3mp) and the Orion Starshoot 5mp (5mp). Also take a look at the lunar/planetary imaging cameras from QHYCCD and ZW Optics

 

Do you think that the extra 3.7 mp in the StarShoot 5 is worth the extra $90? Will 1.3 mp be sufficient if I'm on a budget? Thanks!