My goals, but which kit?

[Bonnylad]

Hi, all.

I'm posting this as a package question to seek an initial package answer: in due course I'll break up the topics as warranted into the respective forums.

1. Night skylines, city lights (e.g. Hong Kong), lit city panoramas, land and seascapes et. al., have always mesmerised me, and I'd like to capture that in photos - with the night sky above as appropriate (and in due course to painting them.)

2. I fancy a (Canon) DSLR, but would wish to avoid any mods (red hue?) because of potential daytime use. Feasible? And (second-hand) body only with third party cheaper-but-as-good lenses.

3. I understand that multiple subs for a widefield sky shot (say to bring out the Milky Way) do not require accurate tracking as stacking software will align the frames based on identified stars? Forrest Tanaka vid - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0JSTF8SGi4

4. Therefore, will an EQ mount without motors double for a DSLR as above (without being too heavy for portability), and, say, a 6" Newt? I'm trying to avoid tracking motors/electronics in favour of one axis manual tracking as required a. to put those funds into, say, better eye-pieces, and b. with a view to hands-on learning the sky. Same reason for no GO-TO at this time.

5. My initial thoughts are towards widefield night, lunar (and perhaps solar later), DSOs when I'm more accomplished with the camera and processing, and planetary bringing up the rear.

Not touched any equipment yet, but my local astro group have an obs. evening later in September. I'm trying to garner any and all advice which'll help me appreciate the obs. night, and at least be in a position to discuss matters, albeit simply. Santa is already asking questions...

In summary, which camera, mount, scope etc., may form an initial and reasonable starter package based on (5) above? I'm pretty flush as my poliss pension has just gone up 50p/month... OK, say £1000 all in without startling SWMBO.

Finally, Barbados in January beckons with a tripod (even a monopod?) and camera...

Thanks ever so much for your help.

Cheers.

[ronin]

Standard canon should be between OK and reasonable. The mod is to allow more of the Ha wavelength through, wide field shots like the milky way are sort of minimal in this, small patches around it. There is some but lots more of the "normal" white stuff.

For used check out London Camera Exchange, may be one somewhere around you but lots of places sell camera bodies. For a lens canon is OK also Tamron and Sigma. I picked up a nice Sigma 70-300 APO in Norwich LCE for £60. Stick to a max of around 120mm - 150mm and likely not that a top foval length of 80mm is likely better.

Stacking software will stack sort of slightly moved images but don't push your luck. At some stage it will fail. Basically a lot safer with motors as at some time you will pass the limit. The truth is that for imaging you really need tracking and preferably goto. Consider archery as on the Olympics, you will hit the target without a sight but you will hit it a lot more accurately and more often with one. For imaging there is a sort of minimum requirement, equitorial and tracking are two. Equitorial and goto is more realistic. Without those you are making life diffivult for yourself.

Lunar is easy, actually you can just point a DSLR and lens at it with spot metering and you will get something reasonale. Better if you set it manually as you have more control over it all. But this depends on knowing what the different setting do to the final image. If you are familiar with an old Zenit E or B film camera you have a chance. Things like a smaller aperture means less light, so longer exposure, it also means greater depth of field and depth of focus. They all come into play.

Planets are a webcam and likely as different scope = Mak/SCT. So not the DSLR. One other aspect to take into account is that a Canon (or other) DSLR can manage astrophotography but that was not what it is designed for. There are and will be limits to what it can do. One serious imager cut off a question by answering that the persons problem was that a DSLR was for taking holiday snaps not astrophotography. Blunt but worth remembering at times.

Do not go looking at a good visual scope then think it will "just" do for AP as well. They do not.

Also just pointing a DSLR at the right bit of sky is not easy you cannot sight along the lens as the body is in the way, makes life difficult.

Finally a monopod I cannot see being much use for long exposures, it will swing around too much I would have thought. They are for your holiday snaps at 1/200 second not the sky at 20 seconds.

Visit the club and see everything, ignore a lot of "common wisdom" I recall being told one thing yet at a local clubs open evening it was totally different. Still hits me as amusing.

[Bonnylad]

Many thanks, ronin. Taken on board.

[Putaendo Patrick]

I'm not certain whether the idea is to take night photos which show the sky or venture more specifically into astrophotography with a telescope.

There are however some small mounts which can be put on a solid photographic tripod and will allow you to track your camera. For example: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-star-adventurer/skywatcher-star-adventurer-astronomy-bundle.html

 

[Bonnylad]

9 hours ago, Putaendo Patrick said:

I'm not certain whether the idea is to take night photos which show the sky or venture more specifically into astrophotography with a telescope.

 

Thanks for the link. I'm looking at doing both, initially wideview and close-up lunar. A scope that'll mount a camera, and which can be used for DSOs in due course as photography proficiency grows. But a scope to study the sky regardless.

If a rethink is required to narrow the avenue, no problem. I'm sure things will be clearer at the obs. night.

Cheers

[billyharris72]

Lots of good advice above. A couple of thoughts come to mind.

1) For wide angle shots, with a decent prime lens (so you can shoot at F2 or so) you can get away without an equatorial mount for exposures of several seconds. It's possible to get some okay shots this way, though DSOs will be very limited. As a very rough rule of thumb you can get away with about 400 / focal length in seconds. If your aim is skyscape type shots, with landscape features in too, this might be the best approach. [I've actually imaged M57 like this, using a 300mm zoom, though I would not claim the results were pretty!]

2) An equatorial mount with a right ascension drive will be fine, even unguided, for DSLR astrophotography with a wide angle or short-ish telephoto. On an EQ5 with 300mm I can get 2.5 minute exposures without significant trailing (there is a little if you crop and zoom). For really good images with longer exposures, or with a telescope, you really want to look at guiding, but that can come later. There is a lot to learn (as I'm finding out) and a lot of it comes down to practice and experience. You don't need to buy everytying up front - you'll end up with a ton of expensive kit that you don't really know how to use.

3) You can use primarily visual scopes for AP, but they often won't perform as well. And reflectors often won't work at all due to lack of focuser travel. Skywatcher do a 130mm astrograph reflector at a good price that could be used for both and looks like it would do a decent job (have my eye on one).

4) For planetary, webcam is probably the way to go, though recently I've been playing around wth shooting 1080 video through a DSLR using a Mak and Barlow combination and have found the results to be better than I have achieved with a webcam (though if I'm honest still quite poor - very much a beginner in this field myself).

Billy.

[Bonnylad]

Many thanks, Billy. That's helped a lot. And thanks to all for taking the time to answer. Plenty to muse over.

Cheers

John

[Alan64]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/skywatcher-mounts/skywatcher-eq5-deluxe.html

For predominately imaging... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-130p-ds-ota.html

For predominately visual... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-150p-ds-ota.html

An EQ-5 equatorial is the sweet spot; not too large, nor too small, and the mount can be fitted out with a motor-drive or go-to system in future.