Which Path To Take?

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, MattJenko said:

A £250 DSLR (modded Canon 450d) and a Star Adventurer with a £50 ebay special 50mm lens. 12 x 2 mins, unguided. Others have pushed theirs for bigger durations and longer focal lengths.

Big, wide fields are one thing though, I do like getting up closer with DSOs, so if I had to choose between the 2, I would go DSO and the HEQ5 route, but there is huge mileage out of a DSLR/StarAdventurer - huge mileage.

It would be very hard indeed to beat this image on a budget-based assessment. It also goes a very long way south. Where was it taken, Matt?

Olly

[MattJenko]

10 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

It would be very hard indeed to beat this image on a budget-based assessment. It also goes a very long way south. Where was it taken, Matt?

Olly

Thanks,

This was taken on a holiday in Crete, from the patio outside the villa, so very south indeed. The whole setup was a simple hand luggage affair. I didn't even need the counterweight bar configuration for this either.

Cheers

Matt

[agthomson]

It's the DSO argument I keep coming back to. In order to get anywhere close to a DSO you're looking at 200mm lenses (which I don't really own at present, and are pushing the boundaries of the SA). Before I know it, the "cheap" £400 option is up at £1,500 after replacinbg the SLR and buying the required mounts, and then is limited both in payload and guiding.

The benefit (if you can call it that!) of spending the extra £600 just now is I never have to worry about lenses and can progress from DSLR to either a modded DSLR or a CCD if I need to. There's pros and cons to each set-up. The expensive setup loses the wide-field shots like what Matt posted, but the cheaper option can't get close to the really interesting objects without substantial cropping.

Guess i'll sleep on it.

[wxsatuser]

2 hours ago, agthomson said:

I'll do that when I get home, working away at present.

I'm ~10 miles north of Perth, so not very polluted at all (small village), with pretty unobstructed views out the back with very few nearby lights.

Nice!

[mikeyj1]

Two inputs from me:  

using a small refractor diameter without a goto will give you some difficulties finding the objects you want to photograph... i have found that quite frustrating personally, often the DSO isnt bright enough to see, and then you end up taking minute long photos just to find out if you are looking at the right patch of sky!

On longer telescope tubes, the 'bending moment' is increased, meaning that any small vibrations (such as  a DSLR shutter action) will be amplified, so the mount has to be over-rated to cope with that (so HEQ5 better imho).  I had that problem, and had to upgrade the mount to stop getting blurry photos, even using the shutter release delay on my nikon.

[agthomson]

I haven't had much issues finding objects on my 200p Dob, although I am very realistic about what I want to see, and what I expect to see.

As for "bending moment", I knew my civil engineering degree would come in handy for something! I agree that the mount is most important part.

Off to do some thinking!

[Charic]

From the same book, he suggests that most of his  large objects were caught with an ED80APO and the Skywatcher EQ6/Orion mount is referenced.
Not a million miles away from your plan B.
 

[agthomson]

All,

Many, many thanks for all of your suggestions, advice, experience and links over the last day or so. I think i'm ready to take the plunge on Option C (SW Star Adventurer), for a number of reasons. The main reasons being FoV and time.

Looking at the FoV diagrams on Astronomy Tools, the ED80 and 130PDS aren't too far away from one another, but the 130PDS had a little more bang for your buck so to speak. Although the ~£1,100 cost is acceptable, if I have to replace the camera quite quickly, and need guiding for the kind of targets achievable through the 130PDS the cost soon increases, and has entirely one use. Option C with a 100mm or 270-300mm lens provides a much more pleasing FoV for me, and with very fast lenses, exposure times would be greatly reduced when compared to a 'scope.

As for time, I don't think I would have sufficient time to spend 2-3 hours on a single target, which seems to be quite common for DSOs. 

With Option C I get a tripod that can be used for standard SLR work, and a ~£300 mount that can autoguide if required (although not that well). Payload is substantially lower on this set-up at 5kg, compared to the 11kg on the HEQ5 and 18kg on the NEQ6, but the portability is second to none, and with SLRs I doubt i'd exceed or get close to 5kg.

You could say I should just get the EQ mount for now and use that with my SLR, but after reading comments about portability i'm not sure if i'd bother lugging it around and setting it up every time. I think i'd pressure myself (?) into buying the rest of the kit too quickly in order to make more use out of it, quickly exceeding any sort of planned budget. I guess the Star Adventurer is a gateway into AP, and provides me with a travel set-up right at the start. If all goes well with this set-up then yes, i'll go for a HEQ or NEQ mount in the future, but for £400 you can't really beat the Star Adventurer it seems.

Now to find a suitable tripod...

 

[wornish]

Option A would be my choice a solid mount is the critical element in getting good astro photos, guiding helps take it to the next stage.  I am using it so far without guiding but that will be my next step when the clouds give me a chance.

I did try Option C for a while but my tripod wasn't really up to it and even worse actually trying to find your target without a Go To is not easy so I sold my Star Adventurer and got an AZ-EQ6. Also remember the Star Adventurer only tracks in RA so levelling and Polar alignment become even more critical.

 

[agthomson]

Actually, scrap that!

I think i'll just pick up either an HEQ5 or EQ6 mount as Dave suggested above. Looks like the widely suggested tripod that costs ~£100 isn't actually that sturdy, so if I wanted to do anything serious i'd be looking at closer to £300 for a tripod that can accommodate both the Star Adventurer plus an SLR. It does mean I lose out on a few of the Star Adventurer "features", however.

 

[edit] Tripod found, so sticking with Option C! 

[happy-kat]

If you fit a red dot finder to a flash hotshoe it could help with pointing the camera and the  generous fov of the lens helps fine tune. I picked one up on astroboot.

[Tiny Small]

I know this is a little late in the discussion but I would have to agree with what was said earlier... Go for the best mount you can afford as this will give you flexibility. The EQ6/NEQ6 are ubiquitous in astrophotography and as such, they come up for sale second hand quite frequently.

NEQ6 Pro second hand = £600-700

130 PDS new = £155

50 mm finder guider new ~ £90

ASI 120MM guide cam new = £174

Hitech Astro EQDIR cable new = £30

Total = £1049 to £1149

This would give you a massively over mounted and excellent imaging rig to use with your DSLR or any future CCD. With this, You could mount a CCD AND a DSLR and lens for ultra wide field and have excellent guiding.

[agthomson]

Yeah, my plan is to move to NEQ6 mount, skipping out the HEQ5, but going via the Star Adventurer. From reviewing what I would eventually be doing the NEQ6 was the clear winner over the HEQ5, but I couldn't cover the cost of that plus everything else all at this moment in time.

So, i'm going to use the time with the Star Adventurer to work on things like polar alignment (similar setup I believe), image processing, and to find out what I really want to photograph.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

I think that's a sensible plan. There is plenty to image at shorter focal lengths, I've been imaging for a couple years and still have plenty of targets to hit. A Star Adventurer package will have good resale value if you do decide to upgrade further down the line.

[piprees]

Got to agree with Demonperformer and Tiny Small, go for the sturdiest mount you can get. Just as an example, NEQ6 pro, £700 on ebay, all singing, all dancing plus belt modification and not too far to collect. It took a bit of patience waiting for the right one to come along and it was certainly worth the wait.

Best of luck,

P.