Dslr / Barn Door question

[Kris_P]

Hello,

After taking some very basic night sky shots on holiday with my girlfriends fairly basic camera, I've decided too look into getting a dslr as a standalone cheap entry into astrophotography.

I know without tracking, I will be mainly limited to widefield and nightscapes, but I think the widefield shots should be enough to practice with processing before I invested anything further if I wanted to get DSO shots.

 

My telescope mount is an eq2, which I've read isn't any good for photography as it is too unstable; would something like this diy barn door tracker be much of an improvement or would it have similar issues?

Is the eq2 too unstable even for piggybacking the camera too as the magnification would be much lower than when using the telescope as part of the set up?

http://barn-door-tracker.co.uk/

 

Quite a few of the canon 450ds on ebay have a 70-300mm lens with it as well as the 18-55mm. Would this be useful with the barn door?

A few questions there but the more I've read the more I've ended up with questions.

Many thanks for the help,
Kris

 

Figured I might as well stick one of the holidays pictures in here too-

I'm pretty sure I've got Andromeda sneaking in there as an unintended bonus, although I've only got this really compressed version until the laptop is fixed.

 

[SteveNickolls]

Hi Kris,

Can't help much on the barn door tracker except it ought to help extend imaging time of each exposure. Alt-Az imaging might be a cheap entry point also for you (see our No EQ Challenge thread). Your mage also has the double cluster in Perseus showing :-)

Good luck.

Steve

[happy-kat]

Hi

Is your eq2 mount motorised. Take the telescope off, reduce the weight, use just your dslr with a lens, don't extend the tripod legs, do your best to align the mount to Polaris. Should give you a good chance to get the best from your mount you already have.

[Kris_P]

25 minutes ago, SteveNickolls said:

Hi Kris,

Can't help much on the barn door tracker except it ought to help extend imaging time of each exposure. Alt-Az imaging might be a cheap entry point also for you (see our No EQ Challenge thread). Your mage also has the double cluster in Perseus showing :-)

Good luck.

Steve

Oh that's great, thanks for pointing that out Hopefully I'll be able to see these a little better when I get the full quality photos.

I've just read Astrophotography on the go, which seems to focus on Alt-Az for the most part and it's something I'll consider as an option further down the line but a new mount may be a little too much until I see whether I enjoy processing images. Thought the barn door might be a very cheap first step

 

[Kris_P]

25 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Hi

Is your eq2 mount motorised. Take the telescope off, reduce the weight, use just your dslr with a lens, don't extend the tripod legs, do your best to align the mount to Polaris. Should give you a good chance to get the best from your mount you already have.

It isn't motorised, but the motor to upgrade it is pretty cheap, and was something I'd been considering for observing use anyway. If this would give me a similar/better result than a diy barn door its something id definitely look at getting

Thanks,

Kris

[happy-kat]

The kindest lens to start with in the kit lens at about 20mm. Keep it simple to start with learning the processing approach is absorbing enough. Don't look any older than the 450d as you do want live view it helps for general use anyway. If you have an android tablet/phone then you can have the potential to control the 450d using dslr controller, very handy for night use.

A barn door is only as good as it is built.

[happy-kat]

First I think you should read up on how to polar align your EQ2 mount. Doing a quick google it is possible even though the EQ2 does not have a polarscope. This would make the tracking as good as it can be (assuming the motor works OK)  guess you won't get very long shots because even though it is an equatorial mount the motors will have limited accuracy. A wider lens will be more forgiving then a telephoto.

an example guide

I guess would I buy a motor, don't know depends on the cost because you could instead put that money towards something else.

Post on differences on EQ2 motoros that are available.

link here

[Andywilliams]

I have just made a barn door tracker with the aid of an engineer friend. I am looking forward to seeing what results I can get with it as I have seen some great captures with barn door trackers over the years. I will let you know how I get on ? cheers, Andy 

[ronin]

Not a simple answer really is there.

If the Barn Door is a manual one then I would say go and build one, it will be good fun and will be something you made and you can use anytime. If the idea was to go advanced and add a motor to a Barn Door then it starts to get a bit more complex, and a bit more costly and detailed - getting the right motor is not overly easy. In which case I would sort of suggest adding a motor to the EQ2. Still making a Bern Door is good fun.

http://www.astropix.com/bgda/sample2/sample2.html

http://www.homebuiltastronomy.com/index.htm

Had another but the link seems dead now.

How stable is the EQ2 - is it the tripod that is the problem. Just wondering if there are better tripods around - one from an EQ3-2 perhaps. Or put the head on to something home made that is better.

Not sure how good an Alt/Az mount will be. It should improve matter  a bit but is not the correct type of mount and eventually you will need the Equitorial. I tend to think that you should spend the money on the correct item rather then delaying the purchase of that for an intermediate now.

What is the future of AP likely to be for you? Just ask as you can start and continue with something at a sort of entry level or end up with several thouands of pounds.

Have a look at 35Astronomy (I think) as they sell a DSLR adaptor to add an RDF to the shoe. This allows you to aim the DSLR - useful as you (I) will find out. It may be adaptor and RDF combined.

[adder001]

Hi there

I use an eq2 mount with an ra motor drive and I mount the camera directly on the top (canon eos 1300d with 300mm lens). I do not mount the telescope. The legs are at their shortest length. I also remove the counterweight as the camera is very light. The best I can get is about 10 seconds without startrails but you can just easily take lots of 2 - 3 sec exposures and then stack them using deep sky stacker. Alignment is not that hard once you get a feel for it even without a finderscope.

I have imaged andromeda this way and I took m57 last night and if successful once I have processed I will post the results here.

Btw you have captured andromeda there☺

[Kris_P]

13 hours ago, happy-kat said:

13 hours ago, happy-kat said:

The kindest lens to start with in the kit lens at about 20mm. Keep it simple to start with learning the processing approach is absorbing enough. Don't look any older than the 450d as you do want live view it helps for general use anyway. If you have an android tablet/phone then you can have the potential to control the 450d using dslr controller, very handy for night use.

A barn door is only as good as it is built.

Thanks, I do have an Android phone so I'll look into that once I get my hands on the camera.

[Kris_P]

5 hours ago, ronin said:

Not a simple answer really is there.

If the Barn Door is a manual one then I would say go and build one, it will be good fun and will be something you made and you can use anytime. If the idea was to go advanced and add a motor to a Barn Door then it starts to get a bit more complex, and a bit more costly and detailed - getting the right motor is not overly easy. In which case I would sort of suggest adding a motor to the EQ2. Still making a Bern Door is good fun.

http://www.astropix.com/bgda/sample2/sample2.html

http://www.homebuiltastronomy.com/index.htm

Had another but the link seems dead now.

How stable is the EQ2 - is it the tripod that is the problem. Just wondering if there are better tripods around - one from an EQ3-2 perhaps. Or put the head on to something home made that is better.

Not sure how good an Alt/Az mount will be. It should improve matter  a bit but is not the correct type of mount and eventually you will need the Equitorial. I tend to think that you should spend the money on the correct item rather then delaying the purchase of that for an intermediate now.

What is the future of AP likely to be for you? Just ask as you can start and continue with something at a sort of entry level or end up with several thouands of pounds.

Have a look at 35Astronomy (I think) as they sell a DSLR adaptor to add an RDF to the shoe. This allows you to aim the DSLR - useful as you (I) will find out. It may be adaptor and RDF combined.

Haha There doesn't seem to be a simple answer! 

It was definitely a manual barn door I was looking at. I think motorising it would be overcomplicating things to start with. 

I'm not sure what the future of AP which is part of the problem, I don't want to spend huge amounts up front, as I may not enjoy the processing side as much as I have enjoyed reading/watching videos about it. So I'm looking to start cheap but not make upgrading difficult. Which is why i thought a barn door might get me improvements without much cost.  

The RDF adapter sounds really useful! I was wondering how I was going to best align the camera if I mounted the camera without the telescope. 

 

[Kris_P]

39 minutes ago, adder001 said:

Hi there

I use an eq2 mount with an ra motor drive and I mount the camera directly on the top (canon eos 1300d with 300mm lens). I do not mount the telescope. The legs are at their shortest length. I also remove the counterweight as the camera is very light. The best I can get is about 10 seconds without startrails but you can just easily take lots of 2 - 3 sec exposures and then stack them using deep sky stacker. Alignment is not that hard once you get a feel for it even without a finderscope.

I have imaged andromeda this way and I took m57 last night and if successful once I have processed I will post the results here.

Btw you have captured andromeda there☺

Forgive me ignorance here, when you mount the camera directly on top, is that on top of the tube rings with no scope in or directly on top of the eq2 with some sort of adapter?

The results would be good to see

[happy-kat]

Keeping it simple then you could do what I did and build a stand for the barn door at the right angle for your latitude, I have adjustable feet on mine to make sure it is level. This saved me buying a tripod and it is rock steady and sits on a chair or could be a garden table or bonnet of a car. 

[ngwillym]

you might also want to check out what you can achieve without any sort of driven mount:-

go here : - http://www.project-nightflight.net/tests.html

and check out the DSLR Astrophotography Untracked link

Neil

 

[adder001]

6 hours ago, Kris_P said:

Forgive me ignorance here, when you mount the camera directly on top, is that on top of the tube rings with no scope in or directly on top of the eq2 with some sort of adapter?

The results would be good to see

It is directly onto the tripod mount, I bought an adapter a while ago to mount my scope as it does not have rings. I have attached a picture for you to see.

Also I have attached Andromeda which I took a while ago 400 2.5 second photos stacked in deep sky stacker.

I have only just started to do this so I am by no means an expert but I am amazed at what I can get with such a basic setup.

[Kris_P]

7 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Keeping it simple then you could do what I did and build a stand for the barn door at the right angle for your latitude, I have adjustable feet on mine to make sure it is level. This saved me buying a tripod and it is rock steady and sits on a chair or could be a garden table or bonnet of a car. 

That sounds like it might be a good budget option. Thanks

[Kris_P]

1 hour ago, adder001 said:

It is directly onto the tripod mount, I bought an adapter a while ago to mount my scope as it does not have rings. I have attached a picture for you to see.

Also I have attached Andromeda which I took a while ago 400 2.5 second photos stacked in deep sky stacker.

I have only just started to do this so I am by no means an expert but I am amazed at what I can get with such a basic setup.

That's great! I would love to be able to get pictures like that.

It looks a lot more steady like that than I think it would mounted onto empty tube rings

 

[adder001]

Here is M57 as promised. I took 250 2.5 seconds shots, 20 darks, 20 bias and 20 flats (used lightbox app on Hudl2 for flats) and stacked in DSS. A little bit of processing required to get better contrast but got some blue in there from the start which I am well pleased with.

It was from my back yard in and there is loads of light pollution here in Bolton, Greater Manchester but even with all that it is amazing and I am sure once I get better at this the images will get sharper and more detailed.

[Kris_P]

2 hours ago, adder001 said:

Here is M57 as promised. I took 250 2.5 seconds shots, 20 darks, 20 bias and 20 flats (used lightbox app on Hudl2 for flats) and stacked in DSS. A little bit of processing required to get better contrast but got some blue in there from the start which I am well pleased with.

It was from my back yard in and there is loads of light pollution here in Bolton, Greater Manchester but even with all that it is amazing and I am sure once I get better at this the images will get sharper and more detailed.

 

Thanks. It's good to see what sort of thing I might be able to get.

[happy-kat]

link to my barn door build with altitude set base. It works for me and is rock steady.