Beginners camera for 130pds

[JonC]

My current setup is a 130pds, mounted on a HEQ5 PRO. I have been using it with an unmodified Canon DSLR which is going OK so far, but I do like the look of EAA as an option. 

Do you think my current rig lends itself to EAA (also considering getting an 80ED), obviously the bits that's missing is the camera. Is there a budget camera <£200, or an older model that I should look for 2nd hand. There are a few doing the rounds on ebay and .astrobuysell.com/uk/ although the 2nd hand cameras appear to be rather old.

 

Cheers

 

Jon

[shirva]

This method is popular with video astronomers just now. and won't cost you a penny 

 

[Thalestris24]

That looks worth investigating!

Louise

[Dave In Vermont]

Indeed it does! I've downloaded it and will be checking it out.

Ooops! Wrong button. In any event - it looks too easy! There must be a catch. I wonder what it can do with a LogiTech WebCam.....?

Dave

[shirva]

LolI personally use this

And have it's captures processed by astrotoaster just like the previous video using Eos utilities by Howie in Oz. The trial version is free ,,time based of one month ,, I used it for two weeks and was that impressed I purchased full version,, it is more advanced than Eos utilities and a true astronomy piece of software,, and costs about £50.

You can do both astrophotography and video with this software. And uses u our standard canon usb cable to operate ,, depending on how new your canon camera is ,,400d and above .

There is the Nikon version as well backyard Nikon.

Very cheap option with kit you already have

Davy

[shirva]

The chap doing the video,, hasn't used it to it's  potential and used with astrotoaster it's a very powerful tool for ea

[shirva]

Jon,  for under £200 and staying on the track of newer camera's some of the zwo range fit your specified price range

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi120mc-usb-2-colour-camera.html

This one is below your budget but for just over £200 you could have the usb 3 version, 

[shirva]

Newer camera than the zwo 120 usb2 is the touptek, it is branded by a few companies 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/touptek-cameras.html

[stash_old]

One or 2 caveats on using Astrotoaster .

1. It is a front end to Deep Space Stacker which is a real processor killer so dont expect to run DSS/Astrotoaster on Slower non multicore processors ESPECIALLY IF you are running other software as well.  DSS is only 32bit so is limited to 2gb even on 64bit machines so watch out for "out of memory" issues. Fast hard drives - SSD etc help too.

2. If you like tidy file storage, as I do, then Astrotoaster has a major pain that changing monitoring folders means that you have to restart Astrotoaster. You can of course,as per the video, just monitor one folder. Same goes for output folders I like my pictures to be in the same folder as the source. Might not be a problem to most people. I believe version 2.04 should have removed this limitation

3. As with anything you are only as good as your weakest link so dont expect Astrotoaster to produce Hubble pictures. 

4. As stated above Astrotoaster uses the DSS engine which is 32bit program and can cause memory problems - don't run Mac so experience based on Windows.

Having said that its another bow in the armoury and it has a plus side which no other software has( I think) - it will work with ANY other camera setup which producers the correct file format. E.G Sharpcap ZWO etc so you are not limited to Canon EOS Utils. That makes it very versatile !

I use Astrotoaster,not all the time, with APT (not connected too APT in any way)  as then I can Platesolve,Stack via Astrotoaster,Control remote focus,Control Filter Wheels and control my mount all from my office - great when the temp drops and a nice neat inbuilt solution IMHO - all for the price of 1/2 tank of petrol/Gas (UK prices) - please exclude those who has Ferrari's etc or nice USA petrol guzzles 

[stash_old]

37 minutes ago, shirva said:

Jon,  for under £200 and staying on the track of newer camera's some of the zwo range fit your specified price range

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi120mc-usb-2-colour-camera.html

This one is below your budget but for just over £200 you could have the usb version, 

Just a warning on the USB2 version of ZWO 120mm/mc it hates USB hubs / active repeaters - official from the ZWO inventer (SAM). So limit the length of USB cable or I believe the later USB3 version works better.

[JonC]

Cheers for all the info, will have a look through the videos, and consider the ZWO cameras. Hub wise that isn't a problem at the moment, my laptop has plenty of usb ports (for now), its also pretty powerful.