AP vs Visual astronomy

[tomato]

Don't forget the step ladders, I used two with Jon's big Dob.

[Alien 13]

The thing that eventually put me off visual is that for extended objects you will always see less/dimmer that you can see with the naked eye, no matter what size scope.

Alan

[kirkster501]

I like AP and visual equally.  Whilst the AP rig is running I am using the 12" Dob.

[saac]

5 hours ago, BeerMe said:

Some excellent replies from both sides, thanks for the input everyone :-)

@Grumpy Martian good shout, I'll edit the OP to include the link.

@saac bang goes my theory then ;-)  the technical side of AP is what scares me the most (well no...the cost scares me the most but if cost was irrelevant then yes, definitely the technical side).  Although I'm pretty savvy with a computer, I've tried to work programs like Photoshop but the host of features is just overwhelming.  I met up with some of the CSOG guys at Harperrigg a few months ago and one of the guys (Ian or Wullie) had his full AP rig set up from the back of his van, laptop and all.  Just watching him operate everything had me in a spin, and that's before he even started processing, etc.  I think that experience confirmed for me that AP will never be my thing :-)

Keep em coming folks!

Cost is certainly an issue but then again it is in all aspects of astronomy even visual, after all who would not covet one of the big Naglars! At the end of the day whatever side you dabble in you will be contained in your ambitions by what you are prepared to fund - or at least if you are sensible you should be!  My own philosophy is that I am in this for the long game, took me a few years to progress beyond a basic web cam on the moon and planets.  I'm in no rush, I'm using my DSLR on teh DSOs at the moment but I cannot see me funding a decent CCD camera for at least another 5 years - I just could not justify it financially just as I couldn't justify a Naglar   I have the same approach to the technical aspect as well, baby steps along the way; 2 years since I picked up my first decent mount (AZ EQ6 GT) but I'm still not working with guiding, there are other things I want to do well first.  The thing is, my first photograph of Andromeda was far from perfect, certainly compared to what other more experienced than me can do. But that is just it, they are more experienced so I'm chilled with that, I know I will get to where I want to get to eventually. The joy I got when I processed my data on Andromeda using the U tube video on how to use PIXInsight was  amazing.  My free evaluation period on Pixi is now up and I need to save before I can buy a proper licence but again I will get there, baby steps.  I'm a great believer in doing what you enjoy with what you can afford,  after all this is what I do for fun in my down time, there is no exam - just as well    It's a great hobby with something to appeal to different interests, just you, the telescope and the stars, how cool is that?

Jim

[Gina]

AP only for me.  At least at the moment though you never know what will happen in the future.  I have always been interested in photography since my father gave me a box Brownie.  I did all my own developing and printing pretty much from the start going from monochrome to colour, both negative and reversal film.  From the box Brownie I moved on to a folding camera and then to an SLR before going digital. 

My very first telescope had motor drive on the mount and my first attempts were with a webcam and Saturn.  Previously I had viewed the night sky with binoculars and once I got a telescope I got some extra eyepieces and did a bit of visual but my interest has always tended towards imaging.  My grandfather introduced me to astronomy when I was a child and the South Bank Exhibition in London in 1951 further enhanced my interest.  But it wasn't really until I came to rural Devon with the very low light pollution that I really pushed the budget and got hooked.

[Joel Shepherd]

I've never been very interested in terrestrial photography, unlike my father and brother who both had/have life-time interest. AP, though, immediately floated my boat. In part it was the immediate realization that even from our little light-polluted backyard, if I put in the time (and eventually the $ ... sigh) then I could "see" things that I simply wouldn't have thought I'd ever see first-hand, in amazing detail and beauty. And while AP isn't visual, it's also true that the photons that tickle the electrons that eventually develop in a photo are drizzling down right on you and your 'scope right beside you. You are there, even if you don't immediately sense what "there" is.

I also like that it's a very "bare metal" hobby. It is not quite so buried in technology and widgets that you lose complete touch with the underlying physics. Polar alignment, guiding, focus and focal length, signal, noise, filters, even the mathematics of processing are all right there in front of you: easy to comprehend even if complex to fully understand. But you aren't isolated from it but advanced electronics and built-in camera magic: you learn the craft with the basic physical elements right there in your hands.

All that's not to say that I don't like visual: I do. If I'm getting stressed out about AP -- guiding problems, electronic hiccups, stray moonlight, etc. -- then I do like to get back to basics and do some observing: enjoy things directly without getting overly distracted by the details of AP. But overall I find AP more challenging and more rewarding, and it satisfies my need to work things out from (almost) first principles.

Horses for courses, though. There's no best way to enjoy the hobby other than what's best for you.

 

[Charic]

5 minutes ago, Joel Shepherd said:

If I'm getting stressed out about AP

....who doesn't ?

[spillage]

Up until just over 18 months ago I have never touched a telescope...But here is my story.

Around 15 years ago I moved 10 miles from a light polluted town in Somerset into a quiet dark village with a hand full of street lights (i think its less than this).

I always remember my first night. Popping outside to have a ciggi and looking up at a clear sky and being just dumb stuck by the amount of stars I could see. From this point on I would always look upwards at night. In a strange way I missed it when I gave up the fags as I enjoyed these dark clear views and spotting satellites and the occasional meteor shower was my limit.

Then a couple of years ago I found myself discussing the dismal views from a garden in North London with a relative. About a week after returning home a package arrives and inside it I found a telescope....wow and then where do all these bits go which end do you look through. Finally this great bit of kit gave me views of saturn that blew me away. They were so fake looking just like the sticker you can get for a kids bedroom wall. Yes this 700x76 china special was the bee's knees..Not for long.

I then found myself frustrated at trying to find objects and track them. I then after hours of searching found a 127 mak for sale and being a bit geeky fell for the idea of goto.

This also came with a neximage5 camera. The step up visually was life changing but it was the moment I tried out my new camera that my AP interest really started. I could actually image these great views of saturn, jupiter and the moon and share them with my family. The fact that it also involved a pc and tinkering about with software was just a bonus. No long in I found the mount was not the best but from there soon followed a eq5 pro and c6-n and a canon 1100, then a 150pds and a modified 500d. 

I am for now using my neq6 and have added a 130pds to my list and who knows what the future will bring.

I am sure the computer geek in me helped fan the flames of AP. As you can see I stumbled into AP and never intended to take this road with all its potholes that not only frustrate you and but empty your pockets of money but also reward you with some amazing image that you can keep and share with others.

You know I may just have to drag out the 700x76 out again just to remind me of the beginning.

[xtreemchaos]

heres my story, at the age of six or seven I was visiting my grandfather at his scrapyard and while in his office I spyed this long brass tube in a nice box in the corner on asking gramps what it was he lifted the box onto the table and started putting it together, he said look through here which I did and noticed that a tree about half a mile away I could see the leaves on it like I was standing next to it, then the penny dropped arh what a cool almost magical thing, grandfather said you can take it home with you if you want, he didn't need to say it twice, he then said its a full moon tonight you should have a look at it, so with some help from me dad I got it home and set up on a table in the garden and waited for the moon to rise and that night about 9pm it did, what a fantastic sight, I was hooked from then on and begging my parent to watch the sky at night every month too.

fast forward 48 years after being a vis guy for most of my life my son brought me a sony Alpha for my birthday, from the moment I saw the camera the penny dropped again, and soon sent for a adapter to connect it to my scope. now I'm never going to be a world class AP guy but its nice to have a few pics to show friends, I wish id started years ago but I was a diehard vis man and thought it would cut down on my vis time , but it hasn't I have a duel rig and aslong as I don't bang the eyepiece with my eye I can take pics at the sametime. I would deff recommend AP, everybody should give it a try but don't wait 3/4 of your life to do it just incase you like it.

clear skys, charl and smegul..

[Chris]

Lovely post, charl  

[xtreemchaos]

thanks Chris, I still have the scope up in the loft. charl.

[carastro]

I had no special interest in photography except for family and holiday snaps, but I always had an interest in Astronomy, which got put on the back burner for many years whilst working and bringing up a family.  But got back into it again with Hale Bopp, the Total Solar eclipse in 1999 and then the transit of Venus in 2004.  Started visiting Greenwich quite a bit when various events were on, and then was told about the GCSE course.  That's for me I thought.  Not having studied for well over 30 years I did the year's course and loved it getting a Grade A.  Joined a local society and as a group we went to COAA in Portugal looking through a large scope at some wonderful sights, especially around Sagittarius.   On the last night the host put a DSLR in the scope and got us all to take images. One would operate the DSLR, the other a timer, and the 3rd person did manual guiding (that was fun).  This gave me the idea of trying to do it myself, I had always admired the images done by other members.

Have been imaging now since 2008 having spent a year doing planetary and then had to change my kit to stuff more suited to DS imaging.

I am now totally hooked on imaging, as Olly says, when those images hit the computer screen it's a much bigger wow than what you can see through the scope.  Then the excitement of seeing those results after stacking and processing.  

Of course it is a huge learning curve, and big expense

Quote

no necessity for a £1k outlay

Correct. Multiply this figure by around 3 

 Actually a lot more than that, but a great hobby.  Frustrating at times, and especially as I live in the outskirts of London I have to wait to go to a dark site to get many targets.  

I still do a bit of visual when I go to Astro camps and look through other people's scopes while my imaging is "cooking", and also at outreach events where I go to show members of the public, but after imaging I find what i can see a bit underwhelming after AP.  I do however recall the excitement of seeing the Witches Broom with my own eyes at kelling once, through an enormous DOB.  I have to take my hat off to those people who can find objects manually with such a  high powered telescope.

Well that's my story. 

Carole 

[Sargs]

Why AP over Visual? I'd been an on-again-off-again visual astronomer since my teens. Mostly off-again, to be honest. About five years ago, I treated myself to a Nexstar 6SE and had a play with it for a few months. At some point, I read about using webcams with scopes and had a go imaging the moon and Jupiter. I took the photos and showed them to friends and relatives and I really liked the interest they generated. I'd previously not talked much about astronomy to people who weren't already interested, since just being told someone spent the night staring at the moon isn't very exciting, but being shown the pictures by the person who took them seems to really grab people.

So yes, I might have taken up astrophotography to make up for being a giant nerd with no social skills. Great plan, but it sort of works. I'm a computer programmer in my day job for one of the lesser forces of evil (a bank, but not one you bailed out) and I have a mailing list of about thirty colleagues who I regularly send my latest pictures to. There's a couple of people there who do have a significant interest in astronomy- did astrophysics at Uni, or have their own scope, but most of them are interested because they're pictures taken by "that guy they work with" and it gives a connection. I've long since upgraded from the Nexstar to an Apo refractor for widefield and a 9.25-inch SCT for planetary and smaller objects. I have a mono CCD camera and a NEQ6 to carry the load.

Astrophotography has a few advantages for me over visual- firstly, the number of things I can take pictures of from my city garden is bigger than the number of things I can see visually. Secondly, it's heavily computer-based, which lets me scratch my computer-itch without having to do anything actually related to work. The processing also gives me something astronomical to do on cloudy nights- image one night, spend the cloudy thirteen nights of the fortnight processing!

As to whether I had any interest in photography before doing astrophotography- yes and no. I never took pictures myself, but I grew up in a family whose business was photography (my grandfather was a press photographer who started the family business of photographic printing and processing, my mother worked for the business and was a wedding and portrait photographer as well). I'd no interest in photography and wanted to do computers instead, which I did. I wound up writing software for Nokia back when they were a thing. When the first camera phones came out, I was dragged in to writing the software that drove them, since I knew what a hyperfocal distance was without googling it and could explain roughly how a Bayer matrix worked. Ironically, I helped kill off the family business by giving pretty much everyone a half-decent camera in their pocket that they'd have with them all the time and that didn't need any film processing or prints printing. Wedding photographers used to curse that whenever they set up a shot, everyone's uncles and aunts would be stood behind them taking pics on their phones and killing any hope the photographer had of selling copies of their prints. Oops...

 

[Jeff-Colorado]

I like to do both. I start out with my EP on a target, enjoying the immediacy of seeing with my own eyes the photons  that left the target long, long ago. Some targets are quite satisfying to me in my EP. Other targets appear as mere gray smudges in the EP in my light polluted suburban skies, and I yearn to see more. So when I replace the EP with my 224MC cam, within seconds that gray smudge becomes a colorful globular cluster of a thousand stars, or a breathtaking emission nebula in red or blue. 

It is also fun to capture a decent image to share with family and friends, and to have a permanent memento of the night.

Vis and AP/EEA are both worthwhile.

[Thalestris24]

I think I'm probably a bit of an oddball since I've never done any visual. After attending an intro to astronomy course at a local uni it inspired me to go straight into AP! Not that there was any AP or even any stunning pictures in the course. I just got a bee in my bonnet and went for it. First just with a 1100d and 300mm zoom lens, and rapidly progressed from there! It was actually my first dslr and my first use of a long lens. But I have a technical/scientific/computer background so the technicalities of AP came fairly easy to me. However, I'm stuck in a second-floor flat in a light polluted city that has few clear nights. I've been losing my dso AP mojo of late - largely because of the dismal weather but also because of the limitations imposed by my situation. I also don't think I'll be able to find the time if my academic ambitions are realised. I've had a busy academic year this last 8 months and exams are now imminent! I might still do occasional dso AP plus some stellar spectroscopy. Another possibility is to do some video astronomy (probably with the minicam5s but might get a colour gpcam or similar). It's 'quick and dirty' AP but still quite rewarding, I think - sort of instant gratification! I think if I continue with the studies then video AP is probably all I'll have time for!

Louise

[RobertI]

Nice post and some lovely insight from fellow members. I have been a casual 'lone' visual oberver for decades, but my interest was re-ignited in in a big way in 2011 when I joined SGL, started getting Astronomy Now and got back on the grid. For some reason I went straight to AP. What a actually attacted to me to AP is a very interesting question, I think it was the discovery of how technology had improved over over the years, and how you could get truly amazing pictures with fairly modest equipment and free software. I didn't really have an interest in terrestrial photography. I started on the path of astro imaging with a small frac, reducer, EOS 1100D and non-goto CG5 (which I converted to guiding) and was starting to get some great results. But the thing that killed it for me (for now) was post-processing, after a day at the computer at work I just didn't have the inclination. 

So I now do Video Astronomy (easy instant results and no post processing) which is great for faint fuzzies and and I also do Visual which is great for lunar, planetary, doubles and clusters. I'll probably change again in afew years!

[Richard Hather]

I started my astronomy journey just over a year ago, with the aim to do purely visual.

I purchased a C6 Goto and never looked back.

The one thing I have noticed is no one has mentioned about sketching what they observe I know the post is about visual and AP but I think sketching is in a way just as good as a multi stacked image for several reasons.

First when I sketch an object I take in every single photon ever bit of detail I can get within the hour that I set myself to sketch a particular object which means overtime you train yourself to see more detail quicker and you appreciate the object a lot more.

The added bonus is you can look back and all those feeling you felt whilst observing an object come flooding back.

Im not disregarding either going purely visual or AP or a combo as I've had sessions recently were I've dabbled with my DSLR and sessions were I've only visually observed objects and not sketched at all.

I think trying new ways of enjoying astronomy and finding out what you personally enjoy is what matters.

Clear skies ✨??????

Richard

[mikeDnight]

On 2017-4-28 at 02:31, Thalestris24 said:

I think I'm probably a bit of an oddball since I've never done any visual.

Louise

Yep! You're definitely odd Louise, but as I've not yet met or communicated with any astronomer who wasn't just a little odd, you're not alone. 

(Being normal is overrated!) 

Mike

[DaveS]

Alas my drawing skills are nonexistent, whatever I put down on paper would bare only the most remote resemblance to what I saw through the eyepiece.

And whatever I could see through an eyepiece is nothing compared to what I can image, even from London.

[MattJenko]

For me, the main attraction and challenge was imaging, although the first view of M13, Albireo and Saturn were bigger thrills. Continuing though, imaging was a gateway to some amateur science where I can give something back to the great history of human curiosity and thought going back centuries. I want to contribute to variable star observations, photometry and spectral studies. This is all still very possible as an amateur.

I would also say that a lot of the fun in visual lies in the social aspect of viewing session with a society, outreach or friends. Given the light pollution in the majority of the country, the targets available tend to be the main highlights, but doing these at outreach and doing some more esoteric doubles, clusters and galaxies with more discerning friends makes visual a real joy for me. I still do some lone observing, but only once the imaging kit is running, and not for very long, as the lure of an inside life with my wife and dogs is too great.

[simmo39]

I had AP sort of forced on me. After 2 detached retinas and now only have 1 sort of ok eye and one that is like looking through a gold fish bowl it is the only way I can see what I want to see. I used to do a lot of visual and I miss the ease of throwing out my dob and having a long night dancing with it. Ap, while it may be frowned upon in some circles  has given me the chance to see the wonders in our sky, not first hand, granted but better than nothing.