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I finally took the plunge and decided to get into astrophotography since I have been an actual photographer for 30 years.  I really didn't know what I was getting into.  I figured I would start out small so I bought a celestron 150mm Newtonian and the CG-4 mount, motors etc just to see how it all worked.  Now I have a Barlow, 5mm eyepiece, and enough T-Rings and adapters for all my Sony and Nikon FX/DX cameras.  So much fro keeping to a budget.  I know the mount is everything but I'll upgrade that next year, the scope seems to work great, I have some amazing shots of the moon already, quite surprised me, although my camera skills likely made the whole process somewhat easier.  I eventually want to get into DSO photography, so I won't be drinking for the next couple of years, or eating much either by the look of it.  Might have to sell the kids....  In all seriousness it's great to be here, there seem to be many very skilled and knowledgeable people which I'm hoping will help me along.  I will be In Carbondale IL to shoot and video the eclipse on Monday, hopefully the weather will hold up.  Not sure where to post images so you can all critique my work, someone will have to point me in the right direction.  I shoot RAW as the name suggests, mostly because I shoot to print.  JPEGS are OK for the WEB etc.  OK, that's the intro.  I'm English BTW, emigrated to the US in 94, ended up staying, I got too used to driving on the wrong side of the road.  Updated with my first ever telescope photo of the moon.

 

Bob.

Moon Shot.jpg

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Ouch!  I figured $2k to $3k since the mount will set me back $2k at least.  Once I get that sorted, I suspect the scope and imaging system to cost another $2k but I can't go crazy, I need to eat and pay the mortgage.  It's going to be expensive.  No more than I spent on my camera gear though, about $15 over the last 5 years.  I need to find a cheaper hobby, but thanks for the shocking price tag.  I guess if I take it seriously enough that's the price you have to pay.  It's a REALLY steep learning curve.

Bob

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On 8/18/2017 at 02:11, Louis D said:

You might also want to post on CloudyNights as well since it is US-centric.  Figure on spending $5k to $20k if you seriously get into DSO imaging, depending on the quality of the equipment you purchase.

Yikes!!!!!!!!!!!. I know AP is expensive (to do it seriously), but its shockingly expensive when you see the costs written in B&W.

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Well, I know I messed up when I bought the CG4.  After a couple of nights trying to find even the most visible objects in the sky, I have come to the conclusion that a GOTO mount is a necessity.  I should have just gone to the pub.  It was an utter waste of time.  Anyway, Solar Eclipse photos tomorrow, the mount will be fine for solar/moon/planetary but sod all use for anything else.  Time to go shopping.

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Yes Astrophography  can be almost limitless on price but on the other end you can spend far less on equipment..secondhand is a great way to go and seeing as you already got lenses/camera the cheapest option is a skywatcher star adventurer.. great for dso..and whatever lenses you have depends on the target..look it up

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You have a mount it is eq and it has motors. Take the telescope off. Put one of your camera's and say a 135mm lens and aim it at m31. Your camera and lens will be so much lighter and m31 is a surprisingly big target. It reads like you have all the equipment you need right now to start DSO imaging just loose the telescope keep that for visual observing. You can get red dot finders to fit in camera flash hot shoe and intervalometer to manage the camera taking lots of images. If you like what you are doing you better understand you next decision purchasers.

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Happy, I have enough gear, lenses and camera's etc.  The problem I have is FINDING M31.  42 degrees north and a lot of trees in the neighborhood.  I travel a bit to get set up, align the scope, as best I can since it's a POS, and then go searching, but the rings on the CG-4 are about as useful as using a Pontiac Fiero to store gasoline.  Until I get the search and destroy bit sorted out I'm [removed word] into the wind.  Hence the desire to obtain a GoTo mount, I haven't reached the start point so I'm not going anywhere yet.  It's frustrating, but I'm not giving up.  I'm going to do what the government does, throw money at the problem:-)

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Actually, a short drive from the house results in relatively clear seeing, sans moon of course.  So I'm not overly concerned about the visibility of Polaris.  I can see it by eye most evenings, even with the orange glow from the nearby overpopulated towns.

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Star Hopping?  I'm not there yet.  I intend to give it another shot over the weekend since the weather will be better and I will have plenty of time.  Hopefully I will be able to find something.  I don't seem to have any issues with polar alignment, and I can clearly see Ursa Major/Minor, so, armed with a small selection of EP's I'm hopeful I can get my proverbial act together.  It's a new challenge, I'm sure I will figure it out eventually.  

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If you're trying to use the setting circles to find things I wouldn't bother. They would need to have diameters measures in feet rather than inches to be accurate.

You should also get a copy of Making Every Photon Count if it is available in your location.

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Try loading Stellarium onto a tablet and then bring up an object in it once you've mastered that part of the tool.  Zoom in or out until you can see a reasonably large patch of the sky on the screen.  Hold the tablet screen-side toward you above your head and try to match up the brighter stars to what you see naked eye.  Once you've made that correlation, look where your object is located on the screen and then map that to the sky you're looking at.  Point your scope in that region (a green laser pointer is superb for this).  Starting with a widest field eyepiece, you should be able to scan about in the general region and find your target fairly quickly.  You may have to go to higher powers if light pollution is an issue.

Alternatively, there are digital setting circles which can be star aligned to help you locate objects if you don't want to go full goto.  Orion's Intelliscope is one such telescope.  On a dob mount, you still have to keep nudging the scope.

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B&H Has the SkyWatcher EQ6 for $1200.  I'm sorely tempted, but for $1500 I can get the EQ6-r Pro.  I'm not sure I want to mess about holding a tablet PC over my head looking for the Whirlpool galaxy.  I will play around at the weekend, and then likely bite the bullet on a new mount.

 

Bob

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I know, that's why I will be working on it this weekend.  The weather is supposed to be perfect.  I have three full nights to set up and practice.  With all the great advice, surface pro tablet, Stellarium, and some patience thrown in for good measure I'm sure I can figure it out.  I'm going to give it my best shot.  Start at Ursa Major and work my way across the night sky.  I'll keep you posted.  Eventually though, a better mount is in my not too distant future.  I did print off the star hopping guide at work, so I'm armed with plenty of information.  I rarely give up, but as I've hit my 50's the path of least resistance becomes more appealing every day.

Bob.

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Welcome from land down under

Hope you enjoyed the eclipse on the 21st

Had one back in 2012, and lot of club members travelled up to Cairns, Far North Queensland to observe the eclipse

Was not able to get away, and did a viewing presentation for secondary college and private university on the Goldcoast with couple of other club members

We had an 80% eclipse where I was

Link to club website  http://sas.org.au/ 

Monthly magazine is Event Horizon

John

 

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22 hours ago, RAWBob said:

I know, that's why I will be working on it this weekend.  The weather is supposed to be perfect.  I have three full nights to set up and practice.  With all the great advice, surface pro tablet, Stellarium, and some patience thrown in for good measure I'm sure I can figure it out.  I'm going to give it my best shot.  Start at Ursa Major and work my way across the night sky.  I'll keep you posted.  Eventually though, a better mount is in my not too distant future.  I did print off the star hopping guide at work, so I'm armed with plenty of information.  I rarely give up, but as I've hit my 50's the path of least resistance becomes more appealing every day.

Bob.

I hear you.  I'm in my 50s as well.  I added digital setting circles to my dob after searching in vain for weeks for Neptune and Uranus.  I bagged them both on the first try with them.  However, it sure is nice to know where fixed, popular objects are located on the sky when you are using a mount without DSCs or goto or for when you just don't feel like star aligning because of limited sight lines to find two usable stars.  It always feels good at a star point to be able to point a newbie's telescope at some well known object that they are struggling to find as well.

I also added a laser sight to my scopes because it's getting harder to crank my head around to be able to get behind a unit power finder and not be looking through the wrong part of my bifocals.

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On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 21:11, Louis D said:

  Figure on spending $5k to $20k if you seriously get into DSO imaging, depending on the quality of the equipment you purchase.

OUCH, Ouch, ouch. I hope I can get something interesting for far less than that. Are we talking Hubble quality, or just something to wow the huddled masses at work with?

On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 21:15, RAWBob said:

Ouch!  I figured $2k to $3k since the mount will set me back $2k at least.  Once I get that sorted, I suspect the scope and imaging system to cost another $2k but I can't go crazy, I need to eat and pay the mortgage.  It's going to be expensive.  No more than I spent on my camera gear though, about $15 over the last 5 years.  I need to find a cheaper hobby, but thanks for the shocking price tag.  I guess if I take it seriously enough that's the price you have to pay.  It's a REALLY steep learning curve.

Bob

I'm having the same pains, and they'll get worse when my wife starts kicking my backside after seeing the bills for the stuff I've already bought. I started with a C6 and Astroview, quickly realized I needed a better mount, and wanted a bigger scope. Just picked up my Edge800 and AVX today, haven't yet sold the C6 and its mount yet, but hopefully have a buyer. And then there's the camera gear; luckily I've spread that out a little, having purchased my DSLR late last year. I'm close to retiring, I figure it's an investment to keep me sane after I quit doing real work.

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2 minutes ago, Luna-tic said:

OUCH, Ouch, ouch. I hope I can get something interesting for far less than that. Are we talking Hubble quality, or just something to wow the huddled masses at work with?

Most people start out much more cheaply and then start swapping parts of the imaging train, mount, guidance system, etc. as funds allow and their dissatisfaction with their current results grow.  The end game is typically a Software Bisque Paramount mount of one size or another or another high end mount, an Apogee camera of some sort or equivalent, a computer controlled filter wheel with Astrodon narrow band filters and/or RGB filters, APO and RC telescopes to cover wide fields and narrow fields, possibly dedicated field flatteners or focal reducers, guidance telescopes and sensors, software to connect it all together, an observatory to house it all in because it's too much to set up and tear down each time, land in a high desert to build the observatory on, wireless links to remotely control it, sensors to determine if it is safe to open the remote observatory, and more software to run the night's image capture sequence.  A setup like this can easily exceed $50k.

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With me the damaged already happened and i still didn't spend much yet.

I bought AZ-EQ6 from FLO for little over $1500, between NEQ6 or EQ6-R or Pro and AZ-EQ i chose AZ-EQm i wanted to have dual mode, i was very close to buy EQ5 first then HEQ6 or EQ6-R, but i found AZ-EQ6 by coincidence then i bought that immediately.

Mount is expensive, but it is not the only expensive gear there, some scopes are over $2000-3000, camera anywhere from $150 up to maybe $15K, so expect so many items that will slap your budget easily.

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