Complete imaging beginner

[dakotadevils]

Good afternoon everyone,

Ive had my scope a handful of months now (Celestron Nexstar 127SLT) and have spent he last few months getting to know the sky etc.

I have always been fascinated in astro-photography and am lucky enough to live in West Sussex where there is not a lot of light pollution, so we get decent sky views.

I have been given a old Orion starshoot/auto glider from someone - but no software (its about 10 years old). I have eventually installed the drivers (not supported in win10, so had to install them win7 compatibility mode which was the first issue and now fixed).

I've now looked on the Orion website and there is nothing on the page with the drivers software wise, so would like to ask for anyone's opinion of what software to install to get me started before I decide to outlay on a more modern camera.  Thank you

 

[Cornelius Varley]

The StarShoot is a lunar/planetary imager which will allow you to capture .avi files. Assuming that you have managed to install the drivers you should then download Sharpcap and also try Firecapture for capturing the avi . The avi file is then processed in either Registax or Autostakkert .

[The Admiral]

Welcome to the Lounge dakotadevil. We're a friendly bunch and like to try and help.

I am sure you'll find your new 'scope provides you with plenty of exciting views of your dark sky. I haven't used a Mak but from what I've read they are excellent planetary and Lunar 'scopes. You say you are interested in astrophotography. Well, join the club, but let me say it will be a demanding path to follow, with plenty of disappointments along the way, but don't let that put you off. Getting images of what you can see, even what you can't see, is fascinating. Now, a few preliminaries.

If you have the Nexstar 127SLT, I assume that the mount you have is the Altazimuth one. You won't be able to guide with that. Many say that in order to do astrophotography, an EQ mount is a must. Not so! At least, within certain limitations. Have a look at this long thread to see what can be achieved.

However, you have three main obstacles to imaging. The first is the Alt-Az mount. Any long exposure image will suffer field rotation about the centre star, leaving star trails. The answer to that is to take a lot of short exposure images and stack them together. The second is the long focal length of the 'scope, which will magnify any mount tracking imperfections, and believe me, there will be some. So again, even shorter exposures will be necessary to avoid star trailing! The third issue is the slowness of the optics (f/12 in your case). This really requires you to increase the exposure, but you can't because of the other constraints. So you will be limited to bright objects, such as the planets and the Moon. For these objects you essentially take a movie comprising many, many very short exposure frames, sometimes thousands, and then you use software to select the best frames and stack them together to get one better image. That is what Peter was describing. There is a whole section of the Lounge devoted to video astronomy.

My advice is not to jump in and buy things until you are familiar with what will be required; it's very easy to waste money in this game .

Good luck

Ian

[spillage]

Hi @dakotadevils

I was in the the exact same place about a year ago. I would suggest using a barlow and doing some planetary/lunar work. The mounts on the 127's are a little light so hanging a decent amount of weight from the center tray will help. 

I sold mine about 3 months ago. I must admit sticking the mak onto my eq6 made a real difference. It's a great little scope.

[happy-kat]

Do you already own a DSLR?

[dakotadevils]

Hi everyone, and apologies I should have introduced myself better. 

Ive been reading the forums for a while whilst finding my way with the scope but should interact more   Thank you for the advice, I will give it a go. I have used Registax and and old webcam before but wanted to get used to the scope first. I'm very happy with the scope  and am sure in a couple of years (or less) I will end up upgrading. I did buy it for lunar and planetary watching to start with and researched thoroughly - much to my wife saying make your mind up!! However she has equally been blown away by what you can see. I am still amazed that you can actually see Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings etc.

I'm sure you've heard it many times before, but I've just been blown away by way you can see !

But would like to go to the next step taking images other than a steady hand and phone!

 

Thanks again for all the advice and welcome, much appreciated.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, The Admiral said:

Welcome to the Lounge dakotadevil. We're a friendly bunch and like to try and help.

I am sure you'll find your new 'scope provides you with plenty of exciting views of your dark sky. I haven't used a Mak but from what I've read they are excellent planetary and Lunar 'scopes. You say you are interested in astrophotography. Well, join the club, but let me say it will be a demanding path to follow, with plenty of disappointments along the way, but don't let that put you off. Getting images of what you can see, even what you can't see, is fascinating. Now, a few preliminaries.

If you have the Nexstar 127SLT, I assume that the mount you have is the Altazimuth one. You won't be able to guide with that. Many say that in order to do astrophotography, an EQ mount is a must. Not so! At least, within certain limitations. Have a look at this long thread to see what can be achieved.

However, you have three main obstacles to imaging. The first is the Alt-Az mount. Any long exposure image will suffer field rotation about the centre star, leaving star trails. The answer to that is to take a lot of short exposure images and stack them together. The second is the long focal length of the 'scope, which will magnify any mount tracking imperfections, and believe me, there will be some. So again, even shorter exposures will be necessary to avoid star trailing! The third issue is the slowness of the optics (f/12 in your case). This really requires you to increase the exposure, but you can't because of the other constraints. So you will be limited to bright objects, such as the planets and the Moon. For these objects you essentially take a movie comprising many, many very short exposure frames, sometimes thousands, and then you use software to select the best frames and stack them together to get one better image. That is what Peter was describing. There is a whole section of the Lounge devoted to video astronomy.

My advice is not to jump in and buy things until you are familiar with what will be required; it's very easy to waste money in this game .

Good luck

Ian

ve got used to this camera