Cheapest (useful) Motorised mount for Timelapse Photography?

[iamtakeo]

Hey guys, theres a couple of areas I need pointing in the right direction to;

Mount

I'm having fun with my Celestron Astromaster 130EQ, and particularly having fun tracking down deep sky objects and trying to photograph them. I'd like to take longer exposures hoping that will provide brighter images of DSO. However I dont have a computerized or motorized mount with my telescope. The cheapest telescope that I can see which comes with a motorized mount is a Celestron Nexstar 60 SLT (refractor). I was considering buying it sometime just for using it's motorized mount with my DSLR.

Photography

Does anyone have any tips for seeing more and more Deep sky detail? I'm using a 50mm f1.8 canon lens which see's much more than my other lens (f2.8).

Prime Focus

I cant afford to buy any 'faster' camera lenses currently, and when mounting my camera onto the reflector I have to use a Barlow Lens (to achieve focus) which reduces the f-stop beyond usefulness, I cant see any DSO's. Is there any filters/eyepieces or ways to perhaps reduce magnification and increase the speed of the lens of the telescope?

[stuleah]

im a newbie on so im not sure if this is what your looking for.

http://www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/ViewProdDetails.asp?prod_code=PON08H000043

[moondog]

Atom

Mount - Stuleahs' find for the upgrade motor would seem like a good start.

Photography - To take images of DSO's you need to connect your camera without its lens to the scope using an adaptor and nose piece. This is Prime Focus imaging. The way you appear to be trying to take photos is by afocal imaging, which is only usually suitable for the moon and bright planets.

The 'F' number of your imaging system is then the F number of your scope. You get fainter DSO's by taking longer exposure shots and stacking them together using free software. You can get focal reducer lenses for most scopes - not sure about your Astro Master though.

Hope this helps

MD

[jgs001]

The motors for that mount appear to be quite cheap, so you could get a motor and just mount the camera directly with the 50mm lens. Equally, Steve @ FLO can sort you out with the necessary adapters for prime focus (camera directly connected to scope) painlessly. Whether you can get any decent length of exposure is hard to tell, as there will be a lot of factors involved, but as long as it's not going to be too expensive, I'd say go for it. I've been using an ST80 (clone of anyway) on a NexStar SLT (that I bought with the 60) and getting some medium length exposures with. You just have to accept that the gear may well have limits, find them, and work up to the edge of them. I did write a basic tutorial on Astro imaging with only a camera and a static tripod for a couple of people. I'm more than happy to post it here if people would find it useful.

[Psychobilly]

Please post it John - I am sure it is well written and full of useful stuff...

Billy..

[jgs001]

Ok, I've posted it here If anyone has been following my astro blog, I posted it on there a few days ago.