Cheap AP kit

[Raph-in-the-sky]

 Hey guys,

I was wondering what are popular options for an affordable AP kit for DSOs? What would I need?

Do I have to choose between wide and norrow field?

Cheers,

Raph

 

[Danjc]

Do you have any kit already ?

What budget are you working to to give people an idea of what to recommend. 
 

Dan. 

[Raph-in-the-sky]

3 minutes ago, Danjc said:

Do you have any kit already ?

What budget are you working to to give people an idea of what to recommend. 
 

Dan. 

I have a 10'' Dob for visual. The budget is one of the things I'm trying to figure out. What would be a cheap but decent option? How much would it cost?

[Raph-in-the-sky]

I also have this https://www.astroshop.eu/astronomical-cameras/touptek-camera-gp-1200-kpb-color-guider/p,51864

[paul mc c]

If you are going to be using the 10" you will need a substantial mount,at least a NEQ6, and that would be pushing it for AP.

Used mount...£ 650.

Used dslr.....£ 170.

Used guide scope....£ 80.

Leads and bits and pieces...£ 50.

And that is just the basic things IMO.

 

[Danjc]

A decent mount is of upmost importance and the HEQ5 is a great little mount and is arguably the minimum mount to start with. Used about £400- £500 

Used DSLR maybe a Canon 1100d used around £100 (body only)
 

Scope (If you want a scope)there are many out there maybe a SW ED80 or ED72 not sure on used prices but did recently see an ED80 go for £190

Power for mount a Nevada regulated linear power supply £35 new

A laptop maybe a decent used one £200

Various accessories filter, adapters, cables b mask etc etc 

All the above are subjective and there are many options but again a decent mount is paramount. 
Im sure others will recommend various other things and these are just my recommendation and not necessarily the way to go. 

[vlaiv]

Well, cost is a relative thing and depend on how much you can afford / budget for gear, but in my view there is no cheap AP kit out there.

Mind you, when I say AP kit, I assume taking images with a telescope. You can get fairly cheap setup for wide field imaging with camera and regular lens (which again is not quite cheap if you factor in price of camera like DSLR unless you go for second hand). Also, my price reference for cheapness is visual gear. You can get fairly decent visual setup for about $300, but you will likely need to spend at least x4-x5 to start thinking about AP.

Having said all that, let's figure out what could be "cheap" setup to get you started.

You mentioned wide/narrow field, and let's discuss that first. Most people use different kit to do wide field shots and narrow field (close up) shots, but you don't need to do it that way. Maybe best approach is to start thinking about what would be narrowest field that you can achieve that will work well (this requires you to think about almost all components of imaging gear - camera/sensor/pixel size, telescope used and of course mount).

Once you figure out what is the max "zoom" that you will be successfully using, then wider field can be accomplished by doing mosaics - shooting multiple panels and then "stitching" them together to form larger FOV. This is most cost effective way to get both narrow and wide field. In theory there is option to go other way around - using wide field scope and drizzling to get higher resolution, but I'm afraid that it simply does not work for amateur setups (although people continue to use it, but that is deep discussion). In my view it's better to go with narrow and do mosaics (a bit more involved, but it gets you results).

First things first - mount, that is most important component. You want the best mount you can afford. In budget department you have couple of options:

EQ3, EQ35, EQ5. While AP is possible with these mounts, if you can afford to get better mount - please do. With these light weight mounts, you'll spend much more time getting your mount to work to your liking (some people like to do that - get the max out of their gear).

Next, true "starter" is HEQ5.

Next is the choice of camera and good matching scope (depending on mount). For all "lightweight" mounts (eq3, eq35, eq5 and alike) you want to limit your self to scope like 130PDS. If you can afford HEQ5, then good scope would be 150PDS.

Here things start to branch out and there are many possibilities leading to different budgets. Maybe if you start by telling your budget, we will be able to suggest best option for that?

Edited September 28, 2019 by vlaiv
typo ...

[Danjc]

11 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

but in my view there is no cheap AP kit out there

^^^^
This !

[Raph-in-the-sky]

15 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Well, cost is a relative thing and depend on how much you can afford / budget for gear, but in my view there is no cheap AP kit out there.

Mind you, when I say AP kit, I assume taking images with a telescope. You can get fairly cheap setup for wide field imaging with camera and regular lens (which again is not quite cheap if you factor in price of camera like DSLR unless you go for second hand). Also, my price reference for cheapness is visual gear. You can get fairly decent visual setup for about $300, but you will likely need to spend at least x4-x5 to start thinking about AP.

Having said all that, let's figure out what could be "cheap" setup to get you started.

You mentioned wide/narrow field, and let's discuss that first. Most people use different kit to do wide field shots and narrow field (close up) shots, but you don't need to do it that way. Maybe best approach is to start thinking about what would be narrowest field that you can achieve that will work well (this requires you to think about almost all components of imaging gear - camera/sensor/pixel size, telescope used and of course mount).

Once you figure out what is the max "zoom" that you will be successfully using, then wider field can be accomplished by doing mosaics - shooting multiple panels and then "stitching" them together to form larger FOV. This is most cost effective way to get both narrow and wide field. In theory there is option to go other way around - using wide field scope and drizzling to get higher resolution, but I'm afraid that it simply does not work for amateur setups (although people continue to use it, but that is deep discussion). In my view it's better to go with narrow and do mosaics (a bit more involved, but it gets you results).

First things first - mount, that is most important component. You want the best mount you can afford. In budget department you have couple of options:

EQ3, EQ35, EQ5. While AP is possible with these mounts, if you can afford to get better mount - please do. With these light weight mounts, you'll spend much more time getting your mount to work to your liking (some people like to do that - get the max out of their gear).

Next, true "starter" is HEQ5.

Next is the choice of camera and good matching scope (depending on mount). For all "lightweight" mounts (eq3, eq35, eq5 and alike) you want to limit your self to scope like 130PDS. If you can afford HEQ5, then good scope would be 150PDS.

Here things start to branch out and there are many possibilities leading to different budgets. Maybe if you start by telling your budget, we will be able to suggest best option for that?

Thanks for that answer. 

Actually when I say cheap, I mean cheap relative to other AP kits not visual.

I see that suggest a newt. What would be the difference if I was using a 80ED as suggested above?

[vlaiv]

24 minutes ago, Raph-in-the-sky said:

Thanks for that answer. 

Actually when I say cheap, I mean cheap relative to other AP kits not visual.

I see that suggest a newt. What would be the difference if I was using a 80ED as suggested above?

Difference would be in the details

ED80 is often recommended as a starter scope for AP because it is mostly hassle free - no need for collimation, you screw everything up and put it on mount and you are ready to go.

Newtoninas are a bit cheaper, but need coma corrector (most people use focal reducer / field flattener with ED80 as well). They also need collimation and depending on quality of newtonian you may encounter some issues - like camera tilt if focuser is not sturdy enough and camera is heavy, and overall rigidity of OTA may be issue sometimes in newtonians not made for imaging (hence PDS version recommendation). They have larger cross section - so more susceptible to wind issues on less rigid mount. Back focus can also be issue if newtonian is not optimized for imaging.

Other than that - they are usually longer focal length for imaging models - for example 130PDS (smallest imaging model) has 650mm focal length, while ED80 has 600mm focal length without reducer/flattener, and about 510mm with suitable FF/FR. But they also have larger aperture so gather more light. You can actually get short focal length newtonian by combining 6" F/4 with appropriate coma corrector with reduction, resulting in very fast setup, but price goes up and so does level of involvement (getting everything just right for it to work properly).

Since you mentioned wide / narrow combination - I figured that you should go for 150PDS - it has 750mm focal length. Most DSLR cameras (more affordable models) have pixel size about 4.5um. That will give you sampling rate of about 1.3"/px - that is probably lowest that you should go with beginner/cheap setup so you can do mosaics for wider field shots.

[Bobby1970]

Star adventurer, DSLR, Lens. 

About as cheap as you can go imho.