photography with a Heritage 130p

[gian]

Hi all,

my son wanted a telescope for his birthday and thanks also to the very good info i found here we went for a sky watcher heritage 130p

i am really impressed with this little scope, we can clearly see Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, and amazing views of the moon. i live in the countryside and we are 5minutes drive from a hill with a  bench and no lights around, perfect to set up the scope 

now of course my son wants to take pictures to share them with his friends so we have been experimenting with cameras. our goals are ( for the moment ) rather modest, take pictures of the moon, and possibly an image where saturn rings are visible. 

i have designed a 3d printed an eyepiece adapter for my S9 and we can take really nice pictures of the moon, below a link to an example of our first attempts

i also got a Logitech C270 and modified it to fit the eyepiece mount.

as expected, i have to retract a little the secondary mirror in order to focus, but the main problem is that the FoV is then tiny. finding anything except the moon is extremely hard, and objects disappear in literally seconds.

i also tried through a 2x Barlow, i can then focus without retracting the secondary mirror but FoV is even smaller. 

i think the problem is that the sensor is too small, and catches only a small part of the available FoV. but i would like confirmation from people more expert than me (which is easy, i know next to nothing about all this)

i am considering trying the C270 with its original lenses and building an adapter for an eyepiece, maybe someone has an opinion?

i have also located this sensor module, its a CMOS but is supposed to be very high quality, havent found anything regarding its use for astrophotograpy

https://usbcameramodule.com/product/u2ms323-2mp-1080p-1-2.9-imx323-mjpeg-yuy2-usb-uvc-camera-board-module

thanks to anyone who would want to comment

http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/public/astro/moon1.jpg

 

 

[Cornelius Varley]

21 minutes ago, gian said:

Hi all,

my son wanted a telescope for his birthday and thanks also to the very good info i found here we went for a sky watcher heritage 130p

i am really impressed with this little scope, we can clearly see Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, and amazing views of the moon. i live in the countryside and we are 5minutes drive from a hill with a  bench and no lights around, perfect to set up the scope 

now of course my son wants to take pictures to share them with his friends so we have been experimenting with cameras. our goals are ( for the moment ) rather modest, take pictures of the moon, and possibly an image where saturn rings are visible. 

i have designed a 3d printed an eyepiece adapter for my S9 and we can take really nice pictures of the moon, below a link to an example of our first attempts

i also got a Logitech C270 and modified it to fit the eyepiece mount.

as expected, i have to retract a little the secondary mirror in order to focus, but the main problem is that the FoV is then tiny. finding anything except the moon is extremely hard, and objects disappear in literally seconds.

i also tried through a 2x Barlow, i can then focus without retracting the secondary mirror but FoV is even smaller. 

i think the problem is that the sensor is too small, and catches only a small part of the available FoV. but i would like confirmation from people more expert than me (which is easy, i know next to nothing about all this)

i am considering trying the C270 with its original lenses and building an adapter for an eyepiece, maybe someone has an opinion?

i have also located this sensor module, its a CMOS but is supposed to be very high quality, havent found anything regarding its use for astrophotograpy

https://usbcameramodule.com/product/u2ms323-2mp-1080p-1-2.9-imx323-mjpeg-yuy2-usb-uvc-camera-board-module

thanks to anyone who would want to comment

http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/public/astro/moon1.jpg

 

 

Hello and welcome to SGL. The camera module you linked to has very small pixels (2.9 microns) so the actual size of the sensor is probably no different to webcam you have already used. A useful tool for determining the FOV of a camera / telescope combination can be found here .

[Alan64]

30 minutes ago, gian said:

Hi all,

my son wanted a telescope for his birthday and thanks also to the very good info i found here we went for a sky watcher heritage 130p

i am really impressed with this little scope, we can clearly see Jupiter's moons, Saturn's rings, and amazing views of the moon. i live in the countryside and we are 5minutes drive from a hill with a  bench and no lights around, perfect to set up the scope 

now of course my son wants to take pictures to share them with his friends so we have been experimenting with cameras. our goals are ( for the moment ) rather modest, take pictures of the moon, and possibly an image where saturn rings are visible. 

i have designed a 3d printed an eyepiece adapter for my S9 and we can take really nice pictures of the moon, below a link to an example of our first attempts

i also got a Logitech C270 and modified it to fit the eyepiece mount.

as expected, i have to retract a little the secondary mirror in order to focus, but the main problem is that the FoV is then tiny. finding anything except the moon is extremely hard, and objects disappear in literally seconds.

i also tried through a 2x Barlow, i can then focus without retracting the secondary mirror but FoV is even smaller. 

i think the problem is that the sensor is too small, and catches only a small part of the available FoV. but i would like confirmation from people more expert than me (which is easy, i know next to nothing about all this)

i am considering trying the C270 with its original lenses and building an adapter for an eyepiece, maybe someone has an opinion?

i have also located this sensor module, its a CMOS but is supposed to be very high quality, havent found anything regarding its use for astrophotograpy

https://usbcameramodule.com/product/u2ms323-2mp-1080p-1-2.9-imx323-mjpeg-yuy2-usb-uvc-camera-board-module

thanks to anyone who would want to comment

http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/public/astro/moon1.jpg

 

 

You would have far better chances if you place the telescope itself on a motorised mount, whether tracking-only, or a go-to.

[MimasDeathStar]

I may be wrong but my understanding is that the field of view is related to a combination of the focal length and the eyepiece. When you replace the eyepiece with a DSLR which has a nice big sensor its the equivalent of using an bigger eyepiece (like a 25 or 30mm for example) but when you use a camera with a very small sensor its the equivalent of using a very high zoom eyepiece (more like a 5mm eyepiece) so your field of view will always be very small.

[gian]

23 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Hello and welcome to SGL. The camera module you linked to has very small pixels (2.9 microns) so the actual size of the sensor is probably no different to webcam you have already used. A useful tool for determining the FOV of a camera / telescope combination can be found here .

Hi Peter

thanks for the answer

yes i think sensor size is similar so i would run into the same problem. perhaps a reducer could be an option? 

i will play with that tool, thanks for the link.

for what i have seen larger sensors become very expensive very fast... and a DSLR is probably too heavy for this telescope. 

i assume that having the least amount of glass or plastic between secondary mirror and sensor is  best.

 

 

 

 

[gian]

2 minutes ago, MimasDeathStar said:

I may be wrong but my understanding is that the field of view is related to a combination of the focal length and the eyepiece. When you replace the eyepiece with a DSLR which has a nice big sensor its the equivalent of using an bigger eyepiece (like a 25 or 30mm for example) but when you use a camera with a very small sensor its the equivalent of using a very high zoom eyepiece (more like a 5mm eyepiece) so your field of view will always be very small.

Hi

yes it looks like that is the case. dont think using a DSRL is feasible with this small telescope

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Good advice above. 

People do perform astrophotography using the somewhat similar 130PDS Newtonian reflector, but mounting it on suitable powered equatorial mounts that cost far more the entire Heritage 130 outfit.  For general astrophotography, a DSLR or an expensive large-sensor astro camera would be used, and for planetary astrophotography a small-sensor planetary astro camera (+Barlow) would be used.

The question for you therefore is: how much are you prepared to spend?  If the Heritage has a standard dovetail, it could be re-mounted on a better mount.  What 'better mount' means is up to you, but a really good one would leave little change out of £1000.

[Geoff Lister]

The OTA has the standard dovetail plate, running the full length of the main tube. The OTA fits comfortably on my Skymax mount, for full Goto, for a wider FOV than the 127mm Mak.

The focus assembly on the Heritage 130 is at the top, when mounted on the original Dob. mount, or equivalent where the dovetail clamp is to the right of the OTA.

If mounted on an EQ mount, or photographic tripod, the eyepiece position moves to the right-hand side and places more strain on the focuser's thread. There would be a significant risk of a camera falling to the ground.

Geoff

Edited October 17, 2019 by Geoff Lister
Typo

[happy-kat]

The best Moon image I got from the heritage 130p was using a webcam bought from ebay for under £5 I took the lens off it and used an adaptor and dropped it in the focuser and got a lovely really close image of the Moon as video, webcam controlled by my 7 inch Android tablet. Trusses were dropped about 1 inch.

The heritage will show a moon transit shadow over Jupiter's surface and I counted 5 bands that day. I used a 6mm spl eyepiece and 1.6 barlow.

[happy-kat]

Oh and I also have used a DSLR in prime focus on the Moon but I won't rush to repeat that, reaching focus was tricky.

I'll share the Moon images later.

Edited October 17, 2019 by happy-kat

[gian]

Hi all

thanks again for the good info

a friend warned me that astrophotography will make a heroin addiction look cheap and healthy

i wanted to clarify one thing, this is my son's hobby, he is only 9 and for the time being we are not going to throw thousands or even hundreds at this. also we are limited by the fact that he goes to school so he needs to go to bed early therefore our scoping sessions are short, and limited to the hours from sunset to 2130 or so. i will help him of course with some equipment but mostly we will try to extract as much as possible from this scope spending as little as possible. after all, anyone can put a couple thousands on the table and buy better equipment, but one of the things my son is learning is how to do more with less, and to use the brain and hands instead of the credit card (which would be my CC btw ) 

after all, if we wanted high quality pictures made with expensive equipment, then it would be enough to download what people do with more hardware and skills

one thing he is learning quickly is to lower expectations to real world level 🙂 so he accepted that quasars and pulsars are out of reach, and he is concentrating on planets and moon. 

i have a well equipped workshop, i can weld, machine, 3d print, and i can program microcontrollers to drive stepper motors or actuators 

i am aware of the limitations of this telescope. the dobsonian rig is a PITA, and the focuser assembly is plastic that flexes and vibrates a lot. 

equatorial mounts and serious tripods are expensive so we might opt for an equatorial platform we can build ourselves

i am also considering fitting a servo motor at least on the elevation axis, which would be rather easy to do and would stabilize things a lot, and perhaps a servo motor for the focusser, which would make possible to focus without touching the telescope. 

reinforcing the focusser assembly is also a possibility, i am giving it some though, it should be possible even to build a metal one that would be far more rigid. 

i was a bit disappointed by the results of the C270 webcam sensor on prime focus, but to be honest, the FoV is so small that there is no time to play with camera controls and all i got was a rather washed out image. must be said though that conditions were far from optimal, with the moon still low in a so-so sky. tried to image saturn but all i got was a white oval on the screen. and very tricky to find and focus.

will give it another shot in the future, for the moment i have designed and printed an adapter to use the C270 with its lenses mounted on an eyepiece, lets see what happens there. the good thing of 3d printing is that building parts for tests is very cheap and i can design and print the parts while i work. 

i will probably get that  Sony sensor module, is cheap enough and i can recycle it for other stuff if it is not suitable for use in the telescope. 

in the long term, we have family in spain in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, 1000mt altitude, 20/25% relative humidity,  no pollution of any kind, and skies there are like i have never seen anywhere else, we will be in holiday so we will be able to have longer telescoping sessions, and by then i hope we will have the scope setup for some decent observations/pictures. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[happy-kat]

Here's the webcam thread and with video.

link

I also tried camera with lens onto eyepiece

link to projection image

Then this is Canon 1100d in prime focus

link to Canon with Heritage 130p

Jupiter moon shadow transit

Jupiter observing session

Have also found several deep space objects from a polluted sky where I observe. M57 Ring Nebula, M42 both better using a 16mm eyepiece. The thrill of the grey smudge with averted vision is know what you are seeing the story of how far away, how old, how big etc.

Then there is the Luna 100 challenge your lad could do, the Messier 100 list. Sign up to binoccularsky news letter (free) to find out what is visible now and if can find using binoculars can find using the heritage 130p.

PTFE tape around the focuser helps dampen it,

 

This is a nice blog review

blog link

As you are into making stuff take a look at my barn door link in my signature, you could make one of those as a project together.

Edited October 17, 2019 by happy-kat

[gian]

Hi Happy kat

that was an awesome moon picture. definitely the large high quality sensors of DSLR cameras are in a different league, i will try the DSLR setup when i have some time. actually i have a nikon D40 abandoned somewhere so i could do something with it, is rather light and expendable

in the meanwhile i tested the C270 webcam with its lenses and adapter, fitted to a 10mm eyepiece. it works and focuses ok pointing at the neighbours' trees. printing a different adapter now so to introduce some relief between eyepiece and webcam

a front arrived so no sky in sight and will be like this for some days, so i can work on the telescope 

 i will definitely look at the barn door, i have previously seen something similar on hackaday website i think 

actually, in the workshop i have seen a wheel bearing assembly that would be precise and solid enough to build a homemade equatorial plarform 🙂 but thats for another day

 

 

 

 

[happy-kat]

Somewhere have got a link to an egg timer equatorial platform which I thought might suit the heritage.

The best Moon images are taken from video and Registax is great at creating a final image.

Could have fun with startrails. Starstax the process. Sequator does startrails as well now. 

There's more to astrophotography then sticking a camera on a telescope, steady mount is useful though. Also used an L bracket direct on the heritage base for a camera.

[gian]

what did you use to connect the 1100d to the 130p?

 

 

 

 

[MimasDeathStar]

1 hour ago, happy-kat said:

Somewhere have got a link to an egg timer equatorial platform which I thought might suit the heritage.

Is it this one?

www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2010/yinugi.4.html

I've got this one saved on my computer browser, I thought it might have worked for my little refractor but it seems it requires slightly more DIY knowledge than I have.

[CraigT82]

Build yourself an equatorial platform... the stellafane website contains lots of DIY scope info. 

Once you have simple tracking, you can use the webcam for lunar images and even the S9 for some long exposure (10 secs?) exposures of bright nebs

[gian]

31 minutes ago, MimasDeathStar said:

Is it this one?

www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2010/yinugi.4.html

I've got this one saved on my computer browser, I thought it might have worked for my little refractor but it seems it requires slightly more DIY knowledge than I have.

this is an interesting link. costruction is fairly simple.

i would probably use something more powerful and stable than a kitchen timer. stepper motors are very cheap nowadays and driving them is also cheap and straighforward to anyone with a little knowledge of electronics and microcontrollers

 

here a good link on how to use a stepper motor. these things are very precise, usually 400 steps per turn. 

 

https://lastminuteengineers.com/stepper-motor-l298n-arduino-tutorial/

[happy-kat]

1 hour ago, gian said:

what did you use to connect the 1100d to the 130p?

I took the lens off and fitted a T ring with T mount to the camera. There are 3d print sketches for both available I think.

[happy-kat]

On 16/10/2019 at 13:37, gian said:

https://usbcameramodule.com/product/u2ms323-2mp-1080p-1-2.9-imx323-mjpeg-yuy2-usb-uvc-camera-board-module

thanks to anyone who would want to comment

http://gianmarco.dyndns.org/public/astro/moon1.jpg

That's a great capture of the Terminator.

This would be the field of view with that sensor you linked to, the red frame. The low light, noise or shutter length are unknown.

There are Mosaic tools out there, Microsoft ICE is good but I am not sure you would use it on the Moon.

It would be tricky to get the images if using a non tracking mount as too long a video frame and then you get smearing rather then just a snip of static video to make a processed image from.

Link to tool I used on this site.

link here

I think I would put DIY to good use and make an equatorial platform for the heritage first.

Edited October 17, 2019 by happy-kat

[Cosmic Geoff]

If you are into serious DIY, consider making a proper equatorial mount with RA drive. Amateur telescope makers used to do this in the days before Chinese-made mounts and credit cards.  Or keep an eye on the second-hand market and see what comes up. 

A budget alt-azimuth GoTo mount (e.g.  Celestron Nexstar SLT or Skywatcher Synscan) will work quite well for short exposures with a small telescope, if you fancy that route. See my posts under EEVA reports.

[gian]

5 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

If you are into serious DIY, consider making a proper equatorial mount with RA drive. Amateur telescope makers used to do this in the days before Chinese-made mounts and credit cards.  Or keep an eye on the second-hand market and see what comes up. 

A budget alt-azimuth GoTo mount (e.g.  Celestron Nexstar SLT or Skywatcher Synscan) will work quite well for short exposures with a small telescope, if you fancy that route. See my posts under EEVA reports.

Hi

i had a look at that stuff. will sure consider it for the future. my doubt is how long it takes to set these up for observation. i dont have a fixed observatory so i need a rig that i can set up quickly. 

i saw things like this

https://www.instructables.com/id/Control-Your-Telescope-Using-Stellarium-Arduino/

or the OnStep

however for the time being i think ill go for an equatorial platform

on a different note, i found a tip on a YT video about a thing to accurate focus, is basically a front cover with two holes

something like this

pretty quick to make or 3d print, 

 

 

[gian]

i also found this thing

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3334364

is an adapter to fit a nikon body directly over an eyepiece. i thought this would not be possible? well, this is easy and might try it. filament is cheap. 

also found adapter to fit a nikon camera body to  a 1.25 focusser. might also try that. weather sucks, and the 3d printer sits idle

 

[CraigT82]

I would steer clear of the eyepiece projection, just use a T ring and 1.25" nosepiece and shoot at prime focus. 

Though I'm not sure how the focuser assembly would handle the weight of a DSLR, might twist or sag 

[happy-kat]

Mine took 500 grams with a little sag but it's not something I'd do often