imaging without a telescope

[jeffisme]

hi, I've been researching various telescopes and mounts for a while now for both imaging and visual. I enjoy taking great photos of the sky but don't particularly care if I catch one particular star or another. I do love though the idea of detailed images of the moon, Saturn and  Jupiter and the classic shots of the Milky Way that I see. What I can't seem to find the answer to is this: Can I use a good mount, go to or not, with just my Fujifilm x camera and the right lens to get detailed views of let's say the moons of Saturn or Jupiter's stripes or do I really need a scope to achieve that? The scope I did have in mind was an ES 100 apo with an AVX mount but I was just wondering whether I can add a larger lens to my camera, mount it to let's say a sky watcher/star adventurer and achieve the results I want.

Thanks for any info.

 

jeff

[vlaiv]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

Planetary imaging is rather different than both daytime photography or night time DSO astro photography (whether it is wide field - like Milky way shots that you enjoy or closer up).

DSLR type camera is not ideal for planetary imaging, and yes, you want long focal length optics to be able to show any sort of details on planets. You will need at least a meter of focal length to do that (people often use barlows when having shorter focal length scopes to get enough focal length).

You don't need particularly large mount to satisfy your needs. Small compact scope will be good for planetary / lunar. Take a look at Maksutov telescopes or SCT. In smaller apertures up to 5" these are lightweight and can be mounted on really simple mounts (EQ3/EQ5 class mount and even compact travel mounts like AZGti). For planetary imaging unlike for DSO imaging you don't need very precise mount either since you'll be using very short exposures and stacking. For milky way shots, you can just use camera + lens combination attached to this tracking mount.

Besides above light weight mount, you will also need planetary type camera. Something like ASI224 or similar.