Finally Returning to Astronomy - New Setup!

[rickstanners]

Hi all,

Firstly, sorry for the long post!

Having been away from astronomy for nearly 10 years and having sold all my kit off, I’m now in the position of being able to get back into it properly! Before I jump into buying lots of kit this time, I’ve been trying to work out exactly what I want to do with it.

I’ve always had a large interest in imaging and, before I had to stop, had just started getting into autoguiding my 8SE SCT with a WO Megrez 72 and using a DSLR.

The issue I have with going down the same route again is that, whilst I want to get back into serious imaging, I also want a setup that I can put together and store relatively quickly and easily so that I can get maximum use out of it - I always found that setting all that up was always a faff and either ate into the available time, or put me off heading outside at all! On top of that, I’m now living in the suburbs with Bristol to the South, which is also pushing me towards narrowband and a dedicated imager due to the light pollution.

Finally - I do want the capability of doing the odd bit of visual observing too, mainly lunar and the odd fuzzy when the mood takes me.

So, now that’s all out of the way(!), I’ve been looking at something along these lines for an eventual set up:

WO ZS73 with the matched flattener - good compromise for widefield imaging with either DSLR (LP permitting) or narrowband imager - whilst still portable and easy to set up/take down quickly. Just not sure how much I will realistically be able to do with it on the visual front (Don’t know how much more bang for buck a larger aperture refractor would be - probably couldn’t push the budget to much more than an 80-ish aperture, looking at prices).

HEQ5 Mount - doesn’t necessarily meet the easy to set up/take down, but imagine I will need the capability again for guided imaging.

Small spotter scope with something like an ASI120 for guiding (and maybe also some lunar imagery through the main scope).

ASI1600MM pro with a filter wheel and narrowband filters for the main imager.

I’d probably start with the scope and mount, along with an LP filter to start off with the DSLR again, then slowly expand into the guiding set up and, finally, the narrowband kit. Fortunately, I still have a couple of half decent eyepieces left from my former life.

I’d appreciate any thoughts on the plan so far! One thing that’s obvious is that I am way out of touch with the available kit now compared to 10 years ago, so there are probably better options for the money that I’m not aware of. Thanks all!

[carastro]

I don't think there is any quick to set up kit for astrophotography, it still requires a decent Equatorial mount and polar aligning. 

I think the HEQ5 with a smaller decent refractor is your best bet.  I have a similar scope WOZS71, and William optics I find are great optics, but I have found some of the design of the scope rather limiting, I have found work around for most of them, but just to forewarn you.  

I took a look at the WO ZS73 and it does seem an improvement on some of the design features over my WOZS71.  

You can't "do everything" with one scope, I'd suggest getting this and if you want a bigger magnification later on, save up and get yourself another scope for whatever else it is you want to do.

One thing that has improved over the 10 years that you have been missing is the guidescope can now be replaced, either by converting your guidescope (9 x 50) into a finderguider and getting a small adapter so the guide camera can be inserted in the back.  This saves, money, saves weight, means you don't have to find a way to mount the guidescope which also means setting up is slightly quicker.  Not sure from the link I looked at though whether the WOZS72 comes with a finderscope, but failing that there seems to be an excellent 2nd dovetail sitting on top of the scope.

The other alternative is something called an off axis guider, which using the imaging with an off axis adapter to which the guide camera is mounted.  I have avoided this so far as I read too many people having problems setting it up properly.

If you can have a permanent pier or observatory this also helps, but failing that, some people have a trollel on which they place the entire rig, and roll it in and out of the Shed ready assembled, placing it on pre-marked polar aligned markers.

HTH

Oh and finally, yes using a mono camera with narrowband would be a good choice from a LP location. 

Carole 

Edited December 27, 2019 by carastro

[jjosefsen]

There are things you can do to make it faster to set up and tear down. I have a pegasus Astro pocket power box mounted on my scope with velcro along with a USB hub. IT allows me to keep everything permanently connected to the scope, cameras, heaters, autofocuser.

So I just grab mount, and scope with all electronics and cables connected. Then just a USB cable and power cable to the rig.

[TerryMcK]

I have the same kit you are looking at and can confirm it is a great setup. I takes me about 10 minutes to get going and a couple of minutes to break down (essentially just disconnecting the scope and removing it) as I leave all the wiring permanently on the tripod and leave the mount in place. It doesn't weigh a great deal and can be carried inside easily.

• WO ZenithStar73 with adjustable field flattener. Extremely well made, solid and produces excellent images. It has guide scope rings, a dewshield and Bahtinov mask built in.
• guiding with a 9x50 Skywatcher finderscope converted to enable fitting the ZWOASI120MM with PHD2
• Some filters - in my case the IDAS D2 and the Altair Astro tribander.
• Skywatcher HEQ5Pro with Rowan belt upgrade - tried and trusted - it works extremely well
• Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter for Sky-Watcher Mounts 5m - no need to use ST4 cable if you are using PHD2- you can get rid of the handcontroller if you use the EQDIR adapter and connect straight to a computer. 
• A 4 way USB3 hub
• An astro modded DSLR is good but if you could stretch to a dedicated cooled Astro camera so much the better. I only shoot in colour at the moment and have both a Canon 400D (IR cut filter removed) and a ZWO ASI183 OSC. The 400D gives a fairly wide field of view so getting the North America Nebula and Pelican in the same frame is possible with the ZS73. The ASI183 is more detailed but not as wide field. Advantages for both systems. If looking at mono there are many systems out there that you could couple with a filter wheel. I'm sure members will make recommendations on that.
• A useful addition, but not essential, is QHY PoleMaster to aid in polar alignment - I have this and wouldn't be without it as it makes polar alignment a breeze. It can also be used on any other scopes you get in the future.

PC Software used

• BackyardEOS for the Canon using a Shoestring Astronomy DSUSB box to hold the shutter open longer than 30 seconds in bulb mode. The 400D can't open longer than 30 seconds on its own USB circuitry and needs the Shoestring. Later EOS cameras don't have this limitation.
• Astro Photography Tool that can control both the Canon and ZWO dedicated astronomy camera. Great for leveraging platesolving software too.
• N.I.N.A also looks very promising as control software - I am experimenting with this at the moment.
• ASCOM platform with EQASCOM
• PHD2 for auto guiding
• DeepSkyStacker
• Photoshop 

I also use Stellarium with Stellarium scope as an aid to getting the scope pointed where I want to go.

You might also need a dew heating system too for our fickle weather in the UK.

The ZS73 can also be used for visual but you may need a diagonal. I couldn't get any of my eyepieces to focus with it but I don't have a diagonal and only intended it to be an astrograph anyway. I have a reflector for occasional visual work.

Edited December 27, 2019 by TerryMcK

[rickstanners]

Thank you all for your replies!
 

Carole - yes, I know what you mean about there being no such thing as a quick setup, but perhaps quickER than my previous! I have memories of lugging the C8 around, waiting for it to cool down, As well asthe joy of collimation and focussing the SCT too! I certainly found the WO72 to be a great little scope. I remember looking at OAGs last time as well and ended up steering clear of them for similar reasons. A permanent pier might be an option here down the line, but the markers are a good call in the mean time.

jkosefsen, thanks - I will look into that. I like the idea of setting things up in an easy “plug and play” format.

Terry - great to hear firsthand experience of a similar setup. I remember I was guiding my old mount in a similar way, but plugged into the hand controller at the time. I will probably give the Canon 450D a go to start with, as I still have it (it was able to take much longer exposures if you controlled it using the Canon laptop utility, otherwise it had a similar limitation to the 400D) - how do you find the D2 filter and what kind of light pollution are you dealing with? That is something else that seems to have moved on since I was last involved.

Rich

 

[TerryMcK]

Hi Rich. The D2 cuts out light pollution from LED streetlights (and domestic LEDS too as it happens) which have been fitted in the past few years around here (Manchester area) and also cuts sodium LP from older streetlights. I’m in Bortle 7 and wouldn’t be without it. However the Altair Astro triband filter also works great and just lets through hydrogen alpha, OIII and Hbeta so no light pollution problems with that either. I got the 2” (M48) versions rather than clip in EOS so I can use them with the ZWO camera too.

The WO field flattener has M48 threads to permit fitting filters inside and an integral lockable rotator so you can frame your images by turning the camera.