Newbie question about guiding if shooting from SLR

[JohnRRogers]

Hello,

I’m a long time professional photographer (www.JohnRRogers.com) but absolute newbie at Astro. I currently shoot with a Sony A7rIII and am about to buy a a Skywatcher eq6 Mount. That will shoot the majority of my budget for now but everything I’ve read tells me spend your money on a good mount first. At some point I’d like to get a nice refractor but I’d like to start shooting with my current camera and lenses. The question is, is there a way to guide the mount to be able to do longer subs? What additional gear will I need? Thanks!

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi John, welcome. While far from an expert I can confidently state that an eq6 will comfortably carry your camera, a hefty lens plus a guidescope/guidecamera setup. People on here far more knowlegeable than me will be able to give you details on how to set it all up.

[iapa]

As the mount will be rotating on an axis that runs up through Polaris, start with a reasonable Polar Alignment - SharpCap has a tool built in that uses your imaging camera.

The EQ6 has built in methods to build an internal start map, by pointing at several different points in the sky. Takes patience, every time you take the mount outside, but you also get faster with practice.

Those are effectively free (although SharpCap does have an annual subscription of £10pa after trial period expires)

You could get a refractor such as the Skywatcher start traveller 80 and a small guide camera (c£200 - see FLO website) and piggy back your camera on that - with a laptop and PHD2 software that would let your mount follow the star in the ST80 field of view.

Come to think of it, I am sure I have seen a hotshot adapter to take a much smaller refractor, then, as above, you can guide.

 

 

 

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Peter in Bedfordshire 🙂