Buy a cheap DSLR or a Bresser MikrOkular?

[Crignog]

As far as I understand, in order to attach a DSLR to a SkyWatcher StarQuest 130p I'd need to add a 2x Barlow to reach focus. If instead I bought this cam: https://www.harrisontelescopes.co.uk/acatalog/bresser-mikrokular-full-hd-eyepiece-camera.html#SID=1712 would I negate the need for a barlow lens? And if so can it be used to capture longer exposures?

[happy-kat]

Your mount is static, so unless you can fit a motor then long exposures are not possible anyway. The camera might have a manual I would suggest you read that but if the camera could do longer exposures it would likely be quite noisy. The camera might work for live stacking to generate an image.

Perhaps you already own a webcam, this you may be able to lightly modify to use on your telescope.

[happy-kat]

The Moon and brighter planets can be imaged usinga static mount

[Crignog]

9 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Your mount is static, so unless you can fit a motor then long exposures are not possible anyway. The camera might have a manual I would suggest you read that but if the camera could do longer exposures it would likely be quite noisy. The camera might work for live stacking to generate an image.

Perhaps you already own a webcam, this you may be able to lightly modify to use on your telescope.

It's an equatorial mount and I'm going to be buying the RA motor drive for tracking, so that should enable longer exposures?

I have a Pixel 3XL (phone) and in the meantime plane to try and take some images using a camera app to shoot in RAW and try out the Astro-Mode. I don't have a webcam I could try out I'm afraid.

 

Thanks!

[Cosmic Geoff]

The Bresser camera you cite is not equivalent to a DSLR. It appears to be a video camera designed for planetary imaging - the basic principle being to take a video and then process it to get a single image with the atmospheric shimmer edited out. For its maximum exposure, you'd need to find a data sheet.  Given the price, I would not expect more than modest results from this camera.

26 minutes ago, Crignog said:

It's an equatorial mount and I'm going to be buying the RA motor drive for tracking, so that should enable longer exposures?

In principle, yes, but as the Starquest appears to be a lightweight budget mount, don't set your expectations too high.

[Crignog]

8 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

The Bresser camera you cite is not equivalent to a DSLR. It appears to be a video camera designed for planetary imaging - the basic principle being to take a video and then process it to get a single image with the atmospheric shimmer edited out. For its maximum exposure, you'd need to find a data sheet.  Given the price, I would not expect more than modest results from this camera.

In principle, yes, but as the Starquest appears to be a lightweight budget mount, don't set your expectations too high.

Thanks for this So in a nutshell should I stick with my phone for now and look at getting a DSLR in the future maybe? I'm not expecting some crazy images, I'd just like to be able to pull out some definition of some brighter DSO's

 

[Waldemar]

50 minutes ago, Crignog said:

Thanks for this So in a nutshell should I stick with my phone for now and look at getting a DSLR in the future maybe? I'm not expecting some crazy images, I'd just like to be able to pull out some definition of some brighter DSO's

...Just a warning: cheap and imaging are 'contradictio in terminis'

Maybe the best thing for you to do, is to buy this book:   https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html
It will tell you why some things work and other things do not

[Crignog]

Just now, Waldemar said:

...Just a warning: cheap and imaging are 'contradictio in terminis'

Maybe the best thing for you to do, is to buy this book:   https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html
It will tell you why some things work and other things do not

Appreciate the recommendation, thanks!