Start Up Equipment

[flaxman]

Hi, I’m new to this forum, but what I’ve seen and of course read is very impressive.

I have managed To blag my wife’s Canon EOS 1100d DSLR. I am complete beginner , but was thinking of building my equipment around the camera. My budget is around £1,000, give or take the odd £100.

Would this be the right way to go, putting filters on the camera etc, or is it best to start with a clean sheet?

Im liking the look of nexstar SE 6 or the Skywatcher Skymax 127 SynScan AZ GOTO Telescope. I’m interested in viewing and taking pictures of the moon, planets and DSO, but am also looking for relative simplicity and ease of use.

Edited June 7, 2020 by flaxman

[banjaxed]

Hi and welcome to SGL, I am not into astro photography but there will you someone along shortly with all the information you need.

 

[Kyle Allen]

Both telescopes you mention would be good for lunar and planetary observing and imaging. However, the mount is an alt-azimuth mount, meaning it moves up-down and left-right, so isn’t suitable for deep sky imaging, which requires an equatorial mount that tracks the stars in a smooth arc in order to do long exposures without star trails.

Lunar and planetary photography is typically done using a dedicated astronomy camera and shooting a video at a high-frame rate to minimise the blurring effect caused by atmospheric turbulence. The video is then analysed by a special planetary imaging software and the best frames are stacked together, then sharpened to produce the final image. Deep sky astrophotography requires a completely different set of equipment and techniques.

With your budget you are probably best deciding whether you want to focus on the moon and planets or deep sky objects first as trying to do everything at once will probably lead to frustration. Keep asking questions and see what others think before you buy! 😀

[happy-kat]

What lenses do you have available with the 1100d?

Planet/moon/DSO imaging both capturing and processing there are many great free software solutions, both capture and processing are done differently.

Sticking with the 127mm mak then the Az-GTi bundle gives the Moon/Planet angle (in altaz mode as video is generally used) and then if the free firmware switch is applied the mount can be used in EQ mode and then with your camera (not with the mak 127mm) and camera lens could be used for DSO imaging). The downside of the firmware switch is it puts the finder on the mak I think it is upside down. I have not used this mount personally.

As a side comment you can image with an altaz tracking mount but are limited by the capabilities the mount offers, and field rotation is the limit, so some extended exposure length is available but generally the range is just 15-30 seconds. So not ideal and the longer the focal length of the telescope/lens the faster field rotation becomes evident.

Do you want to find targets manually or do you want a mount that has goto?  When buying a tracking goto mount invariably more of a telescope's cost is on the mount then the actual telescope, where a dobsonian mounted manual telescope then more of the price is buying the optics.

[flaxman]

Thanks very much for your input and suggestions.

The more one delves into this area the more complex it becomes. I definitely want to get into DSO and I know the mount is paramount. I thought maybe the EQ3 pro with Goto? I know there are reservations about the tripod?

Bright Giant, my lenses are the Canon Zoom Lens EF-S 58mm.

At the suggestion of some on this forum I’ve purchased the book Making Every Photon Count. I would appreciate any other reading suggestions for absolute beginners.

[cletrac1922]

Agree with @Kyle Allen about the mount

Not sure a EQ5pro with SynScan will support the weight of a Skymax 127, which have my ED80 on

A HEQ5 definitely will

You can then use T-Ring and adapter to attached the your Canon EOS 1100d DSLR

You can now also get a WiFi SynScan adapter, and download the SynScan App, which I also have recently purchased

John