Getting into EEVA - path to success

[astroburning]

Hi, I'm into amateur astronomy since 2 years ago.

I have a beginner telescope, a Skywatcher 70/700 With the simple AZ mount that comes with it, and two eyepieces 10mm and 25mm.

I have to say that this telescope gave me a lot of hours of fun, I mostly observe from my living room or balcony of an city apartment. I have Bortle 5 sky. I mostly observe moon, planets and some bright DSOs.

I have a plan to slowly upgrade to a portable and light setup for EAA, because I have a country house with bortle 3 sky.

I was thinking on this path:

1- Buy a goto mount (something like the cheap W AZ GTi, ioptron cube pro or smart eq pro...), it will allow me to chase objects.

2- Buy a dedicated camera (ZWO ASI120, ASI224 or similar) to start doing some kind of EAA

At this point, I plan to start with the telescope I have now to start learning the basics (alignment, capture, etc..)

3- Buy an upgrade telescope. This is the point I have the big problem. Maybe I will start with a SW 72ED, because I can do some planetary with a barlow, and I can use a 0,5 focal reducer to do DSO hunting. 

4- Asiair Pro. The final step to have a light portable setup that I can control via wifi.

 

I'm open to suggestions, what do you think about the plan?

[Martin Meredith]

Hola astroburning

It is hard to find a scope/camera combination that is optimal for both DSO and planetary work and is portable. The software/hardware requirements and techniques are quite different for the two (unless you are thinking of the outer planets/dwarf-planets in which case DSO-style techniques are actually quite appropriate). I guess the biggest limitation you are facing is the need for portability since this defines the mount and therefore limits the range of scope weights. Certainly choosing an ED refractor is a good idea as achromatic refractors do produce horrible star bloat that is hard to process out in an EEA context (I speak as one who started with such a scope!).

I would check out the EEA images that others manage to produce with small refractors and the kind of relatively small sensors you are considering. 

There are a few more questions I would be asking:

1. What apparent field of view are you aiming for? You might plan for a large FOV to cater for bright and dark nebulae, a few larger galaxies (M31/M33) and the larger open clusters, and maybe some of the larger galaxy clusters, but 99.9% of interesting deep sky objects easily fit in a small FOV.

All other things being equal, you can achieve a small FOV with a large megapixel camera used via region of interest, or via a camera with a smaller sensor. The cameras you mention are quite suitable for the majority of objects. Other cameras such as the Lodestar are also worth looking at as they are very sensitive and simpler to use (no need to set gain) and produce excellent results. I know the trend is towards CMOS, but there is a lot of life left in CCD guide cameras.

2. Do you want colour? It is actually much harder to start off in EAA with colour than with mono for lots of reasons. Mono is much more sensitive and doesn't require spending a lot of time achieving satisfactory-looking colour, especially with software that makes it quite difficult to do so in the EEA context, where the goal is to observe and not process. I started with colour but soon 'graduated' to monochrome, and have since added an electronic filterwheel for when I want colour.

3. Are you sure you need portability? You might be surprised by how much EEA can cut through LP; the difference between your country house and city sites will be far less using EAA than visual.

Saludos

Martin (near Vitoria)

 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Martin Meredith

[astroburning]

6 hours ago, Martin Meredith said:

Hola astroburning

It is hard to find a scope/camera combination that is optimal for both DSO and planetary work and is portable. The software/hardware requirements and techniques are quite different for the two (unless you are thinking of the outer planets/dwarf-planets in which case DSO-style techniques are actually quite appropriate). I guess the biggest limitation you are facing is the need for portability since this defines the mount and therefore limits the range of scope weights. Certainly choosing an ED refractor is a good idea as achromatic refractors do produce horrible star bloat that is hard to process out in an EEA context (I speak as one who started with such a scope!).

I would check out the EEA images that others manage to produce with small refractors and the kind of relatively small sensors you are considering. 

There are a few more questions I would be asking:

1. What apparent field of view are you aiming for? You might plan for a large FOV to cater for bright and dark nebulae, a few larger galaxies (M31/M33) and the larger open clusters, and maybe some of the larger galaxy clusters, but 99.9% of interesting deep sky objects easily fit in a small FOV.

All other things being equal, you can achieve a small FOV with a large megapixel camera used via region of interest, or via a camera with a smaller sensor. The cameras you mention are quite suitable for the majority of objects. Other cameras such as the Lodestar are also worth looking at as they are very sensitive and simpler to use (no need to set gain) and produce excellent results. I know the trend is towards CMOS, but there is a lot of life left in CCD guide cameras.

2. Do you want colour? It is actually much harder to start off in EAA with colour than with mono for lots of reasons. Mono is much more sensitive and doesn't require spending a lot of time achieving satisfactory-looking colour, especially with software that makes it quite difficult to do so in the EEA context, where the goal is to observe and not process. I started with colour but soon 'graduated' to monochrome, and have since added an electronic filterwheel for when I want colour.

3. Are you sure you need portability? You might be surprised by how much EEA can cut through LP; the difference between your country house and city sites will be far less using EAA than visual.

Saludos

Martin (near Vitoria)

 

Nice tips!

About your questions. First one is the fov, I would like to combine  sessions with the short refractor and wide eyepieces, like the Celestron Omni 32, lunar/planet sessions with barlow and planetary eyepieces, and EAA sessions to see small dsos with the camera. This is my plan but is not the final word, I’m open to changes.

I maybe will buy a monochrome camera like the asi 120 mm, that can be used in the future on a guide scope. 

The mount is where I have more dudes, maybe it’s better to invest on a better mount but the prices escalates quickly.

[2STAR]

On 12/06/2020 at 15:54, Martin Meredith said:

Hola astroburning

It is hard to find a scope/camera combination that is optimal for both DSO and planetary work and is portable. The software/hardware requirements and techniques are quite different for the two (unless you are thinking of the outer planets/dwarf-planets in which case DSO-style techniques are actually quite appropriate). I guess the biggest limitation you are facing is the need for portability since this defines the mount and therefore limits the range of scope weights. Certainly choosing an ED refractor is a good idea as achromatic refractors do produce horrible star bloat that is hard to process out in an EEA context (I speak as one who started with such a scope!).

I would check out the EEA images that others manage to produce with small refractors and the kind of relatively small sensors you are considering. 

There are a few more questions I would be asking:

1. What apparent field of view are you aiming for? You might plan for a large FOV to cater for bright and dark nebulae, a few larger galaxies (M31/M33) and the larger open clusters, and maybe some of the larger galaxy clusters, but 99.9% of interesting deep sky objects easily fit in a small FOV.

All other things being equal, you can achieve a small FOV with a large megapixel camera used via region of interest, or via a camera with a smaller sensor. The cameras you mention are quite suitable for the majority of objects. Other cameras such as the Lodestar are also worth looking at as they are very sensitive and simpler to use (no need to set gain) and produce excellent results. I know the trend is towards CMOS, but there is a lot of life left in CCD guide cameras.

2. Do you want colour? It is actually much harder to start off in EAA with colour than with mono for lots of reasons. Mono is much more sensitive and doesn't require spending a lot of time achieving satisfactory-looking colour, especially with software that makes it quite difficult to do so in the EEA context, where the goal is to observe and not process. I started with colour but soon 'graduated' to monochrome, and have since added an electronic filterwheel for when I want colour.

3. Are you sure you need portability? You might be surprised by how much EEA can cut through LP; the difference between your country house and city sites will be far less using EAA than visual.

Saludos

Martin (near Vitoria)

 

Hi Martin, I think with the new OSC ZWO CMOS cameras EAA is  easy , the ZWO Studio Suite is simple to use & ideal for Planetary, DSO Imaging & of course live stacking for EAA.

Eric

[Martin Meredith]

Hi Eric

That sounds like a good option. I haven't used it as I don't have a ZWO camera. It would be good to see a few planetary and DSO images captured with the same camera/scope/software combination.

My thinking on planetary EAA is that apart from quick shots, the techniques can be quite different from DSOs in terms of how the stacking is achieved, for instance. Sadly, we don't see a lot of planetary images in EEA either these days since Nytecam's passing, but the ones that were posted tended to be quick shots rather than produced with dedicated planetary software. For Pluto and satellites of the major planets 'DSO-like' EEA techniques work very well in my experience since we're dealing with faint nearly point-sources.

Martin