Taking photos with a Skywatcher Heritage 130p

[the lemming]

I've decided to shake off the dust from my Skywatcher Heritage 130p Dodson and take some photos.

What would I need to adapt the telescope to capture images with a mobile phone?

Could this telescope even be adapted to take images with a Panasonic GH5?

And finally, is it even possible or worthwhile to find a way to make the telescope track the night sky while I take images?

At the moment I don't have any suitable tripods for such a project.

[the lemming]

Would something like this from Amazon work with my phone?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0188KP6T8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_9cYvFb7VNXMMC

[the lemming]

I'm just off to bed after my night shift. Would spending a little bit more be worth getting one of these?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01LCHLDWS/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=gs2&linkId=5ff732cb55f0f0185e1fc3577938d655&creativeASIN=B01LCHLDWS&tag=nebulaphotosu-21&creative=9325&camp=1789

[Pryce]

The biggest question here is: what are you looking to image? 

I'm not familiar with afocal photography with phones, but I'm fairly certain you won't have many other options than to image the moon. Especially since you have a dob and no tracking capabilities. When I tried afocal on my 150P with my DSLR I was able to image the moon well, but everything else in our solar system became a small glowing dot. And I could just forget about DSOs. 

So if you're thinking about getting into astrophotography I think you'll need to upgrade your equipment.. A lot. 

I just spend about £3000-£3500 just to get started. Granted, I bought almost all of it new from FLO, but that gives you an idea of the moneypit this is😅 I dont mean to discourage you here but you need to have realistic expectations. I sure didnt

Important note though; I bought a EQ6-R mount, which is a few thousand alone. I just didnt want such an important piece of gear to be sub par.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Pryce

[the lemming]

12 minutes ago, Pryce said:

The biggest question here is: what are you looking to image? 

I just want to have a bit of fun while on holiday and thought that the moon would be a good first bet. I have a small portable telescope, and a few eye pieces including one shaped like this from FLO

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bst-starguider-eyepieces/bst-starguider-60-15mm-ed-eyepiece.html

And maybe further down the road I may try for DSO's. But that is a long way off, especially as I only get my telescope out once or twice every few years when the urge is upon me.

Yes I am that infrequent, however I now have pet projects and the bug may finally hatch, especially if I can get to a couple of Dark Sites close to where I live. Sadly I have a big street light outside my house. But I did manage this offering with my camera on timelapse during Lockdown.

Cheers

 

 

[Pryce]

In that case, yeah! A phone mount may be the way to go! 

Or even a second hand cheap DSLR and a camera adapter. I bought a few of my DSLRs for like £50 second hand.  And the adapters arent that expencive and you can probably get one second hand fairly easy as well. 

The phone mount you linked to last was £50 wasnt it?  You'd definitely get better images with a DSLR and you'd be able to use it for normal photography as well! 

Just remember to get one with a live view function for easier focusing.

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Pryce

[happy-kat]

I have a heritage 130p.

If taking photos afocal then you could fashion a holder for your mobile phone if you find after practising hand holding your mobile can take a photo through the eyepiece. 

Prime focus you'll need to drop the trusses down about 1 inch to reach focus. Your G5 is heavy at 795 grams, is that the weight without the lens?

I did use a camera that weighed 495 grams and I would not want to go heavier. Looking on a Web search it looks quite interesting that the G5 can be used as a webcam, that presents an opportunity for Moon videos.

I bought a webcam for under £5 and had fun using that after I had modified it.

The Moon you could take video and then use say registax to process it.

[the lemming]

4 hours ago, Pryce said:

Or even a second hand cheap DSLR and a camera adapter.

I did mention in the opening post which slr I own.

[Chris]

I use the Heritage 150p to image with. For starters you need to drop the truss rods down 10mm or so to reach focus for a camera. You could hover a camera over a lens for afocal, take a bunch of shots and keep the sharpest. I wouldn't use a mirrorless or DLSR as it would be too heavy. Your best results will be using a planetary camera like a ZWO120mc or a modded webcam, film the planets as an AVI as it drifts through the frame, pre process the images in PIPP which crops round the planet on each frame making the image appear tracked ready for stacking. Stack the best frames in Autostakkert then sharpen the image with wavelets in Registax. I plan on doing a tutorial on this for my channel soon. 

 

PIPP, Autostakkert and Registax are all free to down load. Also with PIPP you can join lots of little AVI films together so you can stack more footage. 1000-3000 frame are plenty.

Here are some from the other night with the mini table top Dobsonian:

 

 

22_18_22_pipp_mars_lapl5_ap10_Registax1.tif JUP21_57_52_pippAUTOSTAKKERT_Registax.tif 22_03_37_pippAUTOSTAKKERT_Registax.tif

[Pryce]

1 hour ago, the lemming said:

I did mention in the opening post which slr I own.

My mistake!  I confused it with another compact Panasonic model!

Edited September 8, 2020 by Pryce