Advise on hardware

[Moonman_271]

Hi all,

New to the astrophotography scene and looking for some advise.

I have a bridge camera and looking to get a tripod to assist with shots, I like the idea of the tracker ones but have no idea where to start.

Should I get a standard tripod and upgrade later with motor etc. For tracking and longer exposures?

If so what type of tripod and upgrades would I be looking at,  I have seen some on Amazon/eBay but slightly unclear on all the parts and names of the equipment I should be looking at.

 

Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

[wimvb]

14 hours ago, Moonman_271 said:

Hi all,

New to the astrophotography scene and looking for some advise.

I have a bridge camera and looking to get a tripod to assist with shots, I like the idea of the tracker ones but have no idea where to start.

Should I get a standard tripod and upgrade later with motor etc. For tracking and longer exposures?

If so what type of tripod and upgrades would I be looking at,  I have seen some on Amazon/eBay but slightly unclear on all the parts and names of the equipment I should be looking at.

 

Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

I assume that your camera doesn't allow you to change lens, and you can't use it with a telescope? To advise the best way forward, you will need to do some planning. With your current camera, a tracker mount (tripod is just the legs which the mount stands on) such as one of these is the most logical next step.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts.html

Even if you invest in a telescope and more suited camera later on, you can learn a lot and have fun while being under the stars. Star trackers such as these, can handle up to a small telescope with a dslr.

Otoh, if you have a large budget, that will open up for a completely different setup. A motorised equatorial mount with telescope and camera (dslr or astro camera).

Anyway, invest also in this

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

[nephilim]

+1 for the book linked above by @wimvb It has a great deal of invaluable information for every budget & most set ups. It'll also save you money in the long run when it comes to buying the correct equipment etc so you don't end up buying twice.

Edited January 1, 2021 by nephilim

[Moonman_271]

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

I assume that your camera doesn't allow you to change lens, and you can't use it with a telescope? To advise the best way forward, you will need to do some planning. With your current camera, a tracker mount (tripod is just the legs which the mount stands on) such as one of these is the most logical next step.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts.html

Even if you invest in a telescope and more suited camera later on, you can learn a lot and have fun while being under the stars. Star trackers such as these, can handle up to a small telescope with a dslr.

Otoh, if you have a large budget, that will open up for a completely different setup. A motorised equatorial mount with telescope and camera (dslr or astro camera).

Anyway, invest also in this

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/making-every-photon-count-steve-richards.html

Thanks for the reply and useful links,

You are correct the lense cannot be changed on the camera the model I have does have a 60x optical zoom so hoping this will be enough to get some food shots.

The confusion for seems to be when looking for mounts they seem to be listed with x y and z not included which is fine but when not sure what a wedge or dovetail is it's a bit confusing.

[wimvb]

9 minutes ago, Moonman_271 said:

The confusion for seems to be when looking for mounts they seem to be listed with x y and z not included which is fine but when not sure what a wedge or dovetail is it's a bit confusing.

The book I linked to, will clarify this, and much more.

10 minutes ago, Moonman_271 said:

You are correct the lense cannot be changed on the camera the model I have does have a 60x optical zoom so hoping this will be enough to get some food shots.

Can the camera save images in raw (unprocessed and uncompressed) format? This is important if you want to get decent results. Again, the reason for this is explained in the book.

[nephilim]

24 minutes ago, Moonman_271 said:

Thanks for the reply and useful links,

You are correct the lense cannot be changed on the camera the model I have does have a 60x optical zoom so hoping this will be enough to get some food shots.

The confusion for seems to be when looking for mounts they seem to be listed with x y and z not included which is fine but when not sure what a wedge or dovetail is it's a bit confusing.

All the info you need you will find either on here or online, there are numerous YouTube channels dedicated to everything AP related. I've pretty much learnt everything I know from the & above & the power of Google 😀

[nephilim]

Not all bridge cameras shoot in RAW format which would probably make them unsuitable for AP. Some do but i'm not sure which models.

[Moonman_271]

32 minutes ago, wimvb said:

The book I linked to, will clarify this, and much more.

Can the camera save images in raw (unprocessed and uncompressed) format? This is important if you want to get decent results. Again, the reason for this is explained in the book.

Yeah the camera can save in raw format, which I have used for a few moon shots.

[Tiny Clanger]

You can certainly take a few steps into astro photo with a bridge camera, but there will be severe limitations. The principal one being that the image sensors in them are typically small,  so that they can produce great magnification like 600x . The lens is quite small aperture at high zoom levels , so will not collect much light. Does it have manual focus ?Auto focus may be a big problem in the dark...

I've owned a few of these superzoom bridge models( a Canon powershot x20 and a Panasonic Lumix) as cameras to carry every day,  and the sensor size and propensity to suck dust in when the telephoto extends and have it land on the sensor , where you can't get at it (as you can on a dslr by simply removing the lens) made me give up  on them eventually.

Photos of the Moon should be doable though , I'd just get a good hefty tripod with a smooth pan/tilt head, and a remote release (or use the delay release to let vibrations calm down if no remote is available) and take series of photos keeping your target centered by hand. Then try stacking them with some free software. A heavy tripod is a good investment for any photographer , and handy for lightweight telescopes in the future should you get sucked in...

Don't have high expectations, but do have a play around and give it a try.I'd be interested to see what the latest generation of bridge cams can do !

Heather

 

 

 

 

[Moonman_271]

15 minutes ago, Tiny Clanger said:

You can certainly take a few steps into astro photo with a bridge camera, but there will be severe limitations. The principal one being that the image sensors in them are typically small,  so that they can produce great magnification like 600x . The lens is quite small aperture at high zoom levels , so will not collect much light. Does it have manual focus ?Auto focus may be a big problem in the dark...

I've owned a few of these superzoom bridge models( a Canon powershot x20 and a Panasonic Lumix) as cameras to carry every day,  and the sensor size and propensity to suck dust in when the telephoto extends and have it land on the sensor , where you can't get at it (as you can on a dslr by simply removing the lens) made me give up  on them eventually.

Photos of the Moon should be doable though , I'd just get a good hefty tripod with a smooth pan/tilt head, and a remote release (or use the delay release to let vibrations calm down if no remote is available) and take series of photos keeping your target centered by hand. Then try stacking them with some free software. A heavy tripod is a good investment for any photographer , and handy for lightweight telescopes in the future should you get sucked in...

Don't have high expectations, but do have a play around and give it a try.I'd be interested to see what the latest generation of bridge cams can do !

Heather

 

 

 

 

Thanks Heather, I am hoping to get some good shots and currently playing around with some stacking software. As the camera is new to me still working out the settings So i don't just get a big white circle, but I will get that sorted.

[Tiny Clanger]

2 hours ago, Moonman_271 said:

The confusion for seems to be when looking for mounts they seem to be listed with x y and z not included which is fine but when not sure what a wedge or dovetail is it's a bit confusing.

First, please be aware I'm no expert :  I started to look at astro photo and decided , despite being a photographer who already owns DSLRs, lenses, tripods etc, that doing it properly was out of my financial range. However, at some time in the future I might buy a mount for simple landscape type stuff ... so I've done a little casual research when clouds have stopped me going out with a telescope to observe.

As far as mounts go , essentially the idea is they rotate the camera so it stays still relative to the stars (you knew that though, didn't you ) thing is, the angle the mount needs to be tilted upward at to do this depends on how far north or south you are on this planet. So as I understand it , you can achieve approximate tilt of a tracker by using the tripod head it is mounted on, and your latitude , which for Nott.s will be around 52 degrees (I know these things, I'm a geocacher ) .

Thing is, when longer exposures are needed, or longer focal lengths are used, greater accuracy is required to keep your target centred, so precision wedges can be added between tripod and head to do this. *

Dovetails are the metal bars which are a commonly used way to mount telescopes onto things, so you probably don't need to worry about them, your camera will have a standard tripod screw hole in the base ,which will be what you use to fix it to a tracker using a ball head (a standard tripod accessory) . Also counterweights get mentioned in some packages, they are only needed for big heavy camera/lens or 'scope setups, your bridge cam or my Nikon with a 300mm lens wouldn't need it.

I found this interesting enough reading to bookmark the page, it may help you : https://www.peterzelinka.com/blog/2018/8/which-star-tracker-should-i-get

Heather

 

*The big boys (and girls) who do the serious stuff go as far as to have a small 'guide scope', a telescope on top of their actual telescope (the actual telescope has an actual specialist camera on it, obviously !) , the guidescope has another camera attached to it which feeds an image back to a computer which then tells the mount when to move. .., I could buy all that, but I'd have to sell my house and live in my tent ... where would I plug all the cables in then ?