Old fella wanting to get a little serious about photography

[neilpatrickhairless]

Hello folks,

Tiny bit of back ground first. I have 4 grandchildren and am going to attempt retirement. I currently own an 8 in dobsonian mount telescope and a old Canon T3i. The bulk of my photography is embarrassingly bad. I have bad hand tremors and the dob doesn't exactly glide around. I very much want to take better pictures but there are so many telescopes / mounts / et cetera that I am hoping to get a little advice.

 

I'll preface with budget. I think 1000$ is my telescope budget (mount, lenses et al). If I need to upgrade my camera I can do that as well and would like a recommendation for that as well. Which features, lenses lenses and focal settings that would be ideal for a amateur. 

I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max so should I worry about getting something with a cell phone mount? 

Is a Go To mount super important? True tracing mounts are expensive I've heard. Is that sort of functionality required? 

 

I'm very appreciative of any help / advice I can get.

 

Thanks a ton

 

[vlaiv]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

Depends on how "little" serious you want to get

1000$ won't get you far in astrophotography I'm afraid. At least not one with telescopes. You could get very nice star tracker and very small telescope. Something like Star Adventurer mount or iOptron offering and pair that with nice telephoto lens that you have or maybe 60-70mm ED doublet. That would be within budget.

Mount is super important in astrophotography - go to is nice bonus - it can get you close to target but not necessary. I purchased my mount without go to functionality and connected it to a computer to get go to functionality and much more. However mount needs to have motors to track the sky and it has to be EQ type mount if you want to be even close to serious.

If you want to get a little bit more serious - meaning telescope + mount. Then think of those 1000$ as going towards the mount (and a bit more perhaps). Something like Heq5 will get you going (maybe even EQ5 - but most people that start with EQ5 mount - very soon think of upgrading).

Nice "starter" package would consist of something like this:

1. Heq5 mount

2. 80mm ED scope

3. Field flattener / reducer for above scope

4. Guide scope (can be modified 50x8 finder)

5. Guide camera

6. Laptop

7. DSLR camera (which you already have)

8. Assorted accessories - cables, adapters, battery pack for mobile setup or different wall adapters

I think there is probably around 3000$ - give or take, on the list above. You can save some if you purchase second hand items, or maybe go for different scope - like 130PDS instead of ED doublet. Most beginners don't like idea of fiddling with collimation - but since you already own newtonian scope - you probably know how to handle one. Mount is the last item you'll want to save money on - it is indeed the most important thing.

 

[Astro Noodles]

Hi

There is a Youtuber called Trevor Jones who offers some good advice on beginning astrophotography. 

 

[CraigT82]

You might want to consider just getting a tracking mount to start off with, and using your T3i and camera lenses to get widefield shots. What lenses do you have already? 

I made this Andromeda image using a DSLR and a vintage 135mm takumar lens (£25 off ebay) on a lightweight tracking mount (Skywatcher Star Adventurer). Just to give you a flavour. 

There's plenty to image with that kind of kit and it's a great way to learn the basics of data acquisition and processing, and guiding isn't really essential at these focal lengths but if you wanted to learn guiding it's much easier to get going with it with short focal lengths. 

If the bug bites then you can start thinking about buying a scope and generally getting a bit more serious.  

In terms of a mount, there's the ultra portable star trackers like these, which can be packed up and driven out to dark skies easily....

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

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/star-tracker-astronomy-mounts/ioptron-skyguider-pro-camera-mount-full-package.html

Or there's the meatier mounts which are less portable but more capable when it comes to putting bigger scopes on it...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/computerised-goto-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-eq5-pro-synscan-goto.html

 

 

 

[Alan64]

Astrophotography may have been easier in the olden days, with a simply motorised equatorial.  The skies were darker, making it easier to guide.  But back then, what I call "paper cameras" were used, so that tended to negate the benefit of the former. 

I myself didn't delve into general photography until the debut of the digital-camera, and at the time with a whopping 1.3 MP CCD-sensor.

Nowadays, go-to and astrophotography go together like...

The higher the power, the closer you want to get to an object to snap a shot, like the planets, galaxies and nebulae, individual objects, then the larger the mount, and the smaller the telescope in relation, must be.

Picture a telescope bolted to an enormous boulder.  That's how rigid a telescope must be held to track an object long enough without becoming blurred.  In addition, the mount-head's RA-axis must be aimed at the NCP(nigh Polaris) as precisely as is humanly possible...

Edited May 11, 2021 by Alan64

[M40]

12 hours ago, neilpatrickhairless said:

Hello folks,

Tiny bit of back ground first. I have 4 grandchildren and am going to attempt retirement. I currently own an 8 in dobsonian mount telescope and a old Canon T3i. The bulk of my photography is embarrassingly bad. I have bad hand tremors and the dob doesn't exactly glide around. I very much want to take better pictures but there are so many telescopes / mounts / et cetera that I am hoping to get a little advice.

I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max so should I worry about getting something with a cell phone mount? 

Hello neilpatrickhairless and welcome to the site 👍 I started with an 8" dob, a Canon 100D and 5 grandchildren so know where you are coming from. I just couldn't get on with the phone mount so changed tack. I spent a few pennies on a Baader Hyperion Zoom which has a thread adjacent to the eyepiece, this thread, plus a Baader adapter, enables you to fit a Canon T2 adapter. This assembly allows you to fit your T3i directly to the eyepiece. Then I spent a few more pennies on an intervalometer, which will enable you to take pictures without touching either your camera or the telescope.

Having the dob, you will know just how fast stuff moves particularly on higher power, this is where the zoom wins, start on low power, zoom in and focus etc. If your camera has live view, you can do the same through the camera and take a picture when you are ready. This is eyepiece projection, you can use the same Canon T2 adapter with a nose piece and a Barlow and do prime focus.  Can I also mention, look at BackyardEOS. If it's compatible with your camera, you can then connect your camera to a laptop and take pictures or share your observing through the laptop.

I moved on from the dob when I became concerned about dropping the thing, but the plus side of the above is that everything you buy can go on the upgrade journey with you. Enjoy and HTH.

[Peter_D]

In my limited experience, Goto mounts are needed if you suffer from light pollution and don't have enough visible stars to star hop to your target. I have an unguided Vixen GP mount and can only use it for DSO on the brightest objects. A Goto upgrade is potentially available but costs 500€ - not sure if it's worth the upgrade.

Even if they have dark skies, I think most AP-ers use Goto simply to save time and get setup as quickly as possible.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Peter_D