Advise please

[michael8554]

"i took it up to 1600 and it came out like snowed out "

You can get that if you take a LiveView image.

Michael

[Cosmic Geoff]

On 05/09/2023 at 18:30, squipper said:

so  what's the type of scope for planets  a  dob or newt or a frak  .

Any type of scope can be used for planetary viewing so long as it's not a widefield achromat, e.g you could use a Newtonian, a Maksutov, a SCT , or a long focus refractor.  But it should have as large an aperture as you can practically provide.   These scope types all differ in aperture per ££, usability and weight. Some people will claim that some types perform slightly better than others of the same aperture, but you might not see the difference yourself. You also have to mount it.  You could get by with an all-manual mount, but the ability to power track is a great convenience if using higher magnification, and GoTo is a time saver for finding faint planets e.g. Uranus and Neptune, and for finding planets in daylight (yes you can!).

If you intend to image planets, the same remarks apply, except that a powered or GoTo mount becomes even more of an advantage. 

[squipper]

If a long f/length is good for planets   e.g refractor scope of 3.5-4"   a friend said why not use a nikon P1000 camera  with a f/length of 3000mm and takes photos in raw format. or a 10" newt or dod as i am thinking of getting the  Seestar  S50  also heard that the dwarf labs are supporsed to be bringing  out a dwarf 3 out next year 

[Mandy D]

1 hour ago, squipper said:

If a long f/length is good for planets   e.g refractor scope of 3.5-4"   a friend said why not use a nikon P1000 camera  with a f/length of 3000mm and takes photos in raw format. or a 10" newt or dod as i am thinking of getting the  Seestar  S50  also heard that the dwarf labs are supporsed to be bringing  out a dwarf 3 out next year 

The Nikon P1000 does not offer a focal length of 3000 mm, despite all the claims in marketing that lead you to think it does. The sensor in the camera is only 6.2 mm across compared with 36 mm for a full-frame camera like the D800. It also has a permanently attached zoom lens, which is the worst of all worlds, i.e. you cannot take it off and swap it for something else and it is a zoom which is never going to be as good as a prime lens. The small sensor gives it the advantage of producing magnified images with only a 500 mm lens (actual focal length) due to the small sensor and pixels. The small pixels mean noisy images, especially at high ISO. Yes, you can get around some of these problems by working hard, but why not make life easier and use a real camera and real telescope? Personally, I would avoid the P1000 (P900 and others in this range, too). Nikon make some fantastic cameras, but, in my opinion, the P1000 is not one of them and is expensive for what it is.

For small sensor DSLRs, look at micro four thirds cameras. The beauty of these is they are built around an open standard, so lenses from one manufacturer fit and work properly on all these cameras from the other manufacturers involved. The sensors are also smaller than the crop sensors in entry level DSLRs, so make better use of available focal length, giving the equivalent of half the field of view of a full-frame camera on any given lens, or looking at it the other way (like the P1000 does) a 300 mm lens behaves on these like a 600 mm does on full frame. However, the pixels of the small sensors in micro four-thirds cameras are not so small as to cause the problems you will get with the P1000.

Regarding your ultimate setup, I cannot advise what you should get, but I bought a Skywatcher 50ED to use initially as a finderscope on my big Newts, then as a guidescope for the RC6. I am now going to use it for deep-sky imaging with a ZWO ASI178MM camera. Why? Well, first because this is some of the kit I have and second because the 50ED is sharp and relatively chromatic aberration-free. It is also short focal length, so easy to mount and track with and has a very fast focal ratio of f/4.9, so requires shorter exposures than a lot of other telescopes. It is also very inexpensive at around £200 new.

My mount for deep-sky is a Skywatcher AZ-EQ5 which has the benefit of being usable in AZ mode for planetary, lunar and solar, thus requiring no complicated polar alignment, but can also be used in EQ mode where polar alignment is necessary and thus allows longer exposures on faint objects. It also has a 15 kg payload which is very useful, even if you halve it for deep sky.

As you can see by now, there is no single simple answer to what kit you should buy or use. It is good to see that you are attempting some astro-photography with what you have. I started out in exactly the same way with a DSLR and long focal length lenses, but then moved on to a 250PX, which is lovely, but would need a tracking platform or a humungous EQ mount for deep sky imaging.

For an inexpensive, long focal length and very capable scope for planetary work I would give very serious consideration to the Bresser 127 Maksutov-Cassegrain with a focal length of 1900 mm and f/15 focal ratio. It will give a half decent resolution image of Jupiter even on a regular DSLR sensor, but you will have to shoot still frames, because of the way a DSLR captures video. To use the bulk of the sensor so that focal lengths of lenses behave roughly as they do for stills on a given camera, in video mode, the pixels are "binned", thus reducing the number of these  "super-pixels" the planet will cover. If the camera offers 4k or 8k video this may not apply or not be as bad as for 1080P.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Mandy D
clarification

[michael8554]

The P1000 focal length is "24 - 3000mm Equivalent".

My reverse engineering of that is:

If you took an image from a Full Frame 24mm x 36mm sensor camera with a 379mm FL lens.

And cropped it to a 6.47mm x 4.5mm FOV (the P1000 sensor size)

On a screen that would look like a Full Frame image taken with a 3000mm FL lens.

So the P1000 actual FL is about 3 - 379mm.

Michael

 

[squipper]

thank you  very kindly for both your comments  seems i am listening to the wrong people  around me  so that's why i joined this very knowledgeable forum 

[squipper]

Managed this with a 100-400mm lens as best as i can get it

[squipper]

Just to let you all know Order  for the seestar S50 confirmed from FLO just sit back and wait, the boss said  i can get a planetary  scope later  when finances  build up        

[squipper]

AN  update my s50 is due tomorrow fingers crossed

[happy-kat]

Hope you have great enjoyment out of your S50, have fun with it

[squipper]

Thank you tried to download the app to my galaxy tab 3  10.1 tablet  while  waiting for to arrives today  and comes back that the app is not compatible with this devise

[happy-kat]

What version of Android is it running?

[squipper]

4.4.2

 

[squipper]

keeps saying unable to update  a network or server error 

[happy-kat]

That is quite old version of Android now. Perhaps might need to look at getting a newer mobile phone or tablet but perhaps could look at second hand and the seestar app needs Android 8 or up, so I'd look at something with Android 9 or up as a minimum to buy in some future legs, but I doubt devices of those age of release are getting security patches.

[squipper]

thank you very kindly for that advice will look for a up to date budget one with i think android  13 is the latest one out 

 

[squipper]

my s50 has just landed