Learning for Absolute Beginners

[garyR]

Please can anyone recommend for me YouTube videos for myself an absolute beginner wanting to learn Astro photography. 
I late 60’s of age and understand absolutely nothing about imaging so I need to firstly learn  the terms & phrases as I don’t even understand them. 
then the easiest beginners Software.

i need to learn from ‘ground zero’ Up!

I have purchased from FLO a Celestron C8N AVX 8” Newtonian reflector package, but I have a skywatcher 100ED DS Pro refractor with 0.85 reducer.

I also bought from FLO a ZWO ASI  585MC camera, but still in its box unused until I can understand how to Start 

I intend buying from FLO the New Celestron Starsence Autogiider for guiding because it looks the Simplest guiding for a Learner

The one thing I have being recently retired is Lots of Time on my Hands to learn so would like help with recommendation for the most Beginner Friendly software and YouTube videos to learn with. 

thank you very much, 

Gary (from York, England) 

Edited April 24 by garyR

[Cosmic Geoff]

I suggest you buy and read Steve Richards' book "Making Every Photon Count" (available from FLO).  Then research any newer developments (e.g. Siril software) online.

[900SL]

Is there a local astronomy group or club you could pop along to meet? They will usually be very helpful.

Otherwise, take a seat:

Do you intend to photograph planets, deep sky objects, or the moon? They have different requirements, means and methods

Imaging anything at your focal lengths will almost certainly require an equatorial tracking mount, and if going for deep sky objects, a guide camera and guide scope. Are you familiar with these?

 

Useful beginners guides on youtube include early Peter Zelinka, the excellent 'Astroaddict', and there's a bunch of other guides.

 

You might be better off asking this question in the beginners section under imaging

 

[saac]

Gary welcome to the world of astrophotography, you are in for a wild ride and lots of fun. Don't be put off by the learning curve , there is a lot to get through but it is all relatively easy to understand taken step by step.  The first thing I would do if you haven't already done it is to set up your scope on your mount without the camera. Get use to how it all connects , do it in the daytime. Once you are happy set it up at night and figure out how to roughly polar align the scope.  I would then spend a bit of time using the scope in visual mode as this will get you use to its operation. Once you are comfortable with that you will be ready to take on imaging and it will make life a lot easier. Some software to download: Stellarium (good planetarium to tell you were object are in night sky) maybe Deep Sky Stacker which you will use later for imaging. These are free, if you have any difficulty finding them (google search) come back and we can point to a source for download.  Sorry if you are already familiar with basic scope operation I just assumed from your post you were starting right at the beginning.  Anyway you have found the right place, you will get plenty of help here. 

Just a though how are you intending to control the scope/camera - are you looking to control it from a laptop or does your setup have goto capability? The control of the scope - pointing, finding targets, framing etc is a big part of the learning curve and can be frustrating at the beginning.  

Jim

Edited May 7 by saac