Recommendations please.

[JohnC]

I wish to set my wife up with an imaging rig.

She already has a Mgrez 72.

Her aim is to take one shot colour pics of nebulae, galaxies and planets.

I think that an EQ6/EQ5 pro with the Megrez and maybe an ED100 would fit the bill. Which camera would you recommend. The aim is to keep things simple so as to get satisfying results with the minimum of fuss.

Ideas please as to camera and do you think an ED100 is req for planets, or can she use the Megez and use barlows.

Thanks in advance.

John

[iancandler]

The ED100 is better on planets but the megrez is ideal for nebulae, with the field flattener it not only works a treat but is a doddle to connect a DSLR too.

If going for a cooled astro cam, then get the best you can for the money, The atik HR's can still be picked up for a reasonable price.

I use a QHY5 as a lunar and planetary camera, cracking piece of kit for the money, I liked it so much I got two, one for guiding, the other for planetary use.

[Ben Ritchie]

Atik 16HR is a nice CCD, all you're really giving up over the newer Atik versions with the same CCD is USB2, so the download time is longer (the new ones have better cooling too, but the Sony CCD they use is so low-noise that cooling doesn't matter too much). The one-shot colour one works well too, although you're giving up a bit in sensitivity and it has the usual OSC colour-balance issues - especially with nebulae - on the crossover between blue and green.

ED100 is a nice 'scope, and will be great for guiding the M72 as well as doing some lunar/planetary. The DMK 'webcams' and a 5x powermate works very well with it.

As for HEQ5 vs EQ6, it's a matter of portability vs load-lugging, usually the advice is (correctly) to go for the EQ6 as you get a lot more capacity for little more cash, but the HEQ5 is much easier to carry around and setup - the EQ6 is a big lump of metal.

[barkis]

You said your wife is more into planetary imaging John, plus nebulae, but what about giving some thought to an Astrotrac.

It's light, easy to manage, and with a long lens on a camera, who knows. Just another choice in the mix for you.

Ron.

[Milamber]

Atik 16HR is a nice CCD, all you're really giving up over the newer Atik versions with the same CCD is USB2, so the download time is longer (the new ones have better cooling too, but the Sony CCD they use is so low-noise that cooling doesn't matter too much). The one-shot colour one works well too, although you're giving up a bit in sensitivity and it has the usual OSC colour-balance issues - especially with nebulae - on the crossover between blue and green.

Love the shape too Not like I am biased or anything...

Aside from that though yes, the Sony ICX285 chip has *very* low noise and as such makes it an excellent choice for a beginner (in whatever camera) because there's no need to dive straight in with the weird stuff like flats and darks - you get great pics straight out of the camera.

Arthur

[JohnC]

Thanks to all.

What do you think about using a DSLR as the camera as Dawn says she would like to do wildlife photography during the day.

This would be used with the Megrez 72. Also possibly with an ED100 or something simalar for planetary/lunar.

Thanks again.

[Doc]

Great idea John. IMO a DSLR is the way to go. Don't cost alot of money and can be used for pleasure as well as AP.

Best to get a Canon though as they are very supported software wise when it comes to AP.

[JohnC]

Thanks Mick.

[Ben Ritchie]

A DSLR is a good place to start (especially on of the newer ones with 10x live view for focusing). A major disadvantage is the lack of red response compared to a CCD, especially for H-alpha emission which is the major component of most nebulae. That can be fixed by 'modifying' the DSLR to remove the IR-blocking filter, but then it's less useful for daylight as you need to start colour-balancing.

Noise is worse than a cooled CCD too, especially if you're somewhere hot.

[JohnC]

Thanks Ben

Is it better to mod the camera and use a correcting filter ( if there is such a thing) for use in daylight; or can you keep the camera standard and filter it for astro?

[arad85]

Thanks to all.

What do you think about using a DSLR as the camera as Dawn says she would like to do wildlife photography during the day.

This would be used with the Megrez 72. Also possibly with an ED100 or something simalar for planetary/lunar.

Thanks again.

Hi John,

Planetary imaging (to any useful level of detail) appears to require a relatively long focal length, as much light gathering as you can afford and some form of high frame rate (e.g. webcam) based solution. Basically, you're trying to get detail out of a very small object and you need the highest magnification possible to do that (which the webcam does) coupled with lots and lots of frames to stack to get detail through the seeing. A C9.25 would be ideal

As to DSLRs - great for wider field of view and due to the number of pixels, they tend to be used with shorter length refractors (although can obviously be used on longer focal length stuff too) and larger objects (areas of the sky, or the moon for example) come out great using refractors in the 60-120mm range. See below for a very rough (and slightly out of focus) image of the moon taken by a Canon 450D on a C80ED (this is the full image, scaled to ~25% to show the field of view you have with that setup). The Megrez72 would put the moon smaller in the field of view. Clearly, longer focal lengths will produce closer crops - I haven't yet put the 450D on the C9.25 and taken a picture of the moon, but see the attached image to compare the fields of view of the C80ED with 450D and the C9.25 with 450D (from Starry Night Pro) - the smaller box is the C9.25.

For less bright objects (nebs/galaxies) you'll want to go for "lots" of long exposures (30secs->) on a guided mount with either a dedicated CCD or (more probably from what you are saying) a modded DSLR. For DSLR, I'd be looking at Canon 1000D/450D or possibly a 500D and potentially getting it modded to remove the IR cut filter. You need to do this to get best H-alpha response, and you can get a clip in filter to restore colour balance for normal usage. Beware though - the Canon EF-S lenses don't work with the clip in place, you'd need to purchase EF lenses to go with the camera body if you want to use the clip in filter for everyday. Control can then either be done by the PC or by a timer shutter release available for £30-£40 on fleabay.

Note that the field of view is a combination of the focal length of the scope, and the area of the chip you are imaging onto. A webcam acts like a 5mm lens in any scope - not sure what the equivalent is for a DSLR though...

Apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs...

[Ben Ritchie]

John, you can use a standard DSLR for astro-work just fine if you pick your targets. They're weak on H-alpha emitting objects, which in practice means emission nebulae, although galaxies also have H-alpha emission from star-forming regions. But star clusters will turn out just fine, M45 works well as it's a reflection nebula and galaxies work pretty well too as they're mostly integrated starlight.

So although you'll have a few limitations in targets, you can get a whole bunch of imaging done with a standard DSLR before becoming limited by it - and that experience will stand you in good shape for deciding what you want next (mono CCD, colour CCD or modified-DSLR - they all have their good and bad points).

[JohnC]

Thanks for all the advice.

Going for a modded DSLR, which will get Dawn started on the astro side of things.

A great forum that always delivers!!

Thanks to all