Very newbie

[SpuddyMcFuddy]

Hi,

Very new to this field, so please use rather child-like terminology as otherwise I may well make neanderthal man like sounds

Well, I've always been interested in the sky at night but have never really had the opportunity to see anything or have the opportunity to buy anything decent. However I'd like to change that.

I already have a Canon 500D DSLR that I'd like to put to use, but have no idea what I'd need. I keep looking up the Skywatcher Skymax 127 on telescopehouse.com but whilst it appears good, is this really what I'd need? Also, what else would I need to get my camera attached and working?

I'd love to take pictures of pretty much everything skybourne, but have a specific interest in taking pictures of the major planets and hopefully to see some detail there. I still remember seeing one of the gas giants and 2 tiny, tiny dots around them and was almost giddy with excitement - I'd like to renact that but be able to see Saturns rings for example - so the actually look like rings! However, would I also be able to see any images of other spacial object such as nebula or clouds of some sort?

I don't even know if it's possible with 3 or 400 pounds but I'd certainly like to try.

I'd also like one that tracks the stars automatically as I can never find anything!!!

Any help you can give me would be fantastic and I thank you

[richbyers]

Hi. Try a skywatcher 200p on a mount. It's certainly a good scope also look on eBay for some good deals. 200mm will give good views of planets and galaxies and star clusters. You should also have some of your budget left for some astrophotograpgy gear but afraid that's not my field! Rich

[Capricorn]

Rule 1: Astrophotography is EXPENSIVE

If the Skymax 127 is a Mak and on an Alt/Az mount then really not the best for astrophotography. The scope has a big f number and the mount is the wrong type.

For AP you really are looking at an equitorial mount, HEQ5 is reckoned to be the minimum to get started with.

They can have a goto system attached, think the cost for mount and goto is around £450.

After that you need the scope. The pictures you see will be taken with high quality apo's, say £800 upwards and in to the thousands. A William Optics FLT 98 is about £1800 and I haven't looked at the 132's and 152's, WO scopes are reasonable.

If you get the equitorial mount they HAVE to be accurately aligned and set up, very accurately.

Remember rule 1?

[peterb]

Hi don't know where you are in the country but search and see if there's an astronomy group near you, pop along and get some advice and i bet you'll get the chance to have a look at some of the member's scopes - easy to buy something that very quickly isn't what you want. Have fun.

Peter

[Penguin]

I am also a newbie but I don't entirely agree with Capricorn: I took this picture on a TAL-1 4.5" reflector that cost me £90 second-hand. I took a video using an Olympus u820 compact camera which I held up to the eyepiece while manually keeping the target in view using the slo-mo controls. I then put the image through the free Registax software to create the final image.

So you can get the lower end of your requirements for much less money than Capricorn is talking about. Certainly Mars, Jupiter's cloud bands and Saturn's rings should be well within your reach.

To mount your DSLR, the other replies are probably right, you will need a meatier mount. All the advice says at least an EQ-5 (I think mine is equivelant to an EQ-3) and that will cost more. My scope is probably the absolute minimum in terms of aperture as well.

I would have thought that for £400, you could get some reasonable images but then Capricorn's advice becomes more apropos: it will rapidly become expensive.

--- Penguin

[Jdavies]

I own a skywatcher 200p and i could not rate it enough. It is a wonderful scope with a good apeture for not that badly priced (£350ish). But if you are going to want to do alot of astrophotography then a fair amount of money is going to be needed. I would recomend a very sturdy mount no less than a EQ5 but also a syncscan system which will atoumatically find stars,planets, galaxies, neublas,ect... but this will need some investment. EQ5 Pro (already has a syncscan attached) can set you back about 450 pounds. At a push the EQ3-2 with a syncscan system will work depending on how big the scope you purchase but this will still set you back about 400 pounds. In my opinion i would spent the extra 50 and get a much better and sturdier mount. A reflector telescope will also get the most apeture for your money, and the bigger the aperture the brighter and better quality the image. To connect your camera to your telescope you have two options. A simple Tmount which can be purchased for about 40 pounds or you can attacted it with a focal reducer which will give much supior images with a flatter field but do cast about 150 pounds depending on the model. my advice is don't rush into buying your scope, spent a few weeks researching, finding out the best scope for your needs, and reading reviews.

Also as a start to photography try puting your camera setrings to about F2.8 and shutter speed to about 30-40 seconds and point up. you will be suprised by the result. another thing to try if your camera will allow it is to put the settings as F4.5 and puting the shutter speed to about thirty mins while pointing at the north star. this way you will get some very intresting star tracks which can look amazing. from there just experiemnt by changing the setting to siut your needs.

Happy looking

Skywatcher Explorer 200P

Eq5 mount

[Jdavies]

Send us Your email if you want to see some photos that were taken of just the night sky

[Penguin]

Have a look at the Advice for beginner thread. There are some interesting comments about just watching the sky. It seems like my advice earlier may be right for low quality images of Mars, Jupiter & Saturn but not for many other objects.

At least you can see what I have got with a cheap setup.

--- Penguin.

[JamesM]

I believe Capricorn is right with this one.

You can take an image of anything and if it means something to you great, but if you want to get good results then, like everything else, it is so much harder on a shoestring. As far as I am aware, taking decent images is dependent on a good mount that is sufficiently accurate to keep track of the chosen object. Unfortunately, they don't come cheap. One way round it is to take video images which can obtain a lot of frames in a short time span (which eases pressure on the mount's tracking accuracy) which are then stacked together on free software such as Registax in which only the best frames are used and 'stacked' on top of each other to obtain the final detailed image. This method I believe is the preferred method for taking images of planets. I am not an imager only an observer and although I can appreciate where Penguin is coming from, I'm afraid that his image, (I don't wish to be rude) is not of the quality that someone wanting to get into astrophotography would hope for. I appreciate he is working with the gear that he has and is to commended for his efforts (certainly more than I could achieve) but I don't find the end result inspiring.

I would recommend spending your money on a good mount, after all you can put the camera directly on it to take wide angled images of the sky. Plenty of people in my club image this way and obtain great results. As far as the scope is concerned I would keep your options open for a second hand Newtonian scope, as that will give you cheapest route to get your camera to the subject. If you can get to 50 posts, you will qualify to view the 'For Sale' section on here and your £400 will net you the required mount and maybe even a scope! Taking images doesn't have to be too expensive but a reasonable result isn't going to be really cheap either.

James

[mark7331]

I believe Capricorn is right with this one.

I completely agree James & Capricorn. It's very expensive and time consuming and there is no short route to good results.

[Penguin]

Yes, fair enough.

I suppose I was trying to say that it's not that expensive to get 'something' but it is expensive to get 'something good'.

I was pleased with my image, given that it was taken by holding a cheap camera up against the eyepiece of a budget scope. I am hoping that I will get noticeably more detail with a toucam and more practice.

But if you aspire to anything remotely approaching the kind of shots that are in the 'photo of the week' forum then you will need to spend much more money and my post should be ignored in favour of Capricorn et al's.

I also don't want to turn this thread into an argument, so I'll shut up now.

--- Penguin

[Dave-Ryan]

He did say "specific interest in taking pictures of the major planets and hopefully to see some detail there".

Surely the mount would not need to be expensive for planetary photography and a web cam would be the better choice of camera.

[narrowbandpaul]

Capricorn is exactly right.

Astrophotography is expensive. The most expensive kind is definitely deep sky. No doubt. If you want planetary several items need not be of such high quality.

Planets, lets think. They are all reasonably bright. Venus, Mars, Jupiter, saturn and Uranus are all naked eye. As a result you only need short exposures. Collecting enough signal is not a challenge for planets, getting good detail is.

So your mount need not have the best gears, and nor is accurate polar alignment strictly required.

The mount is not super critical for planetary imaging.

The scope though is more important. A good quality scope will offer higher contrast, meaning more detail. A larger aperture is capable of higher resolution, meaning more detail, and a longer focal length allows more 'magnification' meaning higher detail.

However a good quality larger aperture scope does cost.

The issue is that even with all the potential resolution available, you are looking through 100km of air, which is always moving, meaning that stars twinkle. This twinkling (or scintillation) spreads and smudges detail.

The way round this is to follow the 'lucky imaging' theory. If you can take short enough exposures (say 30 frames/sec) then the possibility exists that the atmosphere will be steady over that time, allowing you to access higher resolution. To get a significant number of 'good' frames you need to capture say 1000 or more frames (doesnt take long at 30 f/s), and then stack the best ones in registax.

A webcam offers high resolution (due to small pixels) and a higher frame rate of 30fps or more. The shorter the exposure time the more likely each frame is 'good' or un-smudged

So mount not super critical, but scope, observing site and reasonble frame rate camera are important.

The opposite is true for deep sky.

You need to be able to track for several minutes to sub pixel accuracy, you need a mount that can be autoguided, you need a camera capable of long exposures, and one with a reasonable sensor size (like your 500D). You want a fast focal ratio scope (f/6 or less), and that means having a shortish focal length, usually 1m or less. For planets, aperture is king, but for deep sky its focal ratio that determines how quickly each pixel gathers signal.

So a set up good for planetary will struggle for deep sky and vice versa.

The only way I can think of getting a halfway house is to save for a good mount (HEQ5) which will be good for both planetary and deep sky. Start with a longer focal length instrument just now, and if you want to get good deep sky, you can acquire a different scope, plus autoguider for just a few hundred pounds.

If you go for a poorer mount now, and then want astroimaging, you will need to spend a considerable amount on a new mount, AND new scope.

If you definitely DONT want deep sky, then you can get a poorer mount and save money. But if you then want deep sky, you will end up spending more in the long run.

My suggestion then is save for the HEQ5 (or EQ6), get say the skymax you were looking at and a webcam optimised for planetary (should be about 50 quid), and then if you want deep sky, get a newtonian or short focal length refractor, and guide cam, and use your 500D.

the other option will end up in you buying 2 mounts....and that will be dearer than 2 telescopes.

hope that helps

paul

[carl0s]

surely there's nothing wrong in starting with a cheaper set up to see if its really for him?

[narrowbandpaul]

your plan is more expensive in the long run.

I assume he knows for sure that he wants to do imaging. Its not a decision that should be taken lightly.

i do speak from experience you know!

[weso]

i think experience is king here, not money. things you buy can be sold. but what u learn along the way is what is most important. i say buy what u think is good for you and experiment with it.

[narrowbandpaul]

ahhhh, the 'lets hope for the best' philosophy.

I tend to take a more rigorous scientific approach to things, but hey, thats just me!

[weso]

i would think that a skywatcher 200p with the dslr would get photos imho

[SpuddyMcFuddy]

Wow - that is a hell of a lot of advice!!!

I can only thank everyone for their pointers.

I should clarify what I'm after.

I would love to take photographs of planets. I would like to be able to see them with my eyes, but also to at least attempt the photography - preferably with reasonable results. I'm not expecting professional results, but at least to be able to see what is there.... perhaps clouds and spot on Jupiter if possible etc

Deep Sky wise, I'd love to be able to see / take pictures of some of the brighter objects - again I'm not expecting to be able to see everything - but just to be able to see a few of the brighter objects and to be able to recognise them would be fab.

In light of this and the comments above would something like this be more appropriate?

Explorer 200P (EQ5) although this does not appear to track anything - so is that effectively useless for me?

Or would something like this be more appropriate?

I really do not understand where to go to be honest, but I would like at least moderate results and would rather up my budget to say £500... but bear in mind I'm always going to be a hobbiest as opposed to a 'proffessional' amateur. So ease of use as much as anything else is king really.

Skyliner 200P Flex Tube Auto Tracking Dobsonian

Again thanks for all the help.

[SpuddyMcFuddy]

Also - the Dobsonia that "auto tracks" what does that mean. I assume it doesn't locate an object for you, but does it mean that it tracks something when you click a button, as in when you've found your object?

[mark7331]

A "tracking" mount doesn't always have a "goto" feature. "goto" after a little setup will point the scope to the object you're interested in where as a "tracking" mount, after you've shoved it in the right direction, will follow the object as it moves across the sky.

I'm not a Dobsonian man. Newts are the way for me. But knowing many members who rave about Dobs I don't think you could go wrong with one to start. You'll get a good aperture for your money and can bung a DSLR on the side to take images of the Moon and Jupiter. And with a 200mm dob you'll get some good views of quite a lot of DSO's.

I'm sure there are Dob guys here (you know who you are) who will second me.

Anyway, a Dob is just a Newt with boots on.

[narrowbandpaul]

careful with dobsonians, as the focal plane is often inside the focusser, meaning...you cant focus a camera!

[SpuddyMcFuddy]

You see I essentially don't know what you said there!

How do you focus the camera anyway? If you remove the lens and simply have the "camera" part attached to the 'scope then how do you focus that?

In your comments Paul - if the "focal plane" is inside the focusser is it impossible to focus the camera or just a faff?

And what actually is the "focal plane"??!!

[narrowbandpaul]

the focal plane is where the light get focussed. This is where you place the camera by moving the focussing knob

for a telescope designed for imaging, the focal plane is designed to be outside the focussing tube, thereby, the camera can be focussed.

for telescope designed for visual use, the focal plane is inside the focussing tube, and so mo matter how much you try to rack the focusser in, there is no way to get the camera to focus.

focussing a webcam is achieved by having the webcam attached to laptop, where you view the image

a lens and camera are focussed at different positions, so you cant simply remove an eyepiece and replace with camera

[SpuddyMcFuddy]

Does anyone know if the Skyliner 200P Flex Tube Auto Tracking Dobsonian is of this ilk and unable to be focused? Is does have - apparently - a SLR attachment already; so you'd have to assume you can use one properly!!!?