contemplating the possibility

[JBW]

Hi all, my wife and I have been involved in this passion for going on two years and for the last few months have been considering imaging.

Presently we own an Orion short tube 4.5 eq mount and a Meade 8" LightBridge. We live in the Philippines and as there are no astronomy gear retailers over here we need to import everything which means if we get into imaging it will have to be with the equipment we already have.

Any suggestions for an inexpensive way into this area of astronomy will be greatly appreciated
Brian

[SteveB]

There will be others more qualified to answer this than me, but you can do a lot with what you have and a simple point & shoot camera.
Afocally through the eyepiece of either telescope for the moon and planets or piggy-back on top of your Orion for wider starfields and deepsky.

My personal feeling is to wait until you have reached the limits of the camera before investing more in that area. While a DSLR has greater capability, if you can't get good stars from a simple piggy-backed camera, you're not going to gain much from a more expensive camera. You may find that other things limit you before then like the mount or light pollution.


Steve.

[Vinnie]

Brian, like Steve I'm not really qualified to answer, as I am a sometime Astro Photographer. I prefer visual.

Nonetheless, top quality images can be captured through most common scopes. The keys are not so much the scope, but its mount, and your processing ability.

Some of the highest class shots that I have seen have been taken in prime focus through an 80mm refractor, but on a very sturdy mount. For example, a Synta ED80 weighs only 2.7kgs, but to get seriously into AP the guys use at least an EQ6 mount that is rated to carry 20kgs.

Don't let this put you off! You can take a lot of quite reasonable shots through your scopes afocally, as Steve has said, but to really get to the top of the heap, Astro Photography is almost a game of its own, and can be a rather expensive one at that.

[Vinnie]

Brian, just an aside,

I really like the way you said "my wife and I have been involved in this passion for going on two years"

Great stuff, should be more of it!

[SteveB]

I'm afraid that I must disagree with Vinnie. (I've only been here two days and already stirring things up ).
Yes, the mount is vitally important and will ultimately become the limiting factor, but I think the philosophy here is wrong. Not just here. It seems to be the norm with most astrophotography forums, talks, etc

IMHO, the approach should be - what can I get from the equipment I have ? Then, what is limiting me at this point ?

For example - With my p/s camera on wide angle, I can expose for 10 seconds on a tripod and get round stars. Deepsky Stacker is free so I can do multiple wide field, 10 sec exposures of the milky way.

Limiting factor is no tracking. Even with the cheapest, sloppy mount like a home made barn door, I can extend that to the longest the camera will do (60 seconds) and/or start zooming in on things until I find the limitation of that mount. In my case, dew and light pollution became limits early on.

I also think that these days we tend to set our expectations too high. If you are expecting to go out to the back yard one evening and start shooting Sky&Telescope quality shots, you'll quickly become disheartened (and broke) and it will ruin a hobby that is currently enjoyable.

I have lots of photos of empty black space, fuzzy blobs, blurry dots and wiggly star trails. Nothing to show anybody, but they are meaningful to me because I learn from them and can do better next time.

Steve.

[Vinnie]

I'm not worried about anyone disagreeing with me, Steve. LOL

My opinions are just that *opinions* and the more different ones that are posted, the more benefit for the OP.

I do remember years ago going to the Camera shop to pick up prints of my latest attempts at AP (no dig back then) and the girl insisted on asking me in front of everyone to look through all my shots and make sure they were OK..... 36 black 6x4's, just like as if the lens cover had been left on.....LOL

[admin]

"Oh no! Not another !@#$% hobby" - The wife.

LOL funny but possibly true for many sig Steve sorry about the off topic...

Back to the question I agree even barn door trackers can take nice pictures but its really experience that does it. I purchased a good mount and telescope with a DSLR connector, and a great DSLR and I still cant take pictures to save the life of me. Mind you I still cant track well and I have used the telescope for about 2-3 hours max. Will keep people posted with possible tutorials to come soon when I figure everything out...

[JBW]

Hi all, if the attachment made it it is actually a picture of the Moon - Jupiter - and Venus(?) low in the eastern skies a little more than a year ago using her camera and our 4.5 Orion short tube. So in a small way I guess we are already astrophotographers.

And no we weren't expecting to be gracing magazine covers in the foreseeable future we are just trying to find a way to make a hard copy of what we observe.

We just may have to develop sketching skills.
Brian

[Vinnie]

Hi Brian.

No mate the attachment didn't come through

Have a look at the "Sticky" in the Beginners Forum about posting images.


Don't misunderstand me re AP. I guess it depends on your expectations, but these days I encounter a lot of people who do think that they will produce results like those on the front cover of S&T at their first attempt, with a very cheap rig. Get out and take photos and enjoy!

[Carlos_dfc]

There is one way to get decent astrophotos , relatively cheap....

And that is to shoot bright objects (moon and planets) with a webcam.

You shoot an 'avi' movie with the webcam, then use a piece of free software called 'Registax' (or there are other free alternatives) which can align, sort, then stack the seperate frames from the avi on top of each other, to create a sharper, almost noise-free, still picture.

The beauty of this method is that the software aligns the frames for you - so it doesn't matter if the object moves around a bit in the field of view.
Or in other words - you can get away with a less accurate (cheaper) mount.

All you need is a decent webcam.
Webcam planetary imagers tend to prefer a cam with CCD chip, rather than the CMOS-type (Either will work, but CCD models give better results)
The most popular models are the Phillips Toucam, or Phillips SPC 9000

You need to remove the lens from the webcam (it unscrews), then mount the webcam on the telescope - effectively using the telescope as an enormous telephoto lens.
A 'Barlow' can also be used to boost the size of the target.
Most astro-stores can supply a 1.25" barrel that screws into the webcam, instead of the lens, for mounting it to a focuser.
However, if you can't get hold of one of these - you could make your own out of the barrel from an old cheap eyepiece - or even a 35mm film canister (a film canister is a nice fit inside a telescope's 1.25" focuser)
After removing the lens, simply glue the barrel onto the front of the webcam (silicone sealant is good for this)

Check out this thread to see what can be done with a webcam, and stacking software.
[Registered users can see links. ]