One Giant Leap
look first before you leap..

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Are you considering starting the adventure into the hobby of amateur backyard astronomy?
If you are then you are in for a wonderful adventure.  
Now I ask you this; are you considering starting into this new hobby with the intention of jumping right into astrophotography to capture some nice pictures of what you see through a telescope without any idea of what to get or how to get started?  If you are then please sit back, enjoy and read all this.

If you are wanting to capture those nice colorful images of deep sky objects or the moon and planets you're not alone. Astrophotography is a wonderful hobby to get occupy your nights.  However, just getting started in amateur astronomy itself can be quite overwhelming when trying to decide on what kind of equipment to purchase. There is a lot you will need to consider before taking that first big step.  So many different kinds of telescopes, mounts and more, so many different kinds of accessories needed, or what kind of accessories are you going to want and so on and on. There are so many choices to consider with so much available and so many experienced people telling you what their experiences have been with their favorite equipment, or not so favorite. Information Overload!

To top it off that you want to go directly into a more advanced area of amateur astronomy.  Well, like I said your not alone, and it can be done. Though there are many different levels, levels of expertise and/or proficiency, as long as you are properly prepared you can achieve some wonderful results too.

Be careful, You may find or see a nice looking telescope setup for a reasonable cost that may appear as though it will work for your desires. However, not knowing any better you could easily get in over your head real fast. You will soon find that it is not as simple as connecting a camera to any telescope and taking a picture.  You could end up with equipment that is plenty suitable for visual astronomy, but on the other hand it will be very inadequate for astrophotography, giving you less than desirable results and causing a lot of disappointments and discouragement. You will probably want something suitable for both.  In this case you will need to be more careful in your decisions getting something more suitable for astrophotography purposes rather than visual.
You can either start out with equipment that is just adequate and add to it overtime as you go. Possibly, or probably having to make replacement purchases that overtime can turn out to be a very costly investment by the time you tally it all up. Or you can save up and put out the cash and get a very nice proper set up that will last a life time and, overtime will have actually save money and headaches. .

Note:
You will see that it is very common for people involved in both visual and photographic astronomy to have multiple telescopes and mounts with one dedicated astrophotography setup.

Let me tell you that I must admit right off hand, there are many people that are much more qualified than me on the topic of astrophotography, However, I still wish to make a few comments and suggestions.
I am not going to go into all the details of exposure times and processing etc, although related that's a different topic. I am only going to discuss equipment considerations so that you become aware of the actual commitment and possible costs involved.

With the advent of new and ever improving technology with digital imaging, making it more accessible, affordable and, easier for the average person. More people are taking up interests in photography of all kinds. It also seems that more people are becoming more aware of what is above their heads in the night sky. With publicity of such things as the (HST) Hubble Space Telescope and the many wonderful images it has produced, I believe that has been a large contributing factor to a growing interests over the past years in personal visual exploration further into space by many people of all ages.

Nevertheless, those Observatory or HST images or similar are produced, processed and manipulated by technological advances in equipment and software applications for image processing which can be very misleading.  Some people want to, or think, they can see the same through their telescopes as what they see in those pictures.  Well, unfortunately that is not going to happen. Those images are long and or multiple exposures with cameras that are many times more sensitive than the human eye will ever be. They are also processed and manipulated to correct and enhance color and detail within them. Other than a very few closer brighter objects such as the large planets or the Orion nebula that may reflect a small amount of visible color, to the human eye looking through a telescope, the universe is otherwise only black and white.

Once people realize and understand this fact, not only will they enjoy amateur astronomy more, but many eventually want to capture their own images like those they see all over the internet and in magazines. After all who can blame anyone for wanting that, they are some beautiful and colorful images, and, can give you some very nice memories to reflect back on.   Hey that is all fine and dandy and I recommend it to anyone who can afford it, and is willing to put the time and effort involved into it.  Moreover, I would also like to make a point to get people to understand that there is much more to it than getting any ole telescope and mounting a camera to it.  Many people imagine themselves getting pictures similar to those that are published in magazines or found on the internet.  No problem right? Well we will see.  Not to say you can't do it, in fact quite the opposite, this can be done, it is done everyday by many amateur astronomers of all ages. As long as you meet a few prerequisites first you will be able to create some very eye pleasing results. You may need to, or want to, set a little more money aside than you initially planned on.  

More often than ever before I have seen people with limited budgets wanting to make that giant leap into astrophotography, without taking the first learning steps, to get right up there where others are that took those necessary steps. Most more experienced astrophotographers took many months and possibly even years to get to the level they are currently at.  So hopefully everything I am about to tell you here will help in the awareness process so that you will be prepared for some of the possibilities.

Never fear though, there are different kinds of astrophotography that are suitable for all levels of experience in amateur astronomy.  I will start with the easiest method working on up to the most difficult,  briefly explaining each the best that I can to include what you will need as far as equipment and accessories and the concerns of those.  At the end of this post I will provide you with a few links to those places that can be of much more help than I.
 
First couple methods require a 35mm SLR camera with (B) bulb setting  for the shutter and a remote cable to lock the shutter open. Or a DSLR camera with (B) bulb shutter setting/programmable exposure and or remote to control the shutter. On the basic camera tripod, with SLR camera you would lock the shutter open and let it go for a lengthy timed exposure. With a DSLR depending on the object you would take long and/or multiple short to long exposures and stack the images or frames on your computer with the appropriate software.

Method 1,  all you need is your  SLR or DSLR camera and a simple but stable camera tripod. With the camera on a tripod, just angle the camera towards an interesting star filled area of the night sky and take a long or set of long exposures for a lengthy period of time to record “Star Trails”.  These make very interesting pictures and are a great start for experimenting with exposure times.  This is the easiest and least expensive method to get you started in astrophotography.. Many people enjoy the open sky towards the celestial poles so they get that nice circular rotation of star trails around the pole.

Method 2 is more difficult and becoming more and more popular with almost any telescope. You get some very nice single shot digital planetary and lunar images even with a simple Dobsonian telescope this way.. This Method is known as “Afocal”.  You can use almost any kind of camera with the proper mounting hardware to help hold the camera in place over the eyepiece.  Although it can and has been done by hand. However, you will need a steady hand or you will get a very blurry image.  
Afocal photography is simply bringing the image to focus in an eyepiece of your choice in your telescope, then taking a picture of that image projected through the EP with your camera. With the object focused in the eyepiece of the telescope with a SLR or DSLR you will set the lens focus to infinity.  Difficulty increases as you increase magnification, especially with a telescope without tracking such as a Dobsonian.
This method is great for short exposures of the moon or larger planets such as Jupiter and Saturn.  If you have a single shot digital camera with a video mode you can also take short AVI videos and stack the frames. Some people will use multiple short AVI videos then stack the frames from all the videos to combine into one single high detail image. You may have to convert the video from .MOV to AVI with any availabe conversion software such as RAD Video Tools.  Webcams such as the Phillip SPC900NC are becoming more popular for Afocal / planetary imaging. 

Below is an example set up for Afocal photography with a simple point and shoot single shot digital camera.

 

A few examples of single shot afocal images with my Kodak EasyShare digital camera held to the EP of a 10" DOB




If you dare, Afocal could also be used for long exposure DSO photography, however I would not recommend it. Other than the possible intrusion of unwanted stray light between the camera lens and EP which will ruin a picture, you will need a more expensive mount with extremely precise / accurate tracking and very precise polar alignment and guiding. Any and all errors will be detected immediately by the camera and can ruin a good picture.. Not many people do DSO photography using this method, especially with the newer DSLR and CCD cameras. IMO It’s not worth the trouble, I've tried and failed a few attempts.

For the next few methods you will need a good mount, preferably an equatorial mount. Although a fork mount will work with limitations.  You want a good mount with a load capacity that is more than suitable to handle more than the weight of the telescope and all necessary accessories required for astrophotography. You don’t want to approach, reach or exceed the load capacity of a mount for astrophotography. The closer you're equipment weight is to the maximum capacity, the more undue stress and strain on the clock drives and the stability of the mount can or will become compromised, Tracking will be more difficult, tracking errors will be more frequent and corrections will be slower. 

I can’t emphasize strong enough the importance of a good quality, heavy duty, sturdy and accurate mount for this purpose. Preferably an (EQ) Equatorial Mount!  This is often were people on a limited budget will run into problems. Their desires often happen to overrun their budget and they may shy away from trying.   I am not trying to discourage anyone away from astrophotography, I only want to make sure they understand the expenses that can be involved and the different methods available to them.
 A good heavy duty mount capable of quality Deep Sky Astrophotography can get very expensive. The mount itself can cost several hundreds, more like thousands of dollars. Starting around $700.00 for a 35 lb capacity mount.  Other than the camera the mount is probably the single most important piece of equipment required for astrophotography, then the telescope.  There are things you can get away with on visual astronomy when a mount is concerned that you don’t even want to consider for astrophotography.
 
You can take a picture through almost any telescope with the proper camera and accessories. The Field Of View, Object Size and Resolution will be determined by the aperture and focal length of the telescope and the camera. However that will all be meaningless if you don’t have a mount good enough to meet the task. 

With DSLR and CCD it is easier to manipulate the object size and detail with image processing software in post processing. Provided there is the proper amount of quality clean error free image data collected. You can also manipulate Film images on the computer, although there isn’t as much needed or that you can do as you can with digital image.  

With that said I will continue on with some of the equipment needs or equipment that can be used for the following methods of photography. .
You will obviously need a telescope, the size of the aperture is up to you and what you can afford. Optical quality is a great concern for photography. The better the quality of the optics in the telescope, the better the images will be. Any optical defects that can not be seen with the human eye will surely be picked up by a camera. Achromatic refractors are famous for Chromatic aberration / false color in images. Too much of that can leave you with less than desirable effect.

Anyways, like I already stated above you can take a picture through almost any telescope.  Just remember this though,  “Aperture rules“. The larger the aperture the more you will get out of astrophotography, the deeper you can go capturing those faint distant objects. You want to mount telescope on a good sturdy mount with clock(motor) drives on the RA and Declination axis. Also, don’t let the fact that the mount has tracking mislead you, you will still need some way of guiding the telescope during the imaging process/exposure. Even though a mount has tracking, unfortunately they don’t do it perfectly. There will be periodic errors(PE) in sidereal tracking. There may also be drift caused by imperfect polar alignment, imperfect balance and the wind. Many mounts Periodic Error Correction (PEC). You can train the drives and it will learn to correct and track a little more precisely.  However, you still want some way to make sure it is tracking the object accurately while imaging. There is just too many variables that can cause tracking errors that will need to be corrected.
 
There are a few ways of guiding for photography.  Many people use a second smaller telescope mounted piggy back on the primary telescope called a Guide Scope. Or the smaller telescope is used for photography while the main telesocpe is used for guiding and carefully obseving at the same time.                                                        

Manual guiding with a Guide Scope will also require the use of an illuminated reticle eyepiece that you can center on a star. This will allow you to Keep an eye on the star making any necessary adjustments if you see any drift or tracking errors. Note: The added weight of a guide scope will also be a major consideration for you when thinking about the mounts load capacity. Everything you load onto the mount to include the camera must be Considered.  Also, trying to guide on a star in less the ideal atmospheric seeing can prove to be difficult.  The guide star can be shifting and jumping all over the place due to atmospheric instabilities. It could cause you to make unnecessary adjustments that could also be picked up in the picture.  Manual guiding is something that will take practice. However it is not suggested to take images in bad seeing conditions anyways.

Illuminated Reticle  or Micro Guiding Eyepiece

With Illuminated Guiding and Measuring Scales

or Adjustable Crosshairs
 

Dual refractor setup for manually guided prime focus photography.

The above setup is the Celestron C6-R GT. A 6" refractor on the CG5-GT mount. The small telescope mounted piggy back is the Celestron C80 ED refractor which is currently my primary photography telescope.

Another way of using a guide scope is with a mount that has Auto-guider abilities. This method you will need a PC/laptop or auto-guider to connect to, a CCD camera or web cam.(web cam is essentially a CCD video camera)  With the CCD or web cam connect to the guide scope focused on a selected guide star, through the auto-guider or computer with auto-guiding software connected to an auto-guider port on the mount the computer will make all necessary adjustments as they are detected by the camera and computer. This can be the most accurate way of guiding and will also make your nights of imaging much easier and less straining on the neck. Just program everything to do what you want for whatever length of time and you can virtually fire and forget until it is done.

 The following is my C6 R-GT and C80ED setup for autoguided DSLR photography with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT attached to the C6 R, and Philips SPC900NC(ToUcam Pro III) as the CCD sensor camera for autoguiding attached to the C80ED..

Estimated cost of all this is about $3200.00

auotguided image.


There are a couple more methods that don’t require a guide scope. One way is with an Off-Axis Guider(OAG). Another special accessory that attaches to the telescope between the camera body and the focuser. They  have a special built in mirror that allows the image to be seen off axis from the camera through a eyepiece while still allowing the light to reach the film plane of the camera or sensor chip. This way you can guide and take a picture through the same telescope and focuser without increasing the load too much on the mount. This seems as though it is not commonly preferred by experienced photographers. They have a few disadvantages or problems that could be undesirable for good astrophtography..

Off Axis/Radial Guider

Another but more expensive way and often preferred by many is with a dual chip CCD camera. One sensor chip is for gathering all the image data and the second smaller sensor chip is focused on a guide star and used along with the image capture / auto-guiding software.

SBIG Dual Sensor Self-Guiding CCD Camera

At this point you might be able to see were this can start to get expensive.  Not including the cost of a good mount and telescope A good quality DSLR or CCD camera can get costly too. However CCD cameras are becoming more common place lately and less expensive. You can use almost any DSLR to achieve satisfactory images for a reasonable cost. However the more expensive higher quality DSLR such as the Canon  EOS 20D DSLR can get expensive. Or the Canon EOS 20Da which is designed for astrophotography purposes can cost onwards of more than $2100.00 just for the basic camera body.  

Method 3, Piggy back photography. This method requires a 35mm SLR or a DSLR mounted piggy back on the telescope or a special mount attachment to mount the camera to the telescope.  This is great for long exposure wide field images of the night sky with your camera and its own lens. Depending on the lens you use will determine the field of view. If you use a Zoom lens you will want a method to lock the zoom/slide ring in place so it does not slip when the angle of the telescope is aiming high in the sky. A simple rubber band is often suitable for this purpose.  
With piggy back photography you can still, although carefully, observe the object through the telescope while the camera is taking the picture.  Be careful not to bump the telescope when looking into the EP.  
This method is the least sensitive, more forgiving, to any alignment and tracking errors unless you use a long focal length zoom lens.  With a good set up and polar alignment and, Properly trained clock drives you can take some very long exposures before seeing any visible errors in the image.
I have seen some very impressive images / panoramics of the summer milky way with a short focal length lens such as a wide view 15mm lens.

Wide field Piggy back image of the North America Nebula in Cygnus

Wide field piggy back image of The Orion Constellation  

A typical camera piggyback method
 

Orion Telescopes makes a little mount with tracking drives just for a camera that can achieve the same results as piggy backing on a telescope.
http://www.telescope.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=296&item

In addition, a nice simple method used to capture wide field shots with your camera similar to piggy back photography, without an expensive mount, is to build a Barn Door tracker, or Scotch Mount.. These are excellent for entry into long exposure photography. refer to the following link to learn more about them.
http://www.astronomyboy.com/barndoor/links.shtml

Method  4 is “Prime Focus”  in effect you're turning the telescope into the Cameras lens. With this method if you are using either a 35mm SLR or a DSLR you will need an additional accessory called a T-ring. Depending on the telescope and focuser you may also need a T-adapter.  Remove the Lens from the camera and replace it with the T-Ring and if need the T-Adapter. Then attach to or insert into the focuser of the telescope. Now you have a large and powerful lens attached to your camera. (SLR and most DSLR's will be equal to a 43mm eyepiece).  If you are using a CCD camera designed for astrophtography then it is already designed to be fit into the focuser. If you are using a Web Cam such as the Philips ToUcam then you will need a special adapter to attach to or replace the lens so that it will fit into the telescope focuser.

Prime focus is probably the most common and practical method of astrophotography to capture those (DSO’s) Deep sky objects or lunar images.  IMHO, Not the best method for planetary images when using a 35mm SLR camera though. Not near enough magnification and it's very hard to get correct and even exposure without overexposing the planet.  For planetary images at prime focus you would want a CCD camera suitable for planetary purposes such as the (LPI) Lunar planetary imagers or Solar System Imagers that are sold by Meade, Orion and Celestron which are designed specifically for those objects and are very affordable. They also make (DSI) deep sky imagers which are also pretty affordable for Deep Sky objects.. Webcams such as the Phillips ToUcam are also very useful for lunar and planetary imaging at prime focus with the suitable adapter to fit to the telescope focuser..
 
With Primary focus photography you will want a quality heavy duty sturdy mount with accurate tracking. You will also have to ensure proper telescope balance and accurate polar alignment. For long exposures you will need to either manually guide or use an auto-guider as described above.
If you attempt this method with a less than stable or substandard mount you will probably not be satisfied with the results of your images and soon become discouraged.

Prime focus image of the Orion Nebula complex: Unguided and you can see the tracking errors when looking at the stars.


Some short manually guided prime focus photos through 80mm ED refractor on Fuji 400 Slide film
M13 Globular Cluster in Hercules  Exp:12min


M57 area of Lyra  Exp: 25min (Tiny red dot is the ring nebula)


M17 Swan Nebula in Sagittarius  Exp: 15min


M8 Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius Exp: 22min

M31 Andromeda Galaxy, total Exp: 90min                                                                                     

Method 5: Next and final method is called (EP) Eyepiece projection.  You will need and additional accessory for this method of photography called a EP projection adapter. This item threads onto the T-Ring and allows you to place an eyepiece inside it then connect to the focuser.  This method is probably the hardest and most sensitive to any stability problems with the mount along with any polar alignment and tracking errors.
This is probably used more often for lunar and planetary photography than it would be for DSO’s. IMO, the exposure lengths required for many of the fainter DSO’s is often too much to achieve satisfactory results without too many noticeable errors.
However it can and has been done. It is just more difficult and the need for a stable accurate mount is even more important. This is the least forgiving method because you are using more magnification. More magnification used the more you also magnify any kind of errors, and the more magnification used the more likely to introduce visible errors into your image. 

EP Projection through Celestron 6" refractor using with 25mm plössl eyepiece
Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT / 350D
single 1/20 second exposure, ISO 100.
Converted to grayscale.

Some of the equipment considerations / needs for astrophotography dependant on method:

Mount:

The Mount is probably the most critical component of any good astrophotography platform.  It is the foundation of the complete set up. AS a general rule of thumb you don't want to exceed 50% to 60% of the maximum instrument load capacity of the mount for photographic purposes.  Stability issues are not the same for visual as for photographic uses.

The type of mount, For some people it is a personal preference. However in my honest opinion I would say preferably a German Equatorial Mount. If not then a Fork mount, and if it is a fork mount you might also want a wedge for prolonged exposures without field rotation.  However, newer digital technology and post processing methods can overcome many minor tracking and other issues caused by the mount, sky conditions and noise inherent with electronic devices. 

Most mounts will come with a  tripod,  this is very much one of your stability consideration. You definitely don't want a flimsy little tripod. There are some that you can't even breath on without sending vibrations through and into the telescope.
You may want to consider a pier in place of a tripod. Especially with a Large telescope, or if you plan on a permanently mounted telescope in a personal observatory of some kind..

Power supply: 
You will need some kind of portable power supply and or an ac to dc adapter.

Telescope:
Newtonian, Schmidt Newtonian, Schmidt Cassegrain, Maksutov Cassegrain, Ritchey Chretian,  Achromatic refractor, Apochromatic refractor.
So many to choose from.. That is a personal preference issue. Each different type of telescope will perform better in some ways that another may not. 

Guide Scope w/guidescope rings:
Usually a smaller refractor. Generaly no less than half the focal length of the primary telescope used for photography.

Guiding EP:
Illuminated reticle or microguiding EP

Attachment accessories:
T-Ring, T-Adapter, EP projection Adapter, Off-Axis Guider or piggy back mount.

Computer:
PC or Laptop and necessary consideration for the computer. (not necessary for manually guided film photography)

Image capturing software and/or Auto-guiding software or auto-guider. Many CCD Camera are supplied with their own image capture and editing software.

Image processing and editing software. Adobe Photoshop CS is a common but expensive program. It will do wonders with your images. However, you can find suitable programs on the internet for less or no cost. Some of them Would be GIMP or Pleiades PixInsight LE which are both good.
A popular Image stacking program is Registax which you can get at no cost also. Please remember, many of these programs might be freeware, however, if you like the program a small contribution never hurts. These people invest hundreds of hours of their own time developing these programs that make things easier for us.

Camera:
(35mm SLR, WebCam, Digital, DLSR or CCD)

A 35mm SLR camera with T-ring universal EP projection adapter and T-Adapter.

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT with 2" T-Adapter attached, Remote Switch, AC Power Adapter.
 

A popular webcam used for Lunar and planetary imaging.
The Phillips SPC900NC

Adapter required to use webcam with telescope(aka Mogg adapter)

A good webcam such as one of the Phillips ToUcam pro series webcams can perform just as good or even better than many of the more expensive (LPI)Lunar Planetary Images or (SSI)Solar System Imagers you can find on the market. YOu can purchase a Phillips SPC800NC(aka ToUcam Pro III) from Wal-Mart for just under $80.00, and, then the Mogg adapter for around $24.00.  Far less expensive than an LPI or SSI.   

Web Cam image of Jupiter

Note:
Once again the Mount is the most important piece of equipment when considering a venture into astrophotography.
I will also add that many people get a smaller high quality refractor to sit piggy back on a larger telescope for quality Rich/Wide field images. You can use the smaller piggy back telescope for photography and use the larger telescope for guiding or vise versa Depending one the object or desired effect.

Most important for astronomy and especially astrophotography is:
Dark Skies
Sturdy quality precision mount
And for greater light grasp and resolution, "Aperture Rules".

a few links for more detailed information on astrophotography:
http://www.allaboutastro.com
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/6529/primer.html
http://www.astroimages.com/
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/astro/astrowhat.html


Have A Nice _________

NICE POST!!

Gone_super_nova wrote:

NICE POST!!

Thank you, Actually it is still a work in progress.

To All:
If anyone with astrophotography experience sees that there is something that could be added to my post please PM or Email me with your ideas and I will take them into consideration.. However keep in mind I am trying to keep it as simple as possible with consideration to the equipment only, All other references to more expanded knowledge and detailed information concerning astrophotography can be found in the astrophotography forums or the links I have provided at the bottom of my post.
I also don't think we need to turn this into a catalog of recommended equipment, equipment sources and equipment prices. There are plenty of posts for each particular circumstance already and we can also handle any other individuals situation seperately.


Have A Nice ___________

Tim,

I truley do respect you for taking the time to post such a thing. Great work!

David

Im a begginer, and i've learned a lot just by reading this post! man you should write a handbook bout this stuff thanks a lot!

kurei wrote:

Im a begginer, and i've learned a lot just by reading this post! man you should write a handbook bout this stuff thanks a lot!

Your not the first to say that. Between this post and a couple of others I have posted, If you print them out then you have yourself a little book.

Glad it helped

Have A Nice _________

wow really great post that is written using terms everyone can understand,ver helpful, I quess you have to sat that astrophotography like happiness is a journey not a destination.

Here is another thread I replied to with a lengthy right up that may also be useful to some people.

http://www.astronomy.com/ASY/CS/forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=317186 

 

Have A Nice __________ 

This is the feelings towards astrophotography by another member here as he has started his adventure into astrophotography.

The title to his post is  Astrophotography... Is it worth it?

Kevin Bozard wrote:

For the newer members here that may be thinking about getting into astrophotography. I offer this piece; based on my experience, and my opinions on the subject. Of course, all of this will depend on what kind of camera you're using too. But my experience is with a Deep Space Imaging CCD.  Astrophotography is a long and trying process, that's sometimes cold and lonely, or hot and muggy and lonely; depending on the season. There are a ton of things that will try try your patience as well. Clouds, ground fog, those little biting critters that always come out at night, or ice crystals that have formed in the astmosphere that really kills a good image. You may even be in the middle of capturing an awesome image on a clear steady night, and suddenly the power goes out. Thanks to the electric company, you've just lost probably the best image you could imagine taking. This only touches on the things that can go wrong when you're sitting there waiting on that perfect image, and I'm sure your imagination can conjure up hundreds more. Besides that, let's look at the nights when things go right, and you're able to capture an image on the target you're persuing. Once you've centered the object in your field of view, then you have to get it focused. This can be a task in itself. There are a few things you can do to help you achieve focus, but none of them will keep you focused from one object to the next. So you spend a good amount of time trying to reach focus. That time could range from a few minutes, to as much as thirty minutes, depending on how lucky you are, and how many problems you have while trying to set up that perfect image. I've gotten an object focused to my camera, only to decide that I wanted to add a 2x barlow to magnify the image even more. Well guess what, you just threw the time you spent focusing out the window. Now you have to refocus all over again. And if you can keep the object in the field of view while adding the Barlow, you've saved yourself another time consuming step of having to realign the object in the field of view. Now that you have the object centered, and have it as focused as you can possibly get it, it's time to find a decent exposure rate in which to image it with. On the Sombrero galaxy, I started with a 90 second exposure. After waiting a minute and a half, you then realize you have to lengthen the exposure time to drag in any detail out of the galaxy. So then I try 200 seconds. Now I have over exposed the image, so I cut it back to 120 seconds. This image looks pretty good, and thats the time I decided to go with. Now I could have tried 130, 140 or even 150 seconds to see if that would have helped the image any, but I decided to stay at 120. I've now spent approximately 20 to 30 minutes just getting focused, and finding a suitable exposure time. Then I spend another 20 minutes taking 10 images at 2 minutes per exposure just to capture my image. So on a good night, I've burned an hour just capturing one image. Then theres the post processing to stack all the images together, to come up with one final image, but I won't get into that now. The number of images you can capture in one outing depends on the amount of time you're willing to spend outside, and the amount of obstacles you have to overcome to achieve the captures of each image. When I do an all-nighter, I'm literally out there all night. From dusk to dawn, so you could be in for a long tiresome, sleepness night if you're willing. I have spent all night imaging and only came out of it with two decent images to share. Sometimes you can't even get that. So is it worth it? To me, it's worth every single second. Just spending time with the night sky is worth every misaligned, poorly tracked, atmosphere ruined image I've ever attempted. A bad night under the stars, beats a good day at work, or doing honey-do projects any time. So don't let anyone's bad experience with astrophotography change your mind about diving in head first. If you love what you're doing, then it doesn't matter how bad it gets, or how bad things turn out. Just keep at it. One of these nights you're going to succeed in your efforts, and that one time will quickly wash away all the bad times you've ever had.

Astrophotography! Great isn't it. it's the challanges and the rewards that make it all worthwhile.

It's like the ABC wide world of sports. "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." Gota love it. 

Surprising to see how many people think it is a simple task to achieve some of the results seen here. Just capturing the image data is only the beginning of the adventure. There is the post processing that is another adventure of its own. Also easier said than done in many circumstances. Sometimes that can be more difficult and take longer than the actuall capturing of the image.

It's a lot like work. a lengthy painstaking effort to achieve satisfactory results. A labor of love and devotion to aquire the end product.  Only to have the hardest critic (yourself) determine that it is not good enough, start over again until you get it right. Whatever that is! 

 

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Hi Tim,

Wouldn't it be great if they could make your post on this subject a (Sticky)or a permanent posting visible all the time on the forum where anyone that visits the forum can see it right away?

It would save a lot of energy,  you wouldn't have to be replying to the same type of posts all the time.

Dennis ;)

Star Dragon wrote:

Hi Tim, Wouldn't it be great if they could make your post on this subject a (Sticky)or a permanent posting visible all the time on the forum where anyone that visits the forum can see it right away? It would save a lot of energy,  you wouldn't have to be replying to the same type of posts all the time. Dennis ;)

It's no big deal for me to keep replying to new people as needed. When they ask I can just link them to this post rather than repeating myself over and over..
Also, every now and then I extend a warm welcome to all new members in the introduction forum and post links to a this post, another of mine along with a couple other links to helpfull information here on astronomy.com.  

The only reason it was showing today is because I have maing edits and additions to it.

 

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Anyone know if you can get a camera adaptor with a 58mm dia thread, to screw on to the front of the camera lens?

No but what you can do is use a universal camera mount like shown in one of the images above for Afocal photography. Then you would be using the telescope with an eyepiece, then aligning the camera over the eyepiece to take your picture. All you would need to do is get the image focused as best that you can in the eyepiece, then set the camera lens focus to infinity(∞). This is an effective means of planetary and lunar photography. As for deep sky photography using the Afocal method, it is tough. You will need some very good and precise equipment. 

 

Have A Nice ________ 

 

For better or worse, I didn't even think about astrophotography when I bought my first (well, okay, three) telescopes. Now here I am five months later and really wishing I had thought ahead.

I live close to the Orion store in Cupertino, CA so I am predisposed to buying from them due to the ease of purchasing/returning items (plus no shipping cost) and the "walk-in and ask" quotient is pretty high for me as well. But if there are compelling reasons to buy elsewhere, I'm willing :)

With that in mind, I have no idea, despite lots of reading on the subject, what would be an ideal (and not too expensive) astrophotography scope? I plan to buy a CCD camera or two (for auto-guiding) or possible an SBIG with the autoguide chip built in. So I'd also need a mount (I'm leaning towards either the Sirius or Atlas EQs, depending on the weight of the scope I get)

That leaves....the SCOPE

And that is where I can't seem to get a grip on things. If it weren't for the fact that I already have a 10" Dob, I'd get a 10" Newt and be done with it, but it kills me thinking I'm buying a (nearly) identical tube. Also, I have read and heard that the ED Apos refracters are better due to their higher quality optics...

Can anyone give me the skinny on this? Personal anecdotes, research papers, stories of questionable authenticity?

Each of the scopes I already have has one major drawback with regards to using it for photography. The Dob won't focus properly due to the location of the secondary mirror (as opposed to a regular Newt). The MCT doesn't have any way to mount a guide scope to it (unless I get the SBIG, then it won't matter). The 100mm refractor isn't a good quality scope and will suffer from spiking and other optical flaws.

So, I could buy another 10" Newt (that's the biggest tube I can get in my car) and a guide scope to piggy back. Then get two of the Orion StarShoot II CCD's + the Atlas EQ autoguide mount. This whole setup will cost about $3500.

Or

I buy the SBIG (dunno which model...advise?) and put it on my existing 150mm MCT and still buy the Atlas EQ mount.

The second option is more expensive due to the SBIG, but seems to offer more flexibility because it has the autoguide CCD built in so I don't need a separate guide scope. This setup will cost about twice as much as the first one due to the SBIG, I suspect.

Oh, one last item. I have a brand new Macbook which I planned to use for controlling whatever beast I end up with, in addition to some other non-astronomy related hobbies (underwater photography, etc) so the software for any of this would need to be OS-X compatible.

Thanks for any/all of your advice. 

Christopher

 

PS - almost forgot...I am a DSO addict... 

insinu8 wrote:

With that in mind, I have no idea, despite lots of reading on the subject, what would be an ideal (and not too expensive) astrophotography scope? I plan to buy a CCD camera or two (for auto-guiding) or possible an SBIG with the autoguide chip built in. So I'd also need a mount (I'm leaning towards either the Sirius or Atlas EQs, depending on the weight of the scope I get) That leaves....the SCOPE

Your on the right track in thinking about matching the scope to the mount. Just make sure you get a mount that will be adequate for the telesocpe you have in minde plus some. As a general rule you don't want to exceed half the instrument load capacity of the mount.  

insinu8 wrote:

And that is where I can't seem to get a grip on things. If it weren't for the fact that I already have a 10" Dob, I'd get a 10" Newt and be done with it, but it kills me thinking I'm buying a (nearly) identical tube. Also, I have read and heard that the ED Apos refracters are better due to their higher quality optics... Can anyone give me the skinny on this? Personal anecdotes, research papers, stories of questionable authenticity? Each of the scopes I already have has one major drawback with regards to using it for photography. The Dob won't focus properly due to the location of the secondary mirror (as opposed to a regular Newt). The MCT doesn't have any way to mount a guide scope to it (unless I get the SBIG, then it won't matter). The 100mm refractor isn't a good quality scope and will suffer from spiking and other optical flaws.

The Optical tube of a 10" Dob is a Newtonian. The mirror placement of the secondary is not different. If you were to buy the Atlas 10" EQ newtonian it is essentially the same telescope. The difference is the altitude bearing system mounted on the sides of the OTA. If you want you can even mount that OTA to an EQ mount with the proper rings. There are people here who have done it and have had success with that set up. Look in this forum for the thread titled "Post pics of your telescopes".  However, it is a large and somewhat heavy telescope so you would want a large heavy duty mount. The Siriua and Atlas are adequate for visual and some limited photography, however it has a large cross section susceptible to the effects of the wind.  

The 100mm refractor won't have spikes, that is inherent to Newtonians and caused by light diffraction off the spider vanes holding the secondary mirror. It will have the problem of Chromatic Aberation(CA) since it is an achromatic refractor. But much of that can be edited out in post processing.  BTW, Some people like the effect of diffraction spikes and some people even create them in post processing or with string or thread in front of their telescope lens.
And that leaves the MAK; you can purchase the necessary hardware for mounting a piggy back telescope on the OTA of a Cassegrain, or you could buy a side by side mount plate for whatever mount you get.  

 

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