Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamJL
thanks both for your answers.
Firstly, I agree, this website is a fantastic resource. And the biggest positive about it is (pardon my language) there are no dick heads. Whenever I've come here in the past, and even joined a Katoomba meet a couple of times, everyone was friendly and awesome.
Secondly, yes this hobby has a very steep learning curve. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to spend getting too involved in learning and playing around with things. Maybe (and hopefully) one day in the future, but for now, the best I can do is the simple stuff.
Lastly, can I just touch on this point:
What I thought of was:
1. A mount. Call it whatever you want, but something that sits on a tripod of your choice.
2. This mount has GPS, or can connect via software to your phone to use its GPS.
3. Using GPS, with it's altitude data as well, the tracker instantly knows where the pole stars are, and can align, roughly in the right direction. Maybe accurate to 200mm. It's just spacial data, that's nothing new?
4. It's a sturdy mount made for photographers that can accept a tripod collar for big lenses or small.
5. Using something like the Star Sense mentioned earlier, a photographer and literally press a button and the mount uses said mini ccd/scope, compares the stars with software, and aligns the lens perfectly with the pole star region if more accuracy is required.
What am I missing, why is this so impossible?
edit:
6. Considering we can have direct feeds from DSLRs onto phones and tablets now, why can't we also just use the camera's sensor to polar-align? An app that connects to the camera, takes an X-second exposure, compares the output then shifts the mount. Once that's done, you can point the camera wherever you want.
[B]I know this stuff can't be easy, but impossible?[/B] Almost all of it already exists, just not as a cohesive unit.
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Not impossible, thoroughly feasible, on the face of it but, just not worth doing, for the anticipated market and/or potential performance compromises, compared with performance from current state-of-the-art and/or even high performance commercial alternatives I expect. However something along those lines, with compromises is ....
an all in one type solution the
Pentax Astrotracking feature on some of their new digital cameras (Penatx K-1, Pentax K-3ii, Pentax K-5 with OGPS-1) , moves the image sensor, up/down- left/right one pixel at a time to track the heavens and allows use of a fixed tripod instead of using a conventional tracking mount and interfaces with an in-camera GPS to do so. Obviously with such an arrangement there are limitations with tracking duration /focal length and tracking accuracy, but .....
Unfortunately not much detail on the astrotracker function, but the camera reviews are here>>>
Pentax K1 review:
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentax-k-1
Penatx K3ii review: n/a
EDIT: I haven't looked, but it would be good to see some long duration exposures from these cameras, perhaps on Astrobin. I had read somewhere that 300s (???) was something of a maximum, but not 100% sure what focal length that was suggested for (probably ultrawide)....... Ok I couldn't resist I searched and found a 90 second exposure of Orion using a 200mm f/4, which if untracked would have been good for no more than 3 seconds (rule of 600). the image may not be perfect but, it's at 200mm and anything wider would be just dandy I suspect. Quite incredible really....
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/5...-smc-200mm-f4/
Thoughts?
Best
JA