Quote:
Originally Posted by Rod1448
Thanks again Martin,
I checked light pollution map and I thought it was dark here but still only have Bortle 4 skies, I'm just on border of Bortle 3. It's all the lighting from the coal mines nearby.
Thanks for sharing your rig setups. A lot more than I thought, I'll have to give the 72ED a miss by the sounds of it and just use similar to what you have (60mm Orion). That is a huge amount of software required, I've heard that a lot of it is freeware, is that correct?
This will be a huge learning curve by the sounds of it, how did you learn when first starting out? Is there some books that may be worthwhile or does the "Beginners Guide to DSLR Astrophotography" book help lots? That is the ZWO guide camera I was looking at but I will remember the USB2 issues and go for the USB3 version.
Cheers
Rod
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Glad to help
As far as software goes here’s what it cost me -
Stellarium ( open sourced so free ) it’s the astronomers road map for the night sky , whether your just observing or into Astrophotography it’s a must. The latest version has been updated to support Ascom telescope control ( see my post in (Software and Computers ) today
EQMOD ( open sourced so free ) telescope control ( drivers seat ) used with Stellarium
BYEOS cost me about $60
APT cost me about $60
PHD2 guiding software ( open sourced so free )
Deep Sky Stacker ( open sourced so free )
Autostakkert 3 for Planetary stacking ( free )
Registax 6 for Planetary processing ( free )
Startools processing software cost me I think about $60 or $80
Astap ( free)
Gimp ( free )
There’s a huge amount of opened sourced Astronomy software around
But some are a bit expensive like Photoshop , Pixinsight etc...
All the software I use is entry level ( beginner to intermediate) but it does a great job and is easy to use once you get the hang of it
Jerry Lodriguss book is a great resource to get up and running in your first year into Astrophotography
Another good book is by Allan Hall , Getting Started , Budget Astrophotography
Cheers
Martin
PS: Yes it can be a long road ahead if you go down the Astrophotography path but so challenging and rewarding just the same
Also you can’t buy your way out of problems with this hobby , you have to do the hard yards , read , read , watch and learn but that the exciting fun part
Good luck again !!