Planetary scope .... cheap and not SCT?

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Originally Posted by Atmos

I’ll say again... the largest GOTO!!!! Dob that you can afford. You only need EQ for long exposures but a Goto dob will track the planets accurately enough for the 100+ FPS you’ll be getting.

Great, i will work hard for that then, hope it can happen sooner than later.

Thanks!

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by TareqPhoto

Yes planets, but others keep bringing EQ mount into the topic because i need to track the planets, so i really don't know who i should believe, those who keep saying that EQ is a must even with a dob, or those who said it can be done with a Dob even without EQ, and i saw images amazing mind blowing from Dob or Newtonian so that i won't think about SCT as it is very expensive compared to Dob/Newtonian, so are you sure that planetary can be done without EQ? i will shoot videos for about 2 minutes or 3 or even 5 minutes long.

Cheers,
Tareq

Hi,

You dont need to shoot for so many minutes. Usually a few thousand frames should suffice. When you stack you throw away around 70% anyway. Planets are so bright that a few thousand good stacked frames is all you need. A zwo asi 290 easily gets 30 fps without dropped frames on a good laptop and thats only a few minutes. If you have usb 3 and restrict to a region of interest, the area around the planet you can easily get over 100 fps. Any field rotation is automatically removed by registax anyway.

So you could take multiple 2 minute videos, process and pick the best.

And No, you dont need an eq mount for planetary imaging.

Cheers
Paul

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Hi,

You dont need to shoot for so many minutes. Usually a few thousand frames should suffice. When you stack you throw away around 70% anyway. Planets are so bright that a few thousand good stacked frames is all you need. A zwo asi 290 easily gets 30 fps without dropped frames on a good laptop and thats only a few minutes. If you have usb 3 and restrict to a region of interest, the area around the planet you can easily get over 100 fps. Any field rotation is automatically removed by registax anyway.

So you could take multiple 2 minute videos, process and pick the best.

And No, you dont need an eq mount for planetary imaging.

Cheers
Paul

Ok, i will practice more with my Mak and hope to buy 2x Powermate to push it more, i feel the native Mak i have isn't much for larger scales, and i keep failing to upscaling or upsampling the smaller ROI, so that i wanted another scope so i don't need to over sample it because i will have large ROI anyway, the only way with my Mak is either trying 2x Powermate if this is good enough even at f30 or find a high quality 1.5x Barlow that can magnify the Mak FL and still not f30 or more.

I did shoot 1 minute and 2 and 3 minutes, and i also think it is enough, but in Facebook there are some members keep trying to tell me i have to shoot minimum 5 minutes or more than 3 minutes even for single video, and they keep showing results with longer videos, and funny they also using something like 10-35% of the frames, and their reasons is that with longer videos and frames over 10k or 20k then it will be easy to pick 10-30% out of it rather than 1-2 minutes videos with maybe maximum 3k-5k, so now i have to make my mind about which side i should follow or who is true?

I like to have higher fps, but this is coming with the cost/price of exposure, if i use lower gain and faster exposure speed then it is very dim or not proper exposed, and then the lower the speed i set the lower fps it will be, in opposite if i keep it high speed then i have to increase the GAIN, and thus definitely increase the noise, and some told me that with stacking so many frames it will kill noise or have enough SNR, but isn't there a limit to what maximum gain i should use anyway?

[Atmos (Colin)]

It depends on the planet. With Jupiter you don't want each image to be longer than 3 minutes as it will rotate enough to cause issues with registration.

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by TareqPhoto

Ok, i will practice more with my Mak and hope to buy 2x Powermate to push it more, i feel the native Mak i have isn't much for larger scales, and i keep failing to upscaling or upsampling the smaller ROI, so that i wanted another scope so i don't need to over sample it because i will have large ROI anyway, the only way with my Mak is either trying 2x Powermate if this is good enough even at f30 or find a high quality 1.5x Barlow that can magnify the Mak FL and still not f30 or more.

I did shoot 1 minute and 2 and 3 minutes, and i also think it is enough, but in Facebook there are some members keep trying to tell me i have to shoot minimum 5 minutes or more than 3 minutes even for single video, and they keep showing results with longer videos, and funny they also using something like 10-35% of the frames, and their reasons is that with longer videos and frames over 10k or 20k then it will be easy to pick 10-30% out of it rather than 1-2 minutes videos with maybe maximum 3k-5k, so now i have to make my mind about which side i should follow or who is true?

I like to have higher fps, but this is coming with the cost/price of exposure, if i use lower gain and faster exposure speed then it is very dim or not proper exposed, and then the lower the speed i set the lower fps it will be, in opposite if i keep it high speed then i have to increase the GAIN, and thus definitely increase the noise, and some told me that with stacking so many frames it will kill noise or have enough SNR, but isn't there a limit to what maximum gain i should use anyway?

Who knows what people say on facebook! Just go and shoot with what you have. A ZWO camera and 2 to 3 minute videos barlowed with your mak and good seeing should let you make your own decisions without spending any more money. So my advice is go and use what you have and see how you go

Remember equipment is one thing, good seeing is a bonus but good focus, camera settings and collimation is under your control and if you can master these things then you will be better placed to decide what you want next.

Cheers
Paul

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Who knows what people say on facebook! Just go and shoot with what you have. A ZWO camera and 2 to 3 minute videos barlowed with your mak and good seeing should let you make your own decisions without spending any more money. So my advice is go and use what you have and see how you go

Remember equipment is one thing, good seeing is a bonus but good focus, camera settings and collimation is under your control and if you can master these things then you will be better placed to decide what you want next.

Cheers
Paul

I got nice images anyway with my Mak, but smaller sizes, and that where i feel i want another scope, for that small size anything can be great enough, but when i see images from let's say 11" SCT, 14" Dob, 14" SCT, 16" Dob or SCT, 12" Newtonian then i feel like my Mak is no match to those, i couldn't see good nice images from 7" Mak that can make me feel of this is enough or really amazing, in fact in facebook many told me that my images are the best they can see from 7" Mak, so i already managed to make it working, but it never come close to those of larger scopes, so my only hope is if i can buy 2x Powermate then i can try to magnify it then see if it will be any close to those, i didn't say i had bad images, it is just small, smaller than even some refractors which has less FL, but i just feel my f15 is limited, and my 3x TV is too much for my Mak even under perfect seeing, so it is only getting 1.5x or 2x and try again, or another scope as Dob/Newt with 4x/5x Powermate, you let me know what do you think.

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Here are what i did so far, not great processing yet as i am really new to this, but definitely i now understand about it, i will do better sooner or later, so you can see why i feel i am still disappointed or not satisfied.

https://s26.postimg.cc/6ontza8p5/00_02_38_lapl4_ap3.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/avl7wfekp/23_23_15_lapl3_ap6.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/skhk20kx5/22_...lapl3_ap16.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/vyqjqneex/22_...lapl6_ap15.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/sx152lavt/00_26_06_lapl3_ap4.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/mmwjpfamx/01_57_40_lapl4_ap7.jpg

https://s26.postimg.cc/kiyvhz7sp/Sat...March-2018.jpg

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by TareqPhoto

I got nice images anyway with my Mak, but smaller sizes, and that where i feel i want another scope, for that small size anything can be great enough, but when i see images from let's say 11" SCT, 14" Dob, 14" SCT, 16" Dob or SCT, 12" Newtonian then i feel like my Mak is no match to those, i couldn't see good nice images from 7" Mak that can make me feel of this is enough or really amazing, in fact in facebook many told me that my images are the best they can see from 7" Mak, so i already managed to make it working, but it never come close to those of larger scopes, so my only hope is if i can buy 2x Powermate then i can try to magnify it then see if it will be any close to those, i didn't say i had bad images, it is just small, smaller than even some refractors which has less FL, but i just feel my f15 is limited, and my 3x TV is too much for my Mak even under perfect seeing, so it is only getting 1.5x or 2x and try again, or another scope as Dob/Newt with 4x/5x Powermate, you let me know what do you think.

Well, get the 2 by powermate and then see how you go.

Regards scopes, if money was no object I would get a C14 and with lots of practice I would shoot some galaxies; see Paul Haeses images in the photos section, but then I am partial to SCT's. I think Atmos has good advice, more aperture=better resolution so for value for money go a big tracking DOB.

Nice images by the way

Cheers
Paul

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

And here when i tried to oversampling it in AS!3

https://s26.postimg.cc/gyq8yk15l/23_...pl4_ap1640.jpg

Or maybe it is not upsacled but it is with 3x TV Barlow, details lost, it was nice seeing condition, i focused till death, and it was impossible to get better, so i felt like the scope isn't good enough to give me larger scales images.

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Well, get the 2 by powermate and then see how you go.

Regards scopes, if money was no object I would get a C14 and with lots of practice I would shoot some galaxies; see Paul Haeses images in the photos section, but then I am partial to SCT's. I think Atmos has good advice, more aperture=better resolution so for value for money go a big tracking DOB.

Cheers
Paul

For galaxies i do have 8" f5 Newtonian, maybe i can buy another one like 10" Newt or maybe RC, i asked in another forum about RC so i want to be sure what they are for, i saw very beautiful images from RC, and there are some affordable RC scopes but i question their quality if cheap, and then which size, 6", 8? 10", most likely 8" and 10" RC are most used, i saw some with good prices, for me anything less than $2000 is good prices or nearly that, but not $5000-8000, that is why i don't look at C14.

By the way, i like the name Paul, i don't know why.

Thank you very much!

Cheers,
Tareq

[TareqPhoto (Tareq)]

Please, don't tell me that seeing condition is POOR, then i will sell my equipment and close my door and just ...... Suicide