Backyard discovery about to start

[Cosmic]

Hi guys,

I’m about to jump into the deep end as many of the old school astronomy enthusiasts mite say…. without going down the right path first.(visual/knowing the night sky properly with simple means) But honesty with three under three, spare time is important to me. So im looking for full proof and relatively easy way to take pictures of DSO and learn the night sky as I go. Is there anything more that I would need or should purchase for astrophotography other than the list below before the clouds depart shortly and the late nights begin J ?

Equipment

Mount: NEQ6 PRO
OTA: Newton 200mm f/5
Canon 550D EOS T-ring T-Adapter
(will make shutter cable at some stage DIY)
Laptop-EQMOD-wii controller

Running setup

-Alignmaster with eqmod and wii controller for polar alignment.
-Canon 550D with backyardEOS in conjunction with starry night pro.

Imaging software:
I haven’t got there yet.

How many people out there use only just prime focusing? From what I can work out from my focal length, the zoom for Prime Focus would be 37x ish. Am I really limited by only using this method of astrophotography or is there enough out there to keep me busy for some time to come? For example will the 18mp capture more distant objects for processing, or will I need to do afocal to open the door to a vast array of objects in the future?

Many thanks,

Dan

[Cosmic]

anyone...

[renormalised]

What you should do is join an astronomical society/club and go to a few of their nights. See what the other members are using for piccies and learn from their experience. You're going to need some sort of guidscope/autoguider combo to guide your scope for taking piccies of DSO's, otherwise you'll be limited to subs 60sec or shorter.

Best also, to learn the night sky first. Otherwise you're going to get lost and rather frustrated trying to find targets. Grab yourself a copy of Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/) and also a good set of starcharts in book form.

As far as the method you're going to use to take the piccies, that's up to you and whatever the circumstances you find yourself in (as in what equipment you have, where you are etc etc).

As far as keeping busy goes, you're going to have more to do than you can imagine :) There's plenty of targets out there for you to have a go at.

[Cosmic]

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the reply, do appreciate the comment :thumbsup: and yeah your right I couldn't go wrong if I could easily identify points in the night sky and have some scene of direction. I'm just itching to get into the guts of it that's all.

Ok as far as guild scopes are concerned my misses will kill me if I spend anymore money lol for now that is.(just purchased the 550) But that aside what are your thoughts on just stacking say 45 - 1 min exposures without obviously guiding?

For example with near perfect alignment, M42 how will that turn out with say 1min x 30 stacked images +dark and light frames added. Would this be a way of getting around it for now with other messier objects also?

Cheers,
Dan

[renormalised]

If you can take 1 min subs with no guiding and get good stars (your PA is going to have to be spot on) and you ran through the usual processing and post processing procedures, you should get fairly good piccies. Naturally enough, the longer your subs, the more details you'll get and the better your S/N ratio will be. However, I wouldn't be going to try and hunt for really faint fuzzies as 1 minute subs will really not be long enough to capture them well. Bright DSO's like M42, M8, M31 etc etc, will be more your targets. Planets will be drop dead easy....don't really have to guide at all (just track), but you'll need a different camera to photograph them. A webcam will be sufficient for this purpose, with some slight mods.

[tlgerdes]

Guidescope and Autoguider.

https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=9054

Dont need shutter cable, just USB cable.

Also need power for camera, go get an adapter, dont rely on batteries.

[Cosmic]

Awesome that sounds like some very promising news. I'm looking forward to see just what I come up with, just using this method to start off.

Thanks again Carl :thumbsup:





That will be my next purchase :)

I'm was wondering if backyard EOS or other programs alike had USB shutter control, makes since. Cheers for letting me know about that Trevor.

Dan

[tlgerdes]

Hi Dan,

I have a Canon 1000d and use Canon's EOS Utility for camera control. Comes with your camera for free. Works fine, can set everything and control everything directly from your PC via USB, including multiframe exposures ie 10x 5min shots. Liveview via your PC makes focusing a snap on a large screen.

In not discounting Backyard EOS as a good tool, but look at what is included with your camera then decided if you need to do more with something else.

Dont forget an external power source for your camera. The batteries dont work so good the closer you get to 0 deg celsius. Have heard many a story of people having to swap batteries every few frames and put batteries on the heater to keep going. With external power you also dont have to worry about running out of battery mid session.