retired plus newbie

[rolls05]

Howdy everyone. Old guy here , needing a new challenge. Just decided to take up astronomy. I look forward to learning something new. Scope coming up soon once I sort out the needs. Cheers. Roland.

[leon]

Welcome Roland, you will get all the help and support you would ever need here, enjoy your time.

leon

[Larryp]

Welcome Roland.

[jjjnettie]

Welcome aboard :)
May I suggest joining your nearest Astronomy Club. They often have a variety of different scopes that they loan out (usually for a very small fee) to new members to help them decide which one will be right for them.
It can save a lot of money in the long run.

[silv]

From a fellow astro-noob Kiwi : welcome and enjoy :jump:

You'll be finding out soon how helpful and friendly the people here on ISS are. And hopefully, you'll find an astronomy club near you, too.

What is going to be your first field of special interest, Roland?

[rolls05]

Thank you all. I have to admit I never thought about joining a club., and yes ,I can see the sense. There is a local one, now that I've checked. I have always spent time outside looking through my binoculars at the wonderful objects that I see on the net like orion and around the southern cross. I think it must be grand being able to take photos like I've seen on sites like these. I have a dslr and love photography so I guess thats where I'd like to go. P.S, the "05" part of the user name refers to the greatest race driver ever. Had that as part of every username I've ever had since the beginning of the internet.

[brian nordstrom]

:) Hi Roland and welcome as well from me , an x-pat Kiwi in Aus .
What part of NZ are you in ?
Brian.

[rolls05]

Palmerston north Brian funnily enough, and thank you.

[Ric]

Hi Roland and welcome to IIS

Hope you have a great time here with us.

Cheers

[rolls05]

Thank you kindly Ric.

[ourkind]

Welcome Roland! You must be refering to the late Peter Brock?

Being an F1 fan myself I could roll off a list of greatest drivers, that being said Pete certainly was great :thumbsup:!

[ZeroID]

Hi Roland and :welcome: to the madhouse. There is quite a few of us kiwi's on here. I'm up in Auckland, completing my Observatory and working towards Astrophotography aspirations as well. Not too far away from retirement although I doubt I will when the time comes. Plenty of excellent knowledge and help on here, it's been instrumental for my projects.

Have fun with it.

Cheers
Brent

[brian nordstrom]

;) Ahh Palmerston south ?? :lol: , I live in the palmerston of the north .
I wilol be back in NZ on the 30th for a 2 week holiday , I will make it as far south as Taupo , to see my son's , and as far north as Whangarei to visit my old observing buddies at the Northern Astro Society .
I aint looking forward to the cold :), I dont own any warn clothes any more .!!!! .:question: problem I think .
Brian.

[rolls05]

Ha Ha, Palmerston of the north would be right. Any more north and you would be in Indonesia. I can see why you dont need winter clothes, your in your cold month now and it's probably 30 degrees.:lol: I dont know how you jokers do it. A mate lived in Darwin for a while and he used to love those lightning storms. Have a good one.

[rolls05]

Oh and thanks Brent. The observatory thing interests me. I do love my projects but I never for a minute considered building an obs. Tell me, is it doable on a budget? Sounds like an expensive carry on .

[brian nordstrom]

:D Oh yea the build up , there is nothing like it , blardy awsome .
And yep its max 32 ,, min 17 ( BRRR ) but only 40% humidity , not the 90% during the wet , that is hard to handle , lots of people leave because of that . ( stargazing is very seldom then as well :sadeyes: )
On the warm clothes , my sister is doing the OPP shop thing for me , cool .
Brian.

[ZeroID]

My 'tinshed' version with it's pivot roof cost about $6-700. $400 for the 'TradeMe' cheap chinese tin shed and the rest for timber and stuff. But I made good use of what I already had available eg 1 meter length of 300mm concrete drainage pipe for a pier. Some pallet bases from work for the floating floor system. I already had 10 tonne concrete slab in the garden from previous owners efforts so no big concrete pour needed etc etc.

Obviously depends on your resources and your willingness to improvise somewhat. Mine would cost about $1500 I guess to build from scratch using mostly new materials.

Me, I'm a BIG DIY advocate. The scope is built from alum tubes recovered from stands that the marketing dept at work threw out and the floor is covered with carpet tiles from the big office makeover. It's my best 'Man Cave' ever. :D

Best advice for now. Get yourself set up with the gear you want to go with keeping in mind where you might want to go later. Some stuff can be resold without too much loss or reused in another guise. I bought a 80mm f5 Achro for a grab and go and now it will become my guide scope as well.
Other gear is specialised so not so easy to resell. Without knowing more about your intended viewing location and resources it's hard to give any more specifics. Buy a decent mount if you are serious, EQ5 minimum, EQ6 if are really committed. For astro it is almost the minimum for stable tracking. The rest can follow.

Ask more questions ...!!

[rolls05]

Thanks Brent. Yes you are quite right, first things first. As I said I would like to concentrate on photography initialy. So I have already started in my newfound hobby 'cause I have the camera.:lol: So obviously unless I want to just do short exposure widefields I'll need a mount,like you say. And then I guess a 'scope. Because I'd prefer something portable because I'm always tripping around visiting folk and such, and something suited to photography I'm picking a refractor would be the go for starters. Now I see looking around the site that an 80mm like yours would do. Would that be correct? But if I'm going to spend large on a mount I'm not sure whether the budget would cover one of those expensive apo. jobs like I've been reading about. Still, mount first eh. At least I can use the camera. And I'm looking forward to some of that stacking carry on. Cheers.

[ZeroID]

My 80mm is just an Achromatic, not recommended for astrophotography due to the colour abberration inherent in the opticals. Thats where those expensive Apochromatic scopes fit in with their correcting glass and multiple lense assemblies.
The other alternative which I had contemplated earlier was to use my cheap 4.5" Newt as an astrograph on the mount (or my earlier EQ2 tripod). Would mean slightly longer exposures needed but no chromatic abberations in the newt design.
I still use the Newt if I am testing alignments and ideas. Much easier to get around in the confines of the Ob and the optics are surprisingly good.
Start with widefield camera + ordinary camera lens stuff. It's easier and quite fun and will teach you about the problems you will run into as you move up the ladder. Fixed tripod ( no tracking) will do for short 10 sec exposures at normal wide angle lens settings. Multiple shots stacked in DSS to get the detail and exposure required.
Welcome to the dark expensive depths of astrophotography ..

Hey, but don't forget the visual side either. I'd suggest you get out there with binocs, scope of any sort, naked eye and charts, Stellarium ( free) to learn the skies a bit. Astrophotography builds on previous knowledge, just leaping straight into it is the fastest way to become discouraged. I always enjoy sweeping te sky with the bins or the small scope while I attempt to do imaging runs or tests.

[rolls05]

Thanks Brent.some good info. I understand about the refractor. So I wont go there.But you peak my interest with mention of your "newt". Since I will be getting a mount I should stretch the funds a little more and get something I can use for general viewing as well as photography. Are you saying ,I can buy a 6 inch newt ota which I see on one of the scope retail sites for a little over $300 and it will be fine for some deep sky photography. If thats the case my budget could stretch to that. and that lot would do me for a while. Thanks again.

[2stroke]

If its a low f ratio you will need a coma corrector, also it has to have enough back focus to get focus. Then your going to need a mount with tracking other wise its star trails :)

If i was in your shoes i would try and get a used ED80 and a eq5 mount, but even then its funny how things add up, its just one big money pit :( You should goto a local club and have a go using there gear first before jumping into things, this is one hobby where cheaply doesn't apply and before long your selling your car to get to pay back those credit cards :rofl: Strange enough its the small odds and ends that add up the most :( I would first get into learning the sky though, because without knowing your way around life is going to be hell even with a goto mount. Best of luck to you and your new found hobby and welcoe to IIS :)

[ZeroID]

As Jay said, astrophotog is a money pit and easy to go in the wrong direction. My 4.5" is an f8, about 900 mm long. I have used it with a webcam to get avi's of the moon and planets but would have to make major mods to the focusser to fit a 2" focusser for a DSLR adapter. But it would not need a coma corrector although tracking would be critical. So the problems mount and change depending on how you approach the situation.
Although the webcam system is now a bit old hat for good pix it is worth having a go because it is relatively cheap and most modern webcams are pretty good. Also as you run it as an AVI movie then you get to play with Registax to make better pictures from the accumulated frames and tracking is not super critical especially on the moon.

[rolls05]

Thanks fellas. A bit to mull over. I'll amuse myself shooting some wide fields for now. Already doing the odd multi shots and stacking. Good fun. I noticed after processing a Crux image there was a patch of red just along from the bottom star(acrux?) I had read a tutorial on using photoshop to process an image. Histograms and how to stretch an image and suchlike. So I had a go with my image and hello, there's this big red thing there looking quite lovely. Have since found it to be eta carena. I never new that was there. Got me quite exited I can tell you. Think I'm getting hooked. Thanks for your help and patience.

[ZeroID]

Cool !! you're getting the hang of it. Nice when you start to 'find' things you didn't even know existed. Whets your appetite to start really hunting round.
Stick with the wide field while you suss out your options. I rolled for about 18 months before I settled on a path and that is still flexible.
Just posted a moon shot in the imaging section. Full pic at http://www.astrobin.com/16065/ if you want to see it.

[rolls05]

Man, nice depth. just enough sharpen as well. I see too many people go overboard. So you are saying you tossed in pictures of different shutter speeds . Interesting. I cant get that sort of mag. as yet but I might have to drag out the old panasonic 24x point and shoot. lol. Very nice.

[ZeroID]

Thanks, there is a fine balance between detail and exposure with the moon, sometimes I come close. The assortment of shutter speeds captures different areas of contrast. I actually should have been at about 200 ISO but rain clouds were coming ( arrived about 30 minutes later ) and I just wanted some images to play with while the weather turned to custard and I forgot to check everything. DOH !!

I am looking to go with a modified webcam for moon pix, more frames faster to beat the seeing. Hopefully get more detail that way.

[rolls05]

Would there be anything stopping me using the canon video? A scope would be needed I guess, although the 300mm lens might do, do you think? No, cancel that. I found an old panasonic point and shoot pic I took of the moon one morning at 24x. The 35mm equivalent zoom is about 600mm so obviously 300mm wont cut the mustard. Still I'll put the pic up so I can say I've posted something. Cheers.

[ZeroID]

Roland, give anything a go, that's my advice. Sometimes the simple solutions or attempts can yeild surprising results and often will highlight techniques or points to watch out for in future tries. I am just buying another better Web Cam that theoretically is now a bit old hat but will let me experiment with another option. Will it do better ? I don't know but I will learn some more from the exercise.
If it's cheap and easy (and fun) then have a go I say.

EDIT: Not a bad moon shot either I have to say. Try afocal through the lens of the scope.