advice on equiptment please

[Peg6330 (Peggy)]

Hi All,
I know you've probably answered this a hundred times or so but as we are thinking of buying a camera suitable for astrophotography -what would you all recommend? and what extra things will we need. We've been wondering whether or not to go with another digital camera or a ccd linked to the computer. Also what sort of reading material is out there for us beginners? If I'm going to spent the money I want to make sure we get it relatively right the first time. I don't suppose there's an "Idiot's guide to Astrophotography" is there?????

[blink138 (Pat)]

if you already own a dslr then that is a great start peggy
just get the correct adapters and give it a go
pat

[Davros (Lauren)]

Have a look here:
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/TOC_AP.HTM

Also a fair bit of resource material floating around this forum. What equipment do you currently have so people can offer appropriate advice.

[pw (Peter)]

I just bought and received the book "Making every photon count" by Steve Richards. It was strongly recommended on another astronomy forum. It is aimed at beginners to atstrophotography and is clearly written with a step by step explanation of the requirements and methods. I have found that it makes quality atsrophotography sound quite daunting (and I'm an experienced and capable terrestial photographer). I'm rethinking whether I want to pursue it further and might be better to invest my time and money in a solar telescope and use it to image the sun instead of the night sky.
I am going to try shorter exposure images of planets, moon and the sun through a white light filter using my dslr and CSC though.

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Originally Posted by pw

I just bought and received the book "Making every photon count" by Steve Richards. It was strongly recommended on another astronomy forum. It is aimed at beginners to atstrophotography and is clearly written with a step by step explanation of the requirements and methods. I have found that it makes quality atsrophotography sound quite daunting (and I'm an experienced and capable terrestial photographer). I'm rethinking whether I want to pursue it further and might be better to invest my time and money in a solar telescope and use it to image the sun instead of the night sky.
I am going to try shorter exposure images of planets, moon and the sun through a white light filter using my dslr and CSC though.

Peter,
When I first got into astrophotography back in the 1980s, I bought a book by Michael Covington called "Astrophotography for the Amateur". Covington has written another book "Digital SLR Astrophotography", and it is just as easy to read and follow as his original book. In the 80s, I also read other books supposedly for the beginner, and they were so complex as to turn anyone off having a go. I think some of these authors like to make it very complex to satisfy their own egos!
Don't let one book turn you off.

[raymo]

Hi all, I'm going to put in my little bit. Firstly, as I stated in another thread, I have been a film astrophotographer for over 50 yrs. I was also
an industrial, wedding, and portrait photographer; so I can safely say that
I know my way around the subject. Having said all that, I am going to say that producing TOP quality astro images IS daunting. I have Michael
Covington's DSLR book, and numerous others, and am still struggling.
With the advent of digital, the joy of astro imaging has gone. More
time is now spent staring at monitors , trying to get your images to
look the way you want them to, instead of trying to reproduce what they
actually would look like if you had eyes that could see the colours in the
objects. Instead of enjoying time under the stars, many regard their
scopes and cameras as merely tools, and leave their computers to
operate them, while they are somewhere else.
I downloaded DSS and it corrupted my computer, so I had to do a system restore. No matter what I try I can't get any joy out of
registax. The end results look like they were painted by a child,
reasonably sharp at the edges, but no trace of detail[Saturn].
I'm just fed up
raymo

[Peg6330 (Peggy)]

Thanks for the tips, unfortunately the digital camera we have is an older Canon, not really suitable for night time stuff as we little control over the shutter speed and the ISO. So we are faced with the problem of a ? buying another digital this time a DSLR that can do what we want at night but still is a good all round camera( my husband does a fair bit of railway photography which requires fast shutter speeds) or... go for a CCD set up. Being so new at it I am just wondering which way to go. I will get a copy "Making Every Photon Count" as it sounds like good reference material.

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Well Peggy, I am not a photographer and I a have not been doing this for 50 years, but I can assure you I get a lot joy and satisfaction out of the digital age, infact if we were still in the 80's and 90's using film I would not be doing this at all. I could never see the satisfaction of taking film images whilst on holiday's, getting home, sending away your images and only get half of your memories back because the rest did not come out. (am I glad that is behind us).
Sitting at the computer in DSS and Registax is just like sittting for hours in your own dark room processing the film (another thing I am glad I dont have to do anymore). One thing that the digital age has brought to use is the ability to take 50x5 minutes subs and beyond and stack them to get a real image you can see not a faint glow that looks like a nebula. Some people do sit away from the scope and I agree that does take away. Myself I am out there with my scope, computer 2 foot away for shakes watching every image. My computer helps me guide (gee again so I get a better image rather that getting a sore eye micro moving the scope every 10 seconds) and my images download directly on to it. But most of all I am out there looking checking my alignment all night hanging of the completion of every sub to see how it went. The only time I leave is get a coffee and put on more RAID.

Dont let some poeple drag you down peggy

Like I said at the start, I am no expert so I will not recommend the correct gear for your set up as I would not know, but I am sure many here will help

As for a dummies book, you are here. Within this site and many others are some wonderful people who will go out of their way to help you if asked.

So welcome and enjoy your time with you scope.

Carl

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Peggy, I myself have two camera's. I did this rather than buying an expensive CCD camera that will do most things when I started out.

For nebula etc I use a Canon 450D, Canon really is the choice of the astro world at present, they are good and reasonably priced. There are always some for sale in the classifieds here.

For planetary I personaly have a CCD (DBK21) this gives much better colours and quality for planetary than my Canon (This may just be my knowldege level).

Other people may wish to add something to this.

Carl

[raymo]

I am not trying to drag anybody down. I have had numerous people on
IIS thank me for my explanations of their problems. I am committed to public outreach, and teach adult astronomy classes.
As far as digital astro imaging goes, the road to TOP quality images IS a steep climb, and I don't see any point in saying otherwise.
If it was easy, there would be thousands of brilliant imagers out there.
Anybody with committment can learn, and produce good images,
but only a few reach exalted heights.
In my case, I think that I'm just too old to absorb it all.
Happy imaging everybody

[batema (Mark)]

Hello Peggy,
I suppose the first thing I wonder about is the kind of astrophotohraphy you want to do as when i look at your signature i do not think the celestron 130 will reach focus with a dslr attached as one of my school kids can not achieve focus with his and i have read the same. The dob may be the same as when we attached our canon 400d into it we could not get the thing to focus as we could not wind the focussed in any further. So unless you intend to upgrade equipment it probably leaves the DSLR to very short tripod exposures with different lenses or if you head down the ccd path where you video things like the moon planets. You could do star trails or look at the vixen polarity that will allow you to do widefield with tracking. Have a look at some of the stunning widefield images in the photography section. I get an enormous amount of satisfaction doing astrophotography be it star trails, widefield, solarsystem or deep sky.
Mark.

[pw (Peter)]

The man who wrote the book I have uses a DSLR and a one shot colour CCD astro cam. He discusses the mono CCD and filters but explains that for his purposes and simplicity the colour one was his choice.
He does explain everything well.
It is the sheer amount of exposures and the dark frames and the bias frames and the stacking and so on that sounds like a serious overhead to me.

[raymo]

Hi Peggy, The 130SLT will work with a DSLR. You can use it at prime focus, or with a standard 1.25" camera adaptor.
To use at prime focus you need to unscrew the short adapter sticking out of the focusser that has either 1 or 2 eyepiece securing screws in it. This leaves a male thread showing on the focusser. A T-adaptor for your brand of DSLR will screw straight onto that thread, bringing your camera
about 25mm further in. Any standard camera adaptor will screw into the aforementioned T- adaptor, and the other end of course pushes into where you normally put the eyepiece. You can put a range of different
focal length eyepieces into the adaptor to achieve the desired magnification. Basic adaptors are super cheap on ebay if you don't have one, and the same goes for T-adaptors.
Hope this helps
raymo

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

I have been down this same road with my 130 SLT however after researching and trying it out for myself it is not possible to achieve prime focus with this scope.
After buying the T-Adapter and EOS t-ring adapter I placed it in the focuser and was unable to focus the Moon. I did as what was said below and removed the 2" eyepiece adapter and there is still not enough room in order to achieve prime focus. The only solution is to use a Barlow attached to the T-Adapter. Believe me I went down this road and learnt the hard way. Also the 130SLT isn't that good to use with a DSLR as the tripod and mount isn't 100" steady. Every photo I took which causes the shutter to move made the telescope wobble slightly and using a 2x Barlow (magnified) made the image blurry.

I do not recommend the DSLR path for this particular type of telescope. I eventually bought the NexImage 5 (a CMOS camera) and I highly recommend buying a CMOS camera. You will get much more out of it with this telescope.

In order to stabalise the scope more with my astrophotography work I added Tube rings and an electronic focuser (instead of manually focusing the object which causes vibration this device allows you to obtain the best focus without touching anything and have no vibration).

If you need any help or anything please let me know as we both have the same scope

[raymo]

I just noticed that I made a mistake in my post. I said that a T- adaptor
screws directly onto the male thread protruding from the focuser. What I should have said was that the camera's T- ring screws directly onto the thread, without the need for a T-adaptor. I have recently sold my 130SLT, but I have been using it at prime for over 2.5 yrs. If this doesn't work for your scope, the only thing I can think is, that as mine was an early one, maybe something in the construction changed later. It certainly was a wobbly mount. I hung a
weight beneath the accessory tray which helped quite a bit. They made
a mistake putting a long Newt on that mount; it actually works quite well
for other SLT models. Having said that, I thought the go-to was pretty good.
raymo

[DJT (David)]

Hi Peggy

Best book I found, fortunately reaosnably early on, was The Backyard Astronomers Guide.

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Astro.../dp/1554073448

The writers seem very experienced in imaging with DSLR and they have some good advice on equipment etc discussing pro's and cons.

Its a good read, as are all the other recommendations here and of course theres a lot of info on teh various forums. Sometimes though its nice to just go through something in a logical sequence and thats where I found this book most useful

Good luck, and oh yes, dont skimp on your mount. Doesnt matter what sort of camera you get if your mount cant cut it

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

Originally Posted by raymo

I just noticed that I made a mistake in my post. I said that a T- adaptor
screws directly onto the male thread protruding from the focuser. What I should have said was that the camera's T- ring screws directly onto the thread, without the need for a T-adaptor. I have recently sold my 130SLT, but I have been using it at prime for over 2.5 yrs. If this doesn't work for your scope, the only thing I can think is, that as mine was an early one, maybe something in the construction changed later. It certainly was a wobbly mount. I hung a
weight beneath the accessory tray which helped quite a bit. They made
a mistake putting a long Newt on that mount; it actually works quite well
for other SLT models. Having said that, I thought the go-to was pretty good.
raymo

You got the 130SLT to prime focus??? How??!?!

Every thread I read online with people who owned the scope said they couldn't get it. One guy actually moved his primary mirror a few cm's higher by replacing the mirror screws with longer screw.

It sounds like you had an older model.

[raymo]

I did buy it when they first came on the market, so it's possible
something changed later. Strangely, I have to use the same arrangement
with my present Skywatcher 8" f5 Newt. The manual for the OTA says
nothing about how to achieve prime focus. This problem with my type
of OTA was discussed here on IIS a couple of weeks ago, in the beginners' astrophotography section, if I remember correctly.
There seems to be an epidemic of scopes unable to reach prime
focus without a load of messing about. How can the manufacturers
be so remiss.
raymo

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

Yeah it does sound like the design had slightly changed between the old and the new.

Do you know how many years apart they were released?

[raymo]

I'm in my mid 70's, so my memory is not what it was, plus I have had
many scopes over the years, in fact I've just sold three; having said that and having racked my brains, I'm positive that I got it in july/aug 2005. It was a grey import from the U.S. Obviously, I have no idea how old yours is.
raymo