Settinhg Up Astrophotography

[StarKers]

Hi All,

I have only recently entered this wonderful world of amatuer astonomy
and am considering broadening my interest into astrophotography.

Apart from my telescope, that is listed below, I will require all of
the necessary equipment, such as a camera, a laptop computer that
will be used exclusively for photographic work, and the programs to
do the work. Not to mention heaps of knowlege on how-to.

I am now seeking advice and information on what I should purchase to
establish a reasonable type of set up, and what sort of costs I can
expect to pay. I envisage working to a budget within 2 to 5K.

Thanks to all contributers in advance.

Cheers,
John.

[Ingo]

You have to tell what type of astrophotography you want to do...DSO's (nebulas, galaxies, etc) or Planet photography. Both will excell with different types of equipment.

For DSO's, i'd say a Canon 5D or a Canon 350D, OR if you can get your hands on a Canon 20Da with the built in Ha filter.

For planets, I can't give you too much advice.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Ingo

You have to tell what type of astrophotography you want to do...DSO's (nebulas, galaxies, etc) or Planet photography.

I agree.

If it's DSO work, you're best off to start with a DSLR like the Canon 400D (or a 350D if you can get your hands on one) and a good quality lens to do some wide field piggyback astro imaging.
You'll need a cable release for the camera to do long exposures, longer than 30 sec on B setting.
Get experience in polar aligning and post processing your images before you move into prime imaging through your scope.

Software like Photoshop CS2/3, Images Plus and Registar are great for stacking and PP your images.

[74tuc]

Hi John,

This book is very very good:-

The New CCD Astronomy

by

Ron Wodaski


Rgds,

Jerry.

[Dennis]

Hi John

For a good all-round book on astro photography, try the following:

“Astrophotography for the Amateur” by Michael A. Covington.

The website is here:

http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/astro/

The topic of astro photography spans such a huge range of equipment, cameras, costs, target objects, techniques, approaches, processing, etc that it can be very hard to give advice in a brief e-mail reply.

If you Click the text “Sample Pages” in the left hand navigation bar on the web page above, you will get the Table Of Contents for the book.

Or, try this direct link to the PDF file.

http://assets.cambridge.org/052164/1...41330WSC00.pdf

Cheers

Dennis

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Originally Posted by StarKers

Apart from my telescope, that is listed below, I will require all of the necessary equipment, such as a camera, a laptop computer that will be used exclusively for photographic work, and the programs to
do the work. Not to mention heaps of knowlege on how-to.

. . . and Patience, John.

LOTS OF PATIENCE!

[Geoff45 (Geoff)]

Probably the cheapest and easiest entry is a webcam and planetary photography. See the book "Introduction to webcam astrophotography" by Robert Reeves, published by Willman Bell