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Jekub posted:You'd probably be better off asking that in the equipment or Canon thread in the Dorkroom, unless you want to put a telescope on instead of a lens, in which case give us some more information on what you are trying to achieve. I want to take cool pictures of space?
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Dec 21, 2009 15:40
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the posted:I want to take cool pictures of space? I'll expand. There are three main forms of astrophotography and each requires different equipment to achieve the required result. Typically with standard lenses on a DSLR you will be limited to widefield imaging of star fields, constellations and conjunctions of interesting objects. With regards to using standard camera lenses you'll want to read this. The reason I pointed you to asking in the dorkroom is that photography buffs will be able to give you much better advice of what current lenses are hot or not for your platform and which will give the best performance. Lenses are very different beasts to telescopes and typically are not designed with astronomy in mind. But really just read that site, it's the best guide for the beginner I have found and covers every topic of importance for all aspects of astrophotography with a DSLR, you'll come away with a much better understanding of the topic and hopefully a clear picture of what you can expect to achieve.
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Dec 22, 2009 19:10
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vega posted:So in reality we have a 1400$ budget if we could buy the equipment in USA. Hey vega, I'm from Norway too, and I ended up buying an 8" celestron SCT on ebay. I used Jetcarrier for shipping and customs, which makes the whole ordeal a lot simpler. I've also seen a couple of used ones on places like finn.no, although not as expensive as the top of your budget.
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Dec 25, 2009 10:17
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Has anyone heard anything or gotten to play with the new celestron cgem 1100 HD telescopes? I would love to pick one up for photography and viewing but I'm a little hesitant to spend that much without reading/hearing about user experiences.
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Dec 30, 2009 19:59
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boondocksts posted:Has anyone heard anything or gotten to play with the new celestron cgem 1100 HD telescopes? I would love to pick one up for photography and viewing but I'm a little hesitant to spend that much without reading/hearing about user experiences. A guy in my astronomy club bought one, I'll keep an eye out for it at the next star party we have.
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Dec 30, 2009 20:39
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A quick and dirty M42 from a couple of nights ago, it was nice to finally get out and do something! 11x3 minute exposures on the 250mm reflector, stacked in Deep Sky and processed in Pixinsight. I'll need a lot more data to improve the noise, it's a bit grainy. Jekub fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jan 13, 2010 |
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Dec 31, 2009 17:30
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That's awesome! Should I be able to see colorful nebula in a 114mm reflector? We had our new telescope out the other night, but were having trouble aiming it, and though we saw many stars that weren't visible to the naked eye, couldn't see anything like google sky seems to suggest we should see.
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Dec 31, 2009 19:22
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micron posted:I just picked up an 8" intelliscope for 206.50 on ebay (think I did pretty good). I have not picked it up yet but what should I look at or for before payment is made on a used scope? Like what should I inspect etc besides normal broken parts and such? Welp, the shithead never replied to my emails and I never ended up getting it. Though I'm not out any dollars that fucker got some negative feedback 
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Dec 31, 2009 22:58
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grover posted:That's awesome! Should I be able to see colorful nebula in a 114mm reflector? We had our new telescope out the other night, but were having trouble aiming it, and though we saw many stars that weren't visible to the naked eye, couldn't see anything like google sky seems to suggest we should see. Color in deep sky objects is only really visible in photographs and large scopes, and even then it's just hints. I can barely see some color in the Orion and Lagoon Nebulae with an 8" scope from extremely dark skies. It's more visible in our 18" SCT in the observatory, but that's not exactly an amateur grade telescope. That said, don't let me discourage you, even without color the Orion Nebula is amazing to look at.
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Jan 1, 2010 02:23
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glitch77 fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jan 1, 2010 |
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Jan 1, 2010 04:17
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glitch77 posted:I really liked your pic so I messed with the contrast and am using it as my cellphones background. Glad you liked it, but scroll up three posts for the much nicer version, that first one was just a single unprocessed frame. The newer one is a processed stack and shows a lot more detail. You can clip the black point some more for wallpaper purposes and bump the contrast and saturation a bit. Normally the aim for astrophotograpahy is to retain as much detail as possible so we tend to be highly cautious about any kind of clipping. If anyone wants to have a go at processing themselves I'll put up some some .tiff files for you to play with. If your thinking of doing astrophotography yourself it's a good idea to start learning processing as soon as you can.
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Jan 1, 2010 10:53
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Ohh, don't I feel dumb! Thanks! If anyone is interested in telling me about my first telescope, hit up my ask/tell thread. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3248717 glitch77 fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Jan 3, 2010 |
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Jan 1, 2010 19:57
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Any Astronomy goons in the LA area? I'm thinking of getting into this hobby. I already own a pair of 7x50 binoculars and a military compass and I want to go out one night and look around a bit to see if I like it before dumping any money into this. Any recommendations as to where to go? Is my equipment good enough to start out with or am I wasting my time? It's pretty bright here in Westwood, but the good thing about living in CA is that it's warm all night all year round. Pretty big improvement from living in Chicago, where you have to be seriously stupid to go star gazing 6 months out of the year. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jan 4, 2010 |
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Jan 4, 2010 01:50
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Any Astronomy goons in the LA area? I'm thinking of getting into this hobby. I already own a pair of 7x50 binoculars and a military compass and I want to go out one night and look around a bit to see if I like it before dumping any money into this. Any recommendations as to where to go? Try to get familiar with the night sky. Stellarium is free software that gives you an idea of where things are, you could also print out some star charts to take with you. Some of the brighter objects you can see with binoculars at this time of year are the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades. The moon is always nice with binoculars too, and it's just been a full moon so you'll have a terminator to look at. I'd try to observe in a reclining chair of some sort, like a beach chair. If you don't have that, you can make a very ghetto monopod out of a long broom handle, the point is to stabilize the binoculars. You won't be seeing anything incredible with 7x50 binoculars, but you'll be able to see how much more stuff there is up there than you can see with the naked eye, and find out if you think you'd want to spend more time with the hobby.
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Jan 4, 2010 03:43
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What software do people use to capture hacked webcam video? I just need something to dump video to uncompressed AVI. Any help?
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Jan 7, 2010 01:20
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I normally use K3CCD Tools, version 1 is free and if you like it then the latest version isn't expensive. It has a few useful options but will depend on what webcam you are using. My latest effort is M81 and M82, a nice pair of galaxies which present a real challenge for guiding. This is 24 x 5 minute exposures and would be better if the moon wasn't out. Click for big! 
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Jan 7, 2010 11:22
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Nice, I'll check it out as soon as I get home from work! I have a 2MP (1600x1200 non interpolated) webcam that I have stripped down to the cmos sensor and just need to get a tube strapped on it and I'll be ready to cook!
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Jan 7, 2010 15:28
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You should be set to start trying your hand at lunar and planetary imaging with that. You'll find out on your first night out if you need anything else, it depends first of all on whether your focuser racks in or out far enough to achieve focus on the webcam. After that you may find that the field of view is to wide or to small in which case you'll need to look at barlows or focal reducers. Let us know how you get on though!
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Jan 7, 2010 18:59
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Here's a little something I'm working on: It's a mount for my Pronto! I scored some cheap 50:1 harmonic gears on ebay, which will act as both drive gears and mount bearings. Everything else is aluminum, which will be turned/milled over the course of this decade.
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Jan 7, 2010 20:26
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First, wanted to thank all of you for this great thread. Second, does anyone here use solar filters much? I live at the edge of a big city, so I can't justify getting a nice telescope, but I did want something to mess around with, so I picked up a galileoscope. In addition to looking at the moon and occasionally other things, I think it would be neat to look at the sun. I don't know anything about solar filters, though, so I wanted to ask if this is a good one: http://www.seymoursolar.com/product_info.php?products_id=477&osCsid=2b6b4cda8f06d18293edea87add6deb9? Would I be able to see details like sunspots with this setup? DorianGravy fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 10, 2010 |
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Jan 10, 2010 01:21
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Any opinions on a truss style Dob scope? I see a 8" meade lightbridge for sale about an hour away from me.
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Jan 11, 2010 00:34
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Thanks for the reply. I found a dark park nearby and took the girlfriend and my binoculars two nights ago. We both liked it a lot and are interested in getting a telescope / accessories. Here's what I have already: 7x50 binoculars <- Given to me as a gift by my grandfather. Seems to be a military model from some Russian manufacturer. Has milliradian markings seen through the optics. And a red coating on the objective lense (any idea what that does)? Surefire 6P LED flashlight <- Lights up the whole drat park! Incredibly useful for navigating a strange new place at night. Military lensatic compass w/ tritum <- Glows in the dark using RADIATION!!! Netbook w/ Stellarium? <- Worth bringing? Or are printed sky charts good enough? I'm ordering a red filter for the flashlight ($30), and picking up a pair of folding chairs. WARNING! 100 questions below... As for chairs, do you recommend the big soft ones you see at the beach, or the small metal ones like you see at an office? The big ones look more comfortable but also more bulky. Don't want to knock the telescope over by accident while moving the chairs around. This might be a stupid question, but how big exactly is say a Orion XT-6 or XT-8? Online pictures don't really give me a sense of scale. Also, how does a Dobsonian mount work? Do I put it on a tripod? Place it on the ground or on a table? If I put the XT-6 on the ground, how high up will the eye piece be? Comfortable enough to view from sitting in a chair? Does the ground have to be perfectly level for this to work? Is a padded carrying case ($80) worth it? I'll be driving out to nearby parks all the time to observe. Has anyone been to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles? They have a star party and telescope info session in two weeks! Do they let people bring their telescopes to the grounds after hours? INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 11, 2010 |
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Jan 11, 2010 19:24
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INTJ Mastermind posted:This might be a stupid question, but how big exactly is say a Orion XT-6 or XT-8? Online pictures don't really give me a sense of scale. I'm 5'9". My XT8 comes up to my armpits fully assembled and pointing straight up. The XT6 will be just about the same height. You will generally put a Dob mount on the ground. With an 6" or 8" you can either kneel on the ground or sit in a chair. I used to stick my XT8 on a milkcrate to get the eyepiece up so I could use it standing up more comfortably. Obviously, if you're viewing something near the horizon you'll be down lower than viewing something at the zenith. micron posted:Any opinions on a truss style Dob scope? I see a 8" meade lightbridge for sale about an hour away from me. If it's used and a good deal, sure, go for it. But if you're buying new, a truss 8" has few benefits over a regular tube 8" unless you only have a Smart Car or something.
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Jan 12, 2010 07:23
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I actually work at [astronomy optics company] in the customer service department and I 
celestial teapot fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Feb 13, 2010 |
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Jan 13, 2010 02:16
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I managed to get some more data for m42, the fainter nebulosity is starting to come out now with reasonable control of the noise.
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Jan 13, 2010 15:14
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I've been involved in astrophotography for a number of years now. I, personally feel that astrophotography is the most difficult discipline in the realm of photography, where the factors of environment, technology, patience, and the labour of love (or, should that be love of labour?) all must combine for an effort to pay off dividends. There's been countless times where I've driven several hundred kilometres out into the bush for a weekend of camping and imaging only to be met by cloud and rain. It just comes with the hobby, I suppose. I only just had to cancel today a four day trip out 600km away as the forecast is non-stop cloud and rain until Sunday. Fail. Anyways, thought I'd share a few images. If you'd like to see some more, or have specific gear-related questions, just ask. The Eta Carinae Nebula (NGC 3372) in Carina - Mark II 24 x 300 seconds (2 hours)  Delle Caustiche, The Small Sagittarius Star Cloud (M24) in Sagittarius 16 x 240 seconds (1 hour and 4 minutes)  The Rho Ophiuchus Complex in Ophiuchus 35 x 240 seconds (2 hours and 20 minutes)  Thanks for looking.
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Jan 13, 2010 15:54
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octane2 posted:Anyways, thought I'd share a few images. If you'd like to see some more, or have specific gear-related questions, just ask. As I mentioned elswhere, your images are all amazing, I've got several astrophotographers who's images push me to learn more and do better, I'll have to add you to that list. What software do you use for calibration and post processing? Are you using a dedicated astronomy camera or a modified DSLR or do you use both? Which mount do you use and how do you manage guiding?
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Jan 13, 2010 16:08
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Hey Jekub, Cheers, mate. I use IRIS for pre-processing and Photoshop CS4 for post-processing. I have found IRIS to be one of the single most powerful image processing applications ever written. It does absolutely everything. Its transformation algorithms are all kinds of awesome; I've managed to register images taken with an 8" LX90 SCT and an ED80 without a problem. It just works. I will be in the market for an 8300M some time later this year, to start on the road to filtered imaging. So far, I've been persevering with a modified 350D (now sold), and, now a modified 40D, as well as dabbling with my 5D Mark II. The 5D Mark II has incredible resolution. I would love to purchase a second body and have it modified for astrophotography, but, that's a fair bit of coin. The 40D does remarkably well. I own and use a beloved G-11 (with Gemini). My guiding set up is a DSI attached to a ZenithStar FD80 mounted on top of my current toy, a 5" triplet APO. I don't need them, but, I'm considering purchasing encoders for the Gemini, as I tend to re-balance my gear before imaging in the east, and, after a meridian flip. Next pay packet, I'll be ordering a Moonlite motorised focuser for the ED127 as with wild temperature changes, I've noticed my images getting slightly softer throughout the night. And, with precision focusers, there's such a small critical focus zone that it's just not practical focusing by hand. I'm also interested in perhaps an 8" f/4 imaging Newtonian. They're quite cheap and coupled with an MPCC will provide pretty impressive fields. My current set up:   Jekub posted:As I mentioned elswhere, your images are all amazing, I've got several astrophotographers who's images push me to learn more and do better, I'll have to add you to that list.
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Jan 13, 2010 16:33
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G-11 is what I have next years bonus ear marked for, I think by then I will have reached the limits of my already overloaded Vixen Sphinx. We have astrofest coming up in the UK next month and I'll be looking for a deal on a dual mount bar for widefield imaging with the ZS66SD and a new guiding/planetary/lunar camera to replace the modified webcam. I'll also be looking to modify my EOS1000D.
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Jan 13, 2010 17:26
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DorianGravy posted:First, wanted to thank all of you for this great thread. I have a Seymour solar thin film filter. A dealer in my neighborhood sells sheets of Seymour's filter material and I built a mounting cell to fit it on my 6" dob and secure it with straps of velcro. It is a very good filter, and you can see sunspots, faculae and granulation with it. Using various eyepiece color filters can make certain features pop out a bit better. HIGHLY recommended.
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Jan 14, 2010 02:19
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Does anyone have experience with the Celestron AstroMaster 130 EQ? I'm leaning towards it over the Orion XT6 / XT8. It has one less inch of aperture, but it's substantially cheaper, and the tripod mount seems to be more portable than a dobsonian mount. I live in student housing, so viewing requires a drive to the park and then a decent walk to find a nice dark spot. And it's an EQ mount, so if I want to try astrophotography, I'm alright, right? Edit: The 130 EQ has a 3 week backorder, but the 114 EQ is availabe to ship next day. Am I hurting myself if I drop too low in aperture? (130mm == 5 in, 114mm == 4.5 in) The 130EQ is $190, and the 114EQ is $130 (+15 for optional motor drive), both with free UPS shipping. Are these good deals, and should I get the motor drive? INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Jan 18, 2010 |
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Jan 18, 2010 22:02
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Been moving and without internet for a little over a week, those are some amazing images octane2. I don't have the patience for imaging, but I get tempted to try whenever I see work of that quality.INTJ Mastermind posted:Does anyone have experience with the Celestron AstroMaster 130 EQ? I'm leaning towards it over the Orion XT6 / XT8. I don't own one, but eq mounted reflectors are all pretty similar around the 200-300 dollar range. The thing you need to consider is transport time versus setup time. I own a 8" dob and a 8" SCT, so they're similar in visual quality, but I use them for very different things. I can take my SCT outside in one trip, and easily fit my telescope, tripod, observing chair, and eyepiece case/general supply kit in the trunk of my small car. On the other hand my dob takes up the entire trunk and back seat. The other side of this is setup time, I can get my dob set up and align it's computer in under 3 minutes. If I skip the computer alignment, I can get it ready in under a minute. My SCT takes 10-15 to get it mounted on the tripod, north aligned, manually slewed to two stars, and aligned well enough to have reliable go-to. A 8" dob is sort of a hassle to carry around, but you can be observing in a few minutes, while an EQ mounted scope will take more time, especially when you're new to it. As for choosing which astromaster to go with, I would highly recommend waiting and getting the 130. It's a slightly larger aperture, but that's not the most important part. The 114 is on a cheaper mount, the CG-2 versus the 130's CG-3. I have not seen the CG-2 in person, but I've seen the CG-3 and was impressed with it's stability for a relatively budget priced telescope. I also believe that the 114 comes with a built in barlow lens, which can cause you problems if you wish to use your own lens at a later date. Built in barlows also do not play well with some third party eyepieces. If you get the 130, you'll eventually want to pick up an eyepiece for high magnifications, but that shouldn't be more than 20-30 bucks for a plossl. One problem with the astromaster line is the reflex finder. glitch77 has the same scope and I believe replaced the finder pretty quickly. A telrad or rigel finder is an excellent replacement for the stock finder, they both run about 30 bucks or so. INTJ Mastermind posted:The 130EQ is $190, and the 114EQ is $130 (+15 for optional motor drive), both with free UPS shipping. Are these good deals, and should I get the motor drive? That's quite a bit cheaper than amazon, those look like good deals. The motor drive is nice, but ultimately optional. I'd suggest you wait and use the scope a little, and see what you need to upgrade. I'd put a quality finder and a high magnification eyepiece over the motor in the short term. edit: amazon has the 130 eq in stock http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-31045-AstroMaster-Reflector-Telescope/dp/B000MLL6RS Loztblaz fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jan 18, 2010 |
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Jan 18, 2010 22:28
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Does anyone have experience with the Celestron AstroMaster 130 EQ? I'm leaning towards it over the Orion XT6 / XT8. I got it through telescopes.com for IIRC $139 with the motor, but we haven't put the motor on yet.Unfortunately, I don't have a point of comparison to say whether it's good or bad, but no major complaints besides the spotting scope sucking.
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Jan 18, 2010 23:28
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Thanks guys. I might get the 130EQ from Amazon, since I have a $50 gift card which will get the price down a bit. Can you recommend a good eye-piece for planetary viewing? Is this good? http://www.celestron.com/c3/product.php?CatID=36&ProdID=230 The 130EQ has a 650mm focal length, so I need to get a shorter eye-piece for the same magnification than say for a 1000mm focal length? Should I get a 2x Barlow lens instead? The 130EQ comes with a 10mm and 20mm eye piece I think. INTJ Mastermind fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Jan 20, 2010 |
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Jan 20, 2010 07:07
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Octane2 how do you get on with having your guidescope mounted in rigid rings rather than adjustable? Do you ever have issues locating a guide star with that configuration? I tested a similar setup for mine over the weekend but had great difficulty locating a suitable guide star (imaging Leo triplet) whilst keeping the object in frame. I imagine having a better guide camera than a modified webcam would help with this.
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Jan 20, 2010 13:13
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INTJ Mastermind posted:Thanks guys. I might get the 130EQ from Amazon, since I have a $50 gift card which will get the price down a bit. A 2x barlow lens would only give you one additional option, since it would make the 20mm eyepiece equal to the 10mm. Consider a 3x barlow, it would allow you to view at 195x and 97.5x, in addition to 65x and 32.5x without the barlow.
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Jan 20, 2010 19:59
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That's a pretty good idea with the 3x Barlow, looks to be about the same price as a 4mm eye piece and it gives me 2 extra magnifications. The 20mm is an "erector" eye-piece which presents things right-side-up. That won't interfere with a Barlow will it? Will the Barlow cause image degradation (extra object in the light path) vs. simply buying an eyepiece with a shorter focal length? I'm guessing it won't matter too much since I'll be using it for planetary observation and they're pretty drat bright, right?
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Jan 20, 2010 20:15
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INTJ Mastermind posted:That's a pretty good idea with the 3x Barlow, looks to be about the same price as a 4mm eye piece and it gives me 2 extra magnifications. The 20mm is an "erector" eye-piece which presents things right-side-up. That won't interfere with a Barlow will it? As far as I can tell, it's nothing with the 20mm eyepiece (which I'd assume is just a standard plossl, like the 10mm), it's the telescope's optics. A 3x barlow should function just fine, but you may want to do some more research or email a company and ask them. Most smaller astronomy supply companies are very receptive to questions, astronomics.com called me 3 minutes after an order and offered me cheaper shipping that would get to me faster because of their location. A barlow will cause a loss of light, but it's something like 1%. If you compare a 3x barlowed 12mm and a 4mm back and forth, you might be able to see a slight difference in image quality, but it's not worth the cost of having multiple eyepieces right now. If you get hooked on the hobby, then you might consider a suitcase full of Tele-Vue Ethos(Ethoses? Ethoi?).
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Jan 20, 2010 21:38
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I made this animation with my Meade DSI. Unfortunately it was so drat cold that condensation became ice and screwed up my view. According to autostar the temp of the camera was hovering around -9C. Anyway, here's my blurry timelapse of the moon moving across the field of view at 1 frame per second. 
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Jan 21, 2010 06:50
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Might be a stupid question, but if I balance an EQ mount, do I need to rebalance it when I change the orientation?
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Jan 21, 2010 11:11
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