Deep Sky Astrophotography (Gear Discussion)

[Jack Douglas]

Johnmb1, I bought the skytracker but haven't used it much. It is tricky to get the alignment but not impossible and the unit is well made. All you get is longer image times without star trails. The tripod has to be rock solid. In my case I have adapted my Jobu gimbal head to the unit and find that to be a nice asset when everything is balanced. As the city expands in my direction I'm getting more light pollution and haven't made the effort to get away from it - so many plans and so little accomplished!

I wish I were jrista!

Jack

 

[telemaq76]

new picture of andromeda galaxie, with canon 1dx+500f4+skywatcher neq6pro mount
57 x 120 sec +DOF

 

[Click]

Great picture, telemaq76.

 

[Northstar]

new picture of andromeda galaxie, with canon 1dx+500f4+skywatcher neq6pro mount
57 x 120 sec +DOF

That's a really cool photo! If I had created it, I'd be proud. Nice!

 

[telemaq76]

thank you guys !

 

[East Wind Photography]

Johnmb1, I bought the skytracker but haven't used it much. It is tricky to get the alignment but not impossible and the unit is well made. All you get is longer image times without star trails. The tripod has to be rock solid. In my case I have adapted my Jobu gimbal head to the unit and find that to be a nice asset when everything is balanced. As the city expands in my direction I'm getting more light pollution and haven't made the effort to get away from it - so many plans and so little accomplished!

I wish I were jrista!

Jack

If you happen to have one of the big whites with the drop in filter, you can order a 48mm or 2 inch deep sky filter and it will fit the filter holder. It buys you a stop or two in light polition reduction for most nebula. There are also filters that drop into the mirror box of your camera which can help.

I use the skywatcher star adventurer becuase its simple. I can get away with using my 300mm f2.8 on it but i only grt about 50% useable shots with that weight. Still its far better than not getting anythig at all if the equipment is too big and complex to set up that you never do. Ideally you should target a mount or tracker that is twice the load bearing capacity when all of your gear is mounted on it.

 

[Jack Douglas]

East Wind Photography, thanks for that advice. The 300 2.8 II is definitely excessive for my little tracker but with the gimbal and perfect balance and a remote release it actually is manageable. Adding 1.4X in there doesn't add much weight either. However, my biggest challenge is getting alignment that is adequate and figuring our where to aim, since I don't have any previous background in this realm. Not to mention that just touching the unit with that weight tends to shift things. I don't suppose my polarizing filter for the 300 would help??

The 70-200 2.8 II is quite a bit more realistic for my setup. I've been having some health issues in recent years and have found this somewhat awkward night photography (often in the cold) a bit discouraging to learn at my age. Any advice (or maybe an excellent book) regarding the various challenges you can visualize me facing?

Jack

 

[jrista]

For a 300mm f/2.8 lens, you need more than just a tracker. You need a full equatorial mount. Your going to experience far too much periodic error from the mount (likely 30 arcseconds or so, which WILL affect the quality of your data), and probably shake or vibration due to the high payload. A 300mm f/4 would probably be fine on a tracker, but an f/2.8 is just...huge. I wouldn't consider anything less than the Orion Sirius for something like that.

You would likely need to guide for subs over about 2 minutes as well, which requires a companion laptop, software, etc.

Johnmb1, I bought the skytracker but haven't used it much. It is tricky to get the alignment but not impossible and the unit is well made. All you get is longer image times without star trails. The tripod has to be rock solid. In my case I have adapted my Jobu gimbal head to the unit and find that to be a nice asset when everything is balanced. As the city expands in my direction I'm getting more light pollution and haven't made the effort to get away from it - so many plans and so little accomplished!

I wish I were jrista!

Jack

It just takes practice.

City light pollution expansion, however, is a serious problem. My dark site, last December, was measuring over 21.6mag/sq"...very, very dark. Lately it's been measuring 21.1mag/sq", and sometimes even lower than that. That is over a stop difference in exposure (1.6x more sky brightness, or requiring about 1.2 stops shorter sub exposures), which reduces contrast a good deal.

It's amazing, when you see the Milky Way at an exceptional dark site, where it is so freaking dark that the landscape around you is nearly pitch black, but the milky way is so insanely bright that it actually causes your body to cast a faintly visible shadow on the ground. That is how the night sky is supposed to be....and sadly, just as with so many other things, we have completely and utterly destroyed that with another form of pollution. You cannot even see the milky way at all in the city, or even near the city, which is so truly sad.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Jon, thanks for the feedback.

Jack

 

[jrista]

Thought you guys might like to see the new (heh, "new"...I bought it back in March, haven't had a chance to really use it until now) AstroTech 8" Ritchey-Cretien telescope and Moonlite focuser:

This is a 1625mm telescope, 203mm aperture, f/8. High resolution scope. Parabolic mirror design, although I am using a TS field flattener for RC's with it. Between the flattener ($360), an off-axis guider module ($300), the scope ($1100) and the moonlite focuser ($800), as well as about $200 worth of various other accessories, this is almost a $2800 project that I bought and paid for over six months ago, and was only really able to use properly for the first time tonight. (Thanks, El Ninio! )

Still using the 5D III for the time being, but damn, that is one helluva noisy camera. Going to be getting a CCD camera soon here, which will replace the 5D III for high resolution imaging. I may keep using the 5D III for doing wide field imaging with the 600mm, or I may get some other astro modded DSLR or mirrorless that I could use for that (probably a 6D, only because Sony's SDK is still a bit lackluster and software support is a ways out.) I'll definitely be using the 5D III with some new Samyang lenses and a Star Adventurer tracker I picked up recently for some ultra wide field work. The Samyang lenses are mind bogglingly good, optically anyway, for the price. Almost perfectly flat fields, center to corner, which is something neither Canon, Nikon nor Zeiss have ever quite achieved. (Of course, the Samyangs are totally manual and lack even the most basic electronic connection to the camera.)

 

[meywd]

Thought you guys might like to see the new (heh, "new"...I bought it back in March, haven't had a chance to really use it until now) AstroTech 8" Ritchey-Cretien telescope and Moonlite focuser:

This is a 1625mm telescope, 203mm aperture, f/8. High resolution scope. Parabolic mirror design, although I am using a TS field flattener for RC's with it. Between the flattener ($360), an off-axis guider module ($300), the scope ($1100) and the moonlite focuser ($800), as well as about $200 worth of various other accessories, this is almost a $2800 project that I bought and paid for over six months ago, and was only really able to use properly for the first time tonight. (Thanks, El Ninio! )

Still using the 5D III for the time being, but damn, that is one helluva noisy camera. Going to be getting a CCD camera soon here, which will replace the 5D III for high resolution imaging. I may keep using the 5D III for doing wide field imaging with the 600mm, or I may get some other astro modded DSLR or mirrorless that I could use for that (probably a 6D, only because Sony's SDK is still a bit lackluster and software support is a ways out.) I'll definitely be using the 5D III with some new Samyang lenses and a Star Adventurer tracker I picked up recently for some ultra wide field work. The Samyang lenses are mind bogglingly good, optically anyway, for the price. Almost perfectly flat fields, center to corner, which is something neither Canon, Nikon nor Zeiss have ever quite achieved. (Of course, the Samyangs are totally manual and lack even the most basic electronic connection to the camera.)

Congratulation.....on starting to use it , would like to see direct comparison with the 600mm if that's even possible, but I know that reflectors and refactors aren't the same, though I keep forgetting the difference, regarding the cost, whats the total cost including the tracker?

Also which Samyangs do you plan to get, maybe you should wait until the reviews of the Sigma 20mm Art.

 

[jrista]

Thanks. Night two, still figuring some things out. This thing catches even the slightest bit of wind like a sail, so keeping it tracking accurately is pretty tough. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...the longer the scope, the more sensitive it is to unwanted motion, and this thing is pretty sensitive to just about everything. Even me walking around the mount affects the guiding (need to build myself a pier so I can avoid that problem.)

This is an f/8 scope, so four times less light per unit time than my 600mm f/4. It really shows. I'd use 270-300 second (4m30s - 5m) exposures with the 600mm...I am already using 1200 second (20m) exposures with this thing, and those are barely sufficient. And that is with all the light pollution in my back yard...I can't imagine what it would be like using this thing at a true dark site...I'd probably be using 30-40 minute subs!

Well, anyway. On the Samyang front, I've got the 14mm f/2.8 ED, and the 135 f/2 on the way. The Samyang 14 f/2.8 is amazing. Near-pinpoint stars right into the corner. Ideal for ultra wide field milky way shots. Thing is, it's so freaking wide, that you get field rotation in a matter of seconds if you are not tracking, so it wouldn't be very useful for untracked tripod-only imaging. The 135mm won't have the field rotation problem, but because it's so much longer, it too still requires tracking. Both are excellent for astro, but they are otherwise basic, manual only lenses. For me, that's fine, my only use cases are landscape, astro and possibly some close up photography where I manually focus anyway. I may get the Samyang 85mm f/1.4 as well...I've seen some portraiture shots with that...amazing boke,very sharp. I'm very impressed with the optical quality of these otherwise extremely cheap lenses.

 

[scyrene]

Thanks. Night two, still figuring some things out. This thing catches even the slightest bit of wind like a sail, so keeping it tracking accurately is pretty tough. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...the longer the scope, the more sensitive it is to unwanted motion, and this thing is pretty sensitive to just about everything. Even me walking around the mount affects the guiding (need to build myself a pier so I can avoid that problem.)

Simple: build an observatory for it!

 

[Jack Douglas]

Isn't that how it always seems to go as we dig ourselves deeper and deeper into a money pit! I have a friend who did in fact build an observatory that is very impressive and he gets a lot of pleasure out of using it.

Jack

 

[Don Haines]

Thanks. Night two, still figuring some things out. This thing catches even the slightest bit of wind like a sail, so keeping it tracking accurately is pretty tough. Not sure what I'm going to do about that...the longer the scope, the more sensitive it is to unwanted motion, and this thing is pretty sensitive to just about everything. Even me walking around the mount affects the guiding (need to build myself a pier so I can avoid that problem.)

Simple: build an observatory for it!

I know of several astronomy "enthusiasts" who have done that..... pour a cement pad ( I think she said it was 4 feet thick!), build an 8x8 "shed" with a roof on hinges..... Just head out to the yard, open it up, and away you go......

 

[telemaq76]

hello guys i need your help . I m using a canon 500 f4 IS I and i m looking for filter to shoot under light pollution. I readed we can find some filters to fit in the drop filter of big white, like the IDAS LPS-V4 . it s hard to find information about it. Can you confirm ant tell me what size to buy, 52mm i guess. Any idea where i can buy this? a picture of the filter in the drop filter would be great. I barely undertand how to install it, according to the pictures of the filter i see on the web

 

[scyrene]

hello guys i need your help . I m using a canon 500 f4 IS I and i m looking for filter to shoot under light pollution. I readed we can find some filters to fit in the drop filter of big white, like the IDAS LPS-V4 . it s hard to find information about it. Can you confirm ant tell me what size to buy, 52mm i guess. Any idea where i can buy this? a picture of the filter in the drop filter would be great. I barely undertand how to install it, according to the pictures of the filter i see on the web

I don't know about that filter specifically, but yes, you can put some small filters in there. I think people recommend slim 52mm ones. I have an Astronomik filter that's meant to go inside an APS-C Canon body, between the mirror and the lens, but it fits into the drop-in filter perfectly - I just place it against the glass and tape it down.

 

[telemaq76]

and it does not move? i shoot with full frame camera but in your opinion i can buy an apsc cls filter and intall it in drop in filter?

 

[JMZawodny]

hello guys i need your help . I m using a canon 500 f4 IS I and i m looking for filter to shoot under light pollution. I readed we can find some filters to fit in the drop filter of big white, like the IDAS LPS-V4 . it s hard to find information about it. Can you confirm ant tell me what size to buy, 52mm i guess. Any idea where i can buy this? a picture of the filter in the drop filter would be great. I barely undertand how to install it, according to the pictures of the filter i see on the web

I use the 52mm IDAS LPS-P2 with very good results.

 

[telemaq76]

hello guys i need your help . I m using a canon 500 f4 IS I and i m looking for filter to shoot under light pollution. I readed we can find some filters to fit in the drop filter of big white, like the IDAS LPS-V4 . it s hard to find information about it. Can you confirm ant tell me what size to buy, 52mm i guess. Any idea where i can buy this? a picture of the filter in the drop filter would be great. I barely undertand how to install it, according to the pictures of the filter i see on the web

I use the 52mm IDAS LPS-P2 with very good results.

ok thanks but how to you install it? is it not a spin-on filter?