Astrophotography??

D

danelectro

Messages
132
Edit My Images
No
Hi All,

I have a Celestron Astromaster telescope and of course my Nikon D40, was thinking of getting them married!!! Has anyone had any experience of such photography?? and was it succesful or just a pain???


Neill
 
Neill, are you using an AltAz or EQ mount with the Astromaster, which Astromaster do you have ? Also is it driven ?

I've not tried with that combo, but I have succesfully used the equivalent of a Skywatcher ST80 on a Celestron NexStar SLT mount. It's a lot easier with my new HEQ5 though.
 
I have a HEQ5 Pro too and Skywatcher 200 and I can just about get good pictures of DSO. You need it to be motorised and track what your taking a picture of due to long exposures needed to get detailed results.

If your not motorised there's still a lot of interesting stuff to snap, but not DSO imo. You should look at getting good detail of the moons terminator and good quality pictures of other near objects.

you will need a set of filters too, they will do their best to block out light polution and show up the moon as its supposed to be.

See here for filters.

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/category/basecategory.aspx?cat03=3010

I have moon and nebular filters and colour filters for DSO which you take long exposures with and layer them up on post production.

As for camera settings your pretty limited to your telescope for apature, focus etc and your camera is just a means to capture to a file and control the legnth of exposure.
 
In true Blue Peter Stylii... The 450d, is at prime focus on the bottom scope.

PICT0197.jpg
 
It's a heavy duty tripod and mount, but this is a lightweight compared to the EQ6... For long exposure Astro photography, you really need a heavy duty mount that can easily handle the tube weights that it's carrying. The legs are 1.5" stainless steel tubing. The mount head contains the tracking motors and electronics to maintain a proper track on the sky.
 
jgs001 said:
Neill, are you using an AltAz or EQ mount with the Astromaster, which Astromaster do you have ? Also is it driven ?

I've not tried with that combo, but I have succesfully used the equivalent of a Skywatcher ST80 on a Celestron NexStar SLT mount. It's a lot easier with my new HEQ5 though.
Click to expand...

Hi there,

It's an EQ mount on an Astromaster 130. and not driven....I'm thinking that this could get costly!!!!
 
You will need this (unless you want to manually track, I've no clue how hard that is though), A T-ring for the nikon, and possibly an eyepiece fit adapter, that attaches to the T ring (something like this). I know that some people have had issues with getting focus with an SLR at prime focus on the Skywatcher version of that scope, there wasn't enough in focus in the stock focuser.
 
The mount is more important than the optical tube assembly, all telescopes are built from the ground up. Give it a go with your current set up and upgrade as you go along. The HEQ5 is worth every penny though, its regarded as one of the best value for money out there.

Ill be selling mine soon though, I want something smaller, one of the Meade ETX GPS Cassegrain ones, the smaller scope means ill use it more - probably.
 
Thanks for that jgs, got to say that tracking motor seems quite cheap?? (not complaining!) this is all new for me, so not really sure how it works!
 
Well, I must confess to only having gone EQ mounted a couple of months ago, so I haven't learnt all the terms yet :D..

As Lee said, you need a good sturdy mounting to take images, the longer the exposure time the better, and the more subs (multiple images that are stacked) the better. Take a look at this tutorial I wrote for Astrophotography on a camera tripod. The basic principle is the same as for eq mounted imaging, but you can take things further if you can track the sky.
 
danelectro said:
Hi All,

I have a Celestron Astromaster telescope and of course my Nikon D40, was thinking of getting them married!!! Has anyone had any experience of such photography?? and was it succesful or just a pain???


Neill
Click to expand...

Yup. Lots of pain but very rewarding!

Long exposure astrophotography is a complex subject with steep learning curve but you could be imaging the moon very easily with the addition of a T-ring and T-adaptor (T2 thread to 2" or 1.25" push fit, depending on the diameter of drawtube of your telescope).Any other questions feel free to ask!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top