Astrophotography

I was given a telescope for xmas. Woohoo!!Its the Bresser messier 102/1000. I would like to get into astrophotography. Can someone tell me what other equipment i would need? Thanks

Hi Ian. Welcome to the IFAS boards.
Congrats on the new scope.
Do you have a link to the exact model?
For astrophotography you'll obviously enough need
A camera (or webcam / ccd camera)
What kind of shots were you thinking about ?
The subject matter is literally astronomical!

Im new to these forums how do you send a link? I would like to be able to take snaps of the moon, planets and deep space. What would you recommend?

Ian

To insert a URL click the "URL" grey button that is at the top of your white window where you compose your posts. Then copy and paste the url between the tags [funny text in square brackets] that that button inserts.

You can press the preview button that is beneath the composition window and check that it works.

My main recommendation is enjoy the scope for visual use until you are used to it and you have an idea of where you want to next.
Get used to polar alignment and get to know how stable the setup is. You need stability for astrophotgraphy. You don't want the slightest breeze shifing your image all over the shot.

Read this and similar forums so that you become more familiar with what images are obatined and by what method and what equipment was used. Astrophotography can be very challenging and the most impressive results require a lot of effort and patience. It can turn out much more expensive than you might have initially thought (this is more true of deep sky than moon and planets). So don't rush in.

I'm not sure if the mount of your scope is motorised - if not you may want to purchase something like this
www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/ViewProdDetail...od_code=PON07D000006

You'll need to confirm that you whatever you find will work with the MON-2 mount.

You need to keep the scope tracking the moon or planet fairly well or images will just be smeared. The tracking requirements for deep sky are very demanding (each frame must be of much longer exposure than lunar or planet work) and that's what motivates astrophotographers to start investing significant cash into new mounts.

In astrophotography one tends to take long exposures (for deep sky)or lots of short exposures (moon and planets) to average out / mitigate distortions due to atmospheric turbulence which has the same sort of effect as a running stream or brook over pebbles.

I'd recommend starting with a webcam and targeting the moon and the planets. You can get some sold specifically for the task - Meade LPI and Celestron NexImage are popular. You can buy cheaper webcams and modify them to connect to the scope but the neximage and LPI devices are only about €100 and are convenient.
I have the Meade LPI and it comes with some useful software. Despite the picture on the box it wont cut it for any deep sky object - but you can capture some star fields.

There is other free software which you can consider (or start researching) one is RegiStax - which is very good at processing lunar and planetary images. Another is Craterlet which produces AVIs - something the Meade LPI software doesn't do. AVI's are great for capturing a very large sequence of short exposure frames and then RegiStax can process this video stream and obtain images of quality that just aren't likely/possible with a single exposure.

If you are not motorised then it really is much more difficult - but not impossible to do astrophotography.

Deep-sky really is specialist and I'd suggest leaving that further down the road as cost, toil, and trouble start to escalate.

There are many on this forum willing to help.

Hope this helps.

Mark

Thanks for the advice. I think it would be wise not to jump into the deep end as you are were saying. What other equipment might i need for general astronomy? Here is the link for the telescope. www.astroshop.eu/bresser-telescope-ac-10...messier-mon-2/p,4124 .

Immediately what comes to mind is a lunar filter - the moon can be dazzingly bright (uncomfortably so) through a scope and it helps to dim it down - some product examples:

www.telescopeplanet.co.uk/ProductListing...e=29&subcat_code=146

I have a Meade filter it cuts out something like 87% of light (so the spec claims and the moon is still bright).

You can get polarising filters that you twist and change the brightness - all I can say is that my simple Meade works for me and I don't suspect you'll go wrong buying another brand (Celestron, Skywatcher etc).

Some folk recommend different colour filters for bringing out details on planets - I wouldn't bother unless you really believed they would help (though I have never tried it so am not qualified to make judgment).

There should be - what appears to be like a lens hood - this is a dew shield and should help prevent dew (condensation) forming on your objective lens (the lens on the sky end of scope). However it can still happen and its frustrating when it does. You can improvise with some camping foam (about a tenner) and make a bigger dew shield (a scissors and duct tape job). Lenses misting up happens more often that you might imagine. If it happens dont wipe them - use a hair dryer - and use a circuit breaker!

I recomend getting yourself some planetarium software to familiarise yourself with the sky and / or a couple of books. Philips have a good range - I like the "Philip's Pocket Star Atlas" and the Collins gem "Stars" is a really nice reference that can comfortably be accomodated in your trouser pocket. But to be honest I tend to use them for the occassional browse rather than a reference - I rely more on the PC and there is great software for free.

You might want to consider something like a Philips Planisphere (two discs that you rotate and you have a physical analogue of the night sky - but planetarium software is probably your man).

I don't have a reference book on the moon.

When it comes to books and planetarium software everyone will have a personal preference - so keep your ear open for any other recommendations / coments.

I personally use the following free software:

Cartes Du Ceil
www.stargazing.net/astropc/

Virtual Moon Atlas
ap-i.net/avl/en/download
(I went for the 3.5c "Light" version near the end of the page and it suits me fine).

You don't really need to buy anything more just now - but the moon filter I do recommend. You might get frustrated enough to want to extend your dew shield.

If you want to spend more time observing visually you may want to keep an eye on what eyepieces are around and are recommended. Careful though, take your time and collect one or two good pieces and maybe a barlow (contraption to double (or more) the magnification of any given eyepiece). I still use the bottom of the range stuff that I have somehow acquired - but I do believe it when it is said a good eyepiece is worth paying for (my goal is imaging so I've never thrown money in the eyepiece direction). I'll let others make any particular recommendations on this front as I just don't have the experience on that.

Now another thing to consider doing - is sketching what you see.
I'm not of the artistic persuation and if I were new to the game I imagine that I'd recoil at the suggestion. However, apart from any aesthetic/artistic virtues of your results (and I'm growing in appreciation of of the sketchers' work in this forum) it makes you think about your target and you get to know your target better than merely looking at it. Also, you get to have a pictorial archive of your observations. I believe Patrick Moore was a sketcher but I'm open to corrections.

Enjoy your telescope - there's plenty you can do.
And very welcome to the forum - and if I've said anything strange or unusual I hope others will point it out...

Mark