would this telescope do any good

[Eliza Rain]

Ok, this is the telescope I currently have
http://www.amazon.com/Meade-ETX-60AT-ETX60AT-Telescope-Obsolete/dp/B00004THXS

would this get any of the great nebula shots?
I eventually want to get a better one - but I'm going to be putting the $$ out for the camera/lenses/lighting (and a new computer) so a telescope is not #1

My autistic step son LOVES these photos and wants me to take some for him

[Nighthound]

Eliza, I hate to be the bearer of disappointing news especially with a youngster taking such an interest in astrophotos. The truth is, this telescope would not be capable of producing quality nebula images due to its very small aperture, less-than-sturdy and accurate mount. These type of telescopes that are sitting on a low end fork-type mount are very restricting to the long exposures needed to capture nebulosity. An accurate mount for tracking these deep sky objects is needed first and foremost. Unfortunately this type of equipment is not cheap. If you really want to break into this hobby for deep sky imaging, you'll have to think in terms of spending somewhere in the range of $1400 - $2,000 for a decent telescope and mount. This doesn't include other accessories you'll need. It'll also be essential to learn to polar align these telescopes/mounts to get accurate tracking so be aware that there is a long learning curve with this type of imaging. It'll take patience but when the results keep improving, it's a lot of fun.

But if you can be happy with shooting the sky using your camera/lens on a tracking mount then you can cut that cost down to $600-$1000. You could spend less but what you'd get would likely frustrate you into giving up and I wouldn't want to see you waste your hard earned money. There's also a used market of good gear out there that would help get the gear cost down.

Sorry again to the bearer of bad news, I certainly don't want to discourage you. You can still enjoy shooting the night sky with your camera/a low focal length lens on a tripod to get started. Find the darkest skies you can to get the most from the short exposures using this method.

[Eliza Rain]

I thank you for the truth! Your photos BTW are jaw dropping - I would love to shoot photos like that

I'll look at the better telescopes - I found one I like thats $2200

I just need to figure out what else I need!

[Eliza Rain]

what about this one?
http://www.amazon.com/Skywatcher-Newtonian-Reflector-Telescope-Controller/dp/B001HCQQ5S/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1253733309&sr=1-10

[Nighthound]

I thank you for the truth! Your photos BTW are jaw dropping - I would love to shoot photos like that

I'll look at the better telescopes - I found one I like thats $2200

I just need to figure out what else I need!

You're very welcome and thanks for the compliment on images.

Run your choices by us. There are many scope designs, and no one telescope is perfect for all objects but we'll try to steer you toward the gear best suited to your needs, limitations and goals. There's much to consider like portability/weight, if you plan to drive to darker skies and set up and tear down each night out. Also some scopes are compact and some are not for transport.

EDIT: I just saw your last post.

I would suggest no larger than an 8 inch telescope in the Newtonian design and no more than 500-600mm focal length on your budget. The trick is to get a mount accurate enough to guide at those focal lengths to get you started. Don't feel bound to buy a telescope package. It's common practice to buy a mount from one manufacturer and a telescope from another.

I would start by thinking mount first. Take a look at the Orion Atlas mount or Celestron CGEM, both are $1,500. That sounds like way too much of your budget but the mount should be the bulk of the investment if you're trying to get set up for imaging. Be sure to get a mount that has full GOTO capability and a polar alignment scope built in. These items will make set up and locating objects much quicker, which translates to more time imaging.

You can get an 80mm APO refractor(highly recommend for beginners) for around $500 to image with on the above mounts and have a really nice set up that will give you options down the road for larger scopes. Every mount has weight limitations so a mount like those I mentioned will allow you to add heavier scopes later if that's what you decide to do. If a mount has a weight capacity of 60 pounds, cut that in half for astrophotography. Less weight allows the mount to run more smoothly and accurately.

Before you jump into this I would be sure that you are:
• willing to spend this much on a hobby that requires dark skies, decent weather and time(less sleep)
• able to lift the items safely that you are thinking about buying
• somewhat of a technical and patient person that enjoys challenges

Again, I don't want to discourage you but I also don't want you leap before you look. This is challenging but also very rewarding. I've always enjoyed the night sky and the idea of photographing such distant and beautiful objects so I got hooked right away.

Where are you located? Do you have any past experience with telescopes?

[chris.bailey]

Good advice from Steve. Steer clear of fork mounted scopes and go for a mid range german equatoral mount and an 80mm scope. Bit of a learning curve for Polar Alignment and stuff but there is something nice in knowing you have the right tools for the job and if it doesnt work you cant blame the tools.

I do 80% of my imaging with an 80mm scope (albeit a very expensive one) and there are hundred of targets that suit it well.

[Eliza Rain]

Steve - right now I'm in Florida but I'm moving to Vancouver in a few years. I had a telescope growing up and loved it - I always wanted to see more - I'll take a look at those scopes - Yea I should look at weight b/c I'm most likely have to travel with it

[spit]

you might want to look at a CG5 go-to then, its not a preferred mount for AP, but it is lighter, portable and can guide- stay away from newtonians unless you get an imaging newt, most have focus issues with a DSLR, your better off with a small 'APO' refractor or even a small SCT (w/focal reducer) along with a small guidescope, you would still need to modify your camera for these 'neb' shots, some brighter though will come through nicely without the mod, like orion, pleides-etc, star clusters make very nice deep sky images not requiring the long exposure nebs do, for deep space, sometimes my set-up takes 1-2 hours before im aligned and focused, with all the subs needed, thats about another 2 hours on one subject- its highly demanding and time consuming

[VIGER]

There ar two types of telescope. Visual and for photography '' Astrograph they are called '' . Astrograph can be mirors or lenses. Refractors or Reflectors. Epsilon for Takahashi, RCO Ritchey- Cretien are mirrors and are superb telescope. FSQ106 from Takahashi are refractors and do wonderfull pictures. The Fs78 is a small favorite.
The idea when choosing a telescope for photography is to have a flat image and limited distortions and it has to be FAST. EPSILON-(180ED) are F/2.8 telescopes for example.

Lately, Meade and Celestron have understood that with the growing popularity of photography they had to bring their scope to do photography. They offer telescope uptimized for photography.

My grain of photon :cool:

[Nighthound]

Steve - right now I'm in Florida but I'm moving to Vancouver in a few years. I had a telescope growing up and loved it - I always wanted to see more - I'll take a look at those scopes - Yea I should look at weight b/c I'm most likely have to travel with it

Talk about out of the oven and into the freezer. :D That's quite a climate shift Eliza. Hopefully the Vancouver area will have some dark skies within a short drive.

There are a lot of options out there to every facet of this hobby so take a deep breath and start with the basics. As I mentioned the telescope mount is job 1. Autoguiding/guidescopes, high-end premium optics, etc, won't amount to a hill of beans on a mount incapable of accurate tracking for the long exposures required to image faint objects like nebula and galaxies. I would suggest you focus on getting the best german equatorial mount that you can within budget. The focal length that you choose for your telescope should be in line with the capability of the mount you choose. The higher the focal length the more accuracy is required. Shooting at a focal length of over 600mm on the mounts within your budget would be a huge challenge unguided, and autoguiding would require a second telescope(lesser quality) and guide camera connected to a laptop and guiding software.

So you see how quickly this can become more complex(and costly) with the increase of focal length. More focal length essentially amounts to more magnification of inaccuracies in polar alignment, mount gear imperfections, as well as atmospheric turbulence(seeing conditions).

Even if all you purchased to start with was the mount with GOTO, you could hold off on the scope and use your camera and lenses for long exposure widefield just to get an understanding of the process. Alignment, balance, imaging and processing alone are quite a bit for a beginner to absorb. Autoguiding falls into the category of advanced imaging and requires more investment than you mentioned making in your original post. What I'm trying to say is walk first and run later, you'll likely enjoy the journey a whole lot more that way.

Also, I'm not of the school of thought that a DSLR has to be modified to produce nice astrophotography. I do believe it's an added advantage, just not a necessity. I've yet to image with a modified camera and I've manage some very stubborn deep sky objects like Thor's Helmet, M78, The California Nebula, Witches Head, etc. You'll have to make the decision if you're willing to convert a DSLR to astro-specific imaging, I couldn't bring myself to do it because I shoot a lot of wildlife(mainly birds) as well but you may want to go that route.

[pitrow]

Steer clear of fork mounted scopes

I'm curious about your reasoning for not liking the fork mounts? Wouldn't the fork mount with the autostar controller (which this scope comes with) be just as accurate at tracking as an equatorial mount, provided it's setup properly?


I have an older 5" newtonian meade (DS-127-EC) with the autostar that I was thinking about trying for some photos, but it also has a fork mount.

[Nighthound]

Pitrow, fork mounted telescopes like your Meade track in altazimuth. This is fine for visual observing but with long exposures you'll be battling what's known as field rotation. This is a result of the mount motoring on both axis' as the mount tracks the object you're imaging. As a result the stars at the outer portion of the frame will show motion while closer to the center of the frame the rotation will lessen.

Altazimuth fork mounts like yours can be placed on a wedge. This allows one the operation of a single motor while tracking allowing the mount to track in sidereal like an equatorial mount, eliminating field rotation.

You won't likely be able to use your newtonian with a DSLR due to the focuser being too high profile. This won't allow enough travel in the scope's focuser to bring an image to focus on the camera's sensor. There's no harm in trying but I wanted to mention it before you moved ahead with buying any hardware/adapters for attaching your camera.

[Adrena1in]

There ar two types of telescope. Visual and for photography '' Astrograph they are called '' .

It certainly seems to be the case that Astrographs are appearing more and more these days, whereas I'd never heard of them just one or two years ago. However, I just wanted to stress that it's not a case of one or the other...you can still take decent pictures through a visual scope.

[VIGER]

you can still take decent pictures through a visual scope

Absolutely.

[chris.bailey]

I'm curious about your reasoning for not liking the fork mounts? Wouldn't the fork mount with the autostar controller (which this scope comes with) be just as accurate at tracking as an equatorial mount, provided it's setup properly?


I have an older 5" newtonian meade (DS-127-EC) with the autostar that I was thinking about trying for some photos, but it also has a fork mount.

Tracking is not the issue. Field rotation is. To counter this you need to use a fork mount on a wedge to take exposures longer than about 30seconds. Lots of people do it and to good effect BUT it is an added complication and one i would rather avoid. A lot of fork mounts also have a lot of slop in the gearing (you should see the awful engineering inside a couple of grands worth of Meade) and my LX200 has quite a lot of periodic error to boot. I do image with it but its a lot of effort to get results that come anywhere close to a much cheaper GEM that I can set up and image with in less time. Add in the hernia risk of lifting a heavy fork mount up onto a wedge and you begin to get the picture :-)

[chris.bailey]

this hobby has several distinct stages

1) get an image of any sort. Jump up and down with joy!
2) do some research and find loads of conflicting advice
3) try and get better images with what you have by spending long periods "fiddling"
4) give up fiddling and get better equipment in the hope that will sort it out
5) find that the better equipment needs yet more "fiddling"
6) get very frustrated with people posting fantastic images with the same equipment you have

[pitrow]

Pitrow, fork mounted telescopes like your Meade track in altazimuth. This is fine for visual observing but with long exposures you'll be battling what's known as field rotation. This is a result of the mount motoring on both axis' as the mount tracks the object you're imaging. As a result the stars at the outer portion of the frame will show motion while closer to the center of the frame the rotation will lessen.

Altazimuth fork mounts like yours can be placed on a wedge. This allows one the operation of a single motor while tracking allowing the mount to track in sidereal like an equatorial mount, eliminating field rotation.

You won't likely be able to use your newtonian with a DSLR due to the focuser being too high profile. This won't allow enough travel in the scope's focuser to bring an image to focus on the camera's sensor. There's no harm in trying but I wanted to mention it before you moved ahead with buying any hardware/adapters for attaching your camera.

AH! I hadn't thought of the rotational aspect of it! Thanks!

Thanks for the tips about the focuser too. Guess if I ever get serious into this I'll need to look for a better scope and keep this one just for fun.

Thanks again!

[MintMark]

this hobby has several distinct stages

1) get an image of any sort. Jump up and down with joy!
2) do some research and find loads of conflicting advice
3) try and get better images with what you have by spending long periods "fiddling"
4) give up fiddling and get better equipment in the hope that will sort it out
5) find that the better equipment needs yet more "fiddling"
6) get very frustrated with people posting fantastic images with the same equipment you have

Heh :) Even though I'm happy with my equipment (!) I get very frustrated at the image processing stage. There is no single recipe that gives the best results... lots of trial and error. Could it be better? Would this work? Should I be doing that as well? Each stage creating a 50Mb tif file...

The final stage in the list of course is to blame any factors you can think of that are out of your control... weather, seeing, location, light pollution, rogue satellites, cosmic rays and alien jamming signals.

[spit]

this hobby has several distinct stages

1) get an image of any sort. Jump up and down with joy!
2) do some research and find loads of conflicting advice
3) try and get better images with what you have by spending long periods "fiddling"
4) give up fiddling and get better equipment in the hope that will sort it out
5) find that the better equipment needs yet more "fiddling"
6) get very frustrated with people posting fantastic images with the same equipment you have


good summary!!

[Adrena1in]

this hobby has several distinct stages

1) get an image of any sort. Jump up and down with joy!
2) do some research and find loads of conflicting advice
3) try and get better images with what you have by spending long periods "fiddling"
4) give up fiddling and get better equipment in the hope that will sort it out
5) find that the better equipment needs yet more "fiddling"
6) get very frustrated with people posting fantastic images with the same equipment you have

You missed out

5a) Think about selling all the better equipment you've just bought and consider taking up another hobby.

[PM01]

There ar two types of telescope. Visual and for photography '' Astrograph they are called '' . Astrograph can be mirors or lenses. Refractors or Reflectors. Epsilon for Takahashi, RCO Ritchey- Cretien are mirrors and are superb telescope. FSQ106 from Takahashi are refractors and do wonderfull pictures. The Fs78 is a small favorite.
The idea when choosing a telescope for photography is to have a flat image and limited distortions and it has to be FAST. EPSILON-(180ED) are F/2.8 telescopes for example.

Lately, Meade and Celestron have understood that with the growing popularity of photography they had to bring their scope to do photography. They offer telescope uptimized for photography.

My grain of photon :cool:

We have a club member that has brought several of the new Meades that were optimized for astrophotography. They are good, but still not up to the same level of optical quality that the FSQ/AP/TEC scopes are known for. But, at least meade does try and isn't stagnant.

[Eliza Rain]

do you think any of you can post a link to what type of telescope YOU use ?

so I need (I'm making a list!)

The telescope *duh*
a Celestron 93625 Universal 1.25-inch Camera T-Adapter (is that right?)
and what else

TIA! :)

[Adrena1in]

do you think any of you can post a link to what type of telescope YOU use ?

so I need (I'm making a list!)

The telescope *duh*
a Celestron 93625 Universal 1.25-inch Camera T-Adapter (is that right?)
and what else

TIA! :)
Where are you going to buy your kit? Because if you buy from a specialist you could probably make sure they set you up with everything you need for astrophotography. If you buy things separately, like I have a lot, you'll nearly always find there's something else you need.

The essentials are basically.

1) Equatorial Mount with tracking. The sturdier and more expensive the better! I have an EQ5 and an EQ6, the former is easy to move about, the latter is a lot bigger but much sturdier. Both pretty cheap...you can spend as much as you like on one, and should do really...no point having a cheap mount with an expensive telescope.
2) Telescope. A 70mm to 80mm ED APO Refractor would be a good place to start. Mine's a William Optics ZenithStar 70mm. Pretty much all manuacturers will make a suitable small scope like this...Celestron, Meade, SkyWatcher...you name it.
3) T-Ring. Specific to your camera, and attaches to your camera in the same way a lens does.
4) T-Adapter. Screws into the T-Ring and then slots into the telescope focuser to turn the telescope into your lens. Try to get a telescope with a 2" focuser, then get a 2" T-Adapter, but a 1.25" will be fine too...I have two or three of each size.

That would be enough to get you going and shooting most things. The Equatorial Mount will need to be a tracking mount, and once you get it you'll want to learn polar alignment. Along the line you'll perhaps want to investigate filters, projection adapters, webcams and guide-scopes, but for the time being, if you want to get started shooting through a telescope, those four things above are the basics.

Anything else anyone?

[MintMark]

Just the practical bits and pieces... maybe a portable power tank, a remote shutter release (or one with an interval timer for >30s exposures), and a few of those kneeling pads!

[Sorarse]

Don't forget software. Even with just the basic telescope equipment which will get you started in astrophotography, resulting images will almost certainly benefit from post processing.

I guess most digital photographers these days will have something with which they post process their pictures, though I'm not sure if any of the available packages are better to use for the specifics of astrophotography.

Just a thought.