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Hi all.
I’ve FINALLY upgraded some gear and wanted to ask if I’m missing anything by way of setup for my first test shoot tomorrow night (clear skies!).
Now to caveat what I’m asking, I know that my mount (star adventurer) isn’t really meant for this but I have good balance with everything and I’m hopeful I can get it to track properly.
Gear list: Star adventurer (1st gen) / Decent tripod (heavy/ no flex) / SW ED72 / Stellamira flattener (non reducing) / T ring / Sony A7R3 / Asiair plus / 2 dew heaters (main scope and guide scope) / Jackery 500 v2 power block / 50k mAh PD power bank w/ dummy battery for Sony / Zwo 120mm guide cam / Svbony sv106 guide scope.
I have guide scope mounted above main scope for balance. Clean power to Sony via power bank. Clean power from jackery to asiair plus. Think I’ve enough juice to also power both dew heaters off jackery too, although I have a backup power bank if it causes issues.
I’ve never used the asiair before but have watched countless YT vids on setup and control. I’m aware I can’t see images from Sony in the app but with a 2.5mm to usb Intervalometer cable the asiair should take pics to the Sony card directly. Sony is set up for this already.
I’m hoping the guiding is simple and I’m looking forward to a much simpler polar alignment using the 120mm Zwo. I will check focus in camera and use main scope focus knobs to adjust. As long as it’s guiding and polar alignment is set well I’m guessing that’s mostly it, right?
Tell me what I should know/check/do before starting and how likely I’ll get 2mins+ exposures please. Thanks!
What aspects are new among the list you provided?
Were you previously using the swsa with the 72mm telescope?
New additions are the 120mm guide cam and scope and the asiair. I also bought the extra power to aid me when I’ve saved up for a bigger goto mount and for travelling setups.
I think the guiding setup should help; a good guiding setup allows for pretty much indefinite exposures (polar alignment limited in your case). That said, depending on your light pollution you might not see a significant difference going from 30 seconds to 2 minutes or longer.
I was previously getting 30s exposures ok with the setup. Ok but not enough data captured.
Hi there!
I’m a relatively amateur astrophotographer (I’ve never used anything more than my iPhone 17 Pro Max and a tripod). I was out at New Jersey‘s Voorhees State Park a couple of nights ago the night before the peak of the Geminids Meteor Shower. While I did see a few shooting stars with my eyes, I made an accidental capture that intrigued me more than any of the shooting stars :
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AYUApArsaRCCrMGq6
This image was captured on a 10-second long exposure and reveal a faint cloud of homogeneous, smooth grey dust that never shows up on a 1 or 3 second exposure. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye either. This was only captured when pointed in the Southeast / South direction, somewhere roughly close to the Orion constellation (if that helps).
Could somebody please help me identify what this is? This clearly isn’t the core of the Milky Way which I’ve captured several times before and is spotty with all the stars. This isn’t a cloud either since this was a completely clear night.
A couple of possibilities from some googling suggests a galactic cirrus (https://www.astronomy.com/picture-of-the-day/photo/galactic-cirrus/) or a persistent meteor train left behind by a large fireball meteor from the shower.
Any thoughts / insights from the experts on this sub would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Honestly I think it's a cloud. Maybe a patch of smoke from something, but probably a cloud. Meteor/fireball remnants are much smaller and "galactic cirrus" is just a term for certain kinds of dust visible in astrophotography that are above the plane of the milky way (doesn't move visibly).
Thanks for the response! I considered that too, but feels like clouds should definitely show up on 1 or 3 second exposure shots too? I saw this only on the 10 second exposure. Wasn’t visible to the naked eye either.
It's possible that it's a decaying rocket exhaust plume or something else manmade, but it's definitely not any sort of DSO.
If your skies are dark enough you can't see clouds with the naked eye as there's nothing to illuminate them.
Hello everyone,
I am a graduate in theoretical astrophysics, looking to start astrophotography as a hobby before embarking on my PhD. I have a lot of expectations - imaging DSOs and planets, doing some variable star photometry, and maybe some visual astronomy. I am also very tight on budget - 500-600$ maximum. Can anyone recommend an optimised setup for my expectations? I am willing to compromise on some of them, but my main goal is to do some amateur, observational astronomy. Most of my research in astrophysics has involved working with already available, high-level data, so I really wanted to get a taste of observing stuff on my own, and astrophotography seems like a fun and relatively accessible way to do it.
I am confused about a lot of things. For example, I saw a relatively cheap telescope which has a motorised equatorial mount. It doesn't explicitly say a "tracker", does this mean it won't work for astrophotography? I read somewhere about stacking images for DSOs, can I get away with not using a motorised mount or a tracker, and simply stacking short exposure (around 1s) images, to achieve some detail for DSOs? Any help would be really appreciated!
What was the "relatively cheap telescope which has a motorised equatorial mount" exactly?
You're going to have a tough time achieving all your goals with a limited budget. Do you own any sort of photography equipment already or have any photographic experience?
It was a Celestron 130 EQ with a motorised mount, however it had mixed reviews. There's another one from a local company, which again has similar specs, but I doubt if the tripod would be reliably stable enough.
I do not have any photography equipment nor any prior photography experience, unfortunately. I was looking at one of those eyepiece cameras priced below 20$, which, I doubt again, will not be good enough. I lack the experience and knowledge to gauge my expectations from astrophotography. I should clarify, I am not looking to capture super sharp and detailed images of DSOs, but something fairly decent.
If you're interested in dso photography the easiest way to start the hobby is with a dslr, a fast mild telephoto lens(50-200mm), and a small equatorial mount. Small equatorial mounts (typically called trackers) don't need to be made excellently because they're designed to be used with a fairly small lens or telescope where the coarseness of the resolution is much larger than any periodic error from the mount in a reasonable exposure time. Larger sensor cameras support a larger field of view.
Planetary photography wants a large aperture telescope to support a very long focal length (8" + aperture, 2000mm+ focal length) and a small camera that can record at a high frame rate to defeat seeing. You don't necessarily need large sensor camera because planets are so small. You also don't always need a tracking mount, you can get away with a manual dobsonian in a pinch and let the planet drift through the fov. This is also similar to the same kind of equipment you'd want for a visual setup and for photometry.
You'll note that these two sets of equipment are essentially opposites (although you can do planetary photography with a larger DSO setup).
Thank you very much for all the information and help. After reading your comment, I have decided to go with a 10 inch Dobsonian with a decent lens cam. I believe I can always upgrade it later to a nice setup by buying a tracking mount when I get the money.
I've successfully taken some landscape milky way photos with my Nikon D800 with an AF Nikkor 28-200 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. I was recently given an old Sigma DG 150-500 f/5-6.3 telephoto lens and wanted to see if it was possible to use it for getting decent shots for astrophotography. I was going to purchase a star adventurer 2i to use with it for tracking. I know this is not an ideal setup as my lenses are slow and the telephoto lens is relatively large, but I think it should work given that I'm under the weight limit for the mount. My goal would be to capture nebulae. Thoughts?
Can I do astrophotography with a Celestron CGX mount?