Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
Come join the friendliest, most engaging and inclusive astronomy forum geared for beginners and advanced telescope users, astrophotography devotees, plus check out our "Astro" goods vendors.
I have been re-bitten by the astronomy bug, 40 years since I was serious about it. I built my own 8" Newtonian back in the 70's, learned a lot about optics. I had my own darkroom so I could process film that same night if I wanted to.
I'm planning to use all of my learned experiences and electronics background to fabricate an Ardunio based equatorial mount and use a machine vision camera to capture images. I have a lot to learn about astrophotography and how to incorporate all my ideas into a workable setup.
I'm also planning on getting started right away with a prebuilt system, nice refractor telescope and goto mount so I can start the learning curve of image processing and PP.
Looking forward to participating in discussions here and sharing ideas.
Cheers from Vernon, BC
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats.
-Michael Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50 Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl Camera: ZWO ASI 120 Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs Latitude: 48.7229° N
Gabrielle See Far Sticks: Elita 103/1575, AOM FLT 105/1000, Bresser 127/1200 BV, Nočný stopár 152/1200, Vyrobené doma 70/700, Stellarvue NHNG DX 80/552, TAL RS 100/1000, Vixen SD115s/885 EQ: TAL MT-1, Vixen SXP, SXP2, AXJ, AXD Az/Alt: AYO Digi II, Stellarvue M2C, Argo Navis encoders on both Tripods: Berlebach Planet (2), Uni 28 Astro, Report 372, TAL factory maple, Vixen ASG-CB90, Vixen AXD-TR102 Diagonals: Astro-Physics, Baader Amici, Baader Herschel, iStar Blue, Stellarvue DX, Tak prism, TAL, Vixen Eyepieces: Antares to Zeiss (1011110) The only culture I have is from yogurt
Welcome to TSS!
We look forward to hearing about your journey.
Gordon
Scopes: Explore Scientific ED80CF, Skywatcher 200 Quattro Imaging Newt, SeeStar S50 for EAA.
Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-g mount & Skywatcher EQ5 Pro.
ZWO mini guider.
Image cameras: ZWO ASI1600 MM Cool, ZWO ASI533mc-Pro, ZWO ASI174mm-C (for use with my Quark chromosphere), ZWO ASI120MC
Filters: LRGB, Ha 7nm, O-III 7nm, S-II 7nm
Eyepieces: a few.
Primary software: Cartes du Ciel, N.I.N.A, StarTools V1.4.
Welcome to the forum. Good luck with building from scratch, I know nothing about that.
Since you are once again new to the hobby, there's lots to learn about modern gear. I'm not sure what your budget is for the prebuilt rig you are thinking about getting into or what kind of payload you are interested in but you might want to check out ZWO's AM5 and ASIair setups.
Welcome kHz. Its great you reacquired the astronomy itch, and nice to have you joining our ranks. I hope you find this a good place to belong. We have a lot of dedicated astronomers here who enjoy sharing and learning from one another.
Alan
Scopes: Astro Sky 17.5 f/4.5 Dob || Apertura AD12 f/5 Dob || Zhumell Z10 f/4.9 Dob ||
ES AR127 f/6.5 || ES ED80 f/6 || Apertura 6" f/5 Newtonian
Mounts: ES Twilight-II and Twilight-I
EPs: AT 82° 28mm UWA || TV Ethos 100° 21mm and 13mm || Vixen LVW 65° 22mm ||
ES 82° 18mm || Pentax XW 70° 10mm, 7mm and 5mm || barlows
Filters (2 inch): DGM NPB || Orion Ultra Block, O-III and Sky Glow || Baader HaB
Primary Field Atlases: Uranometria All-Sky Edition and Interstellarum Deep Sky Atlas
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Astronomers, we look into the past to see our future." (me)
"Seeing is in some respect an art, which must be learnt." (William Herschel)
"What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean." (Sir Isaac Newton)
"No good deed goes unpunished." (various)
“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't you think?” (Scarecrow, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Stephen
- - - - - Telescopes: Questar 3.5 Standard SN 18-11421; Stellina (EAA); Vespera II (EAA) Solar: Thousand Oaks white light filter; Daystar Quark (chromosphere) Hα filter Mounts: Explore Scientific Twilight I; Majestic heavy duty tripod Local Club: New Hampshire Astronomical Society
Wow!! Awesome warm welcome, thank you all for your comments and words of encouragement.
I spent several more hours reading about "modern" astrophotography. This probably isn't the place to ask questions so I will just reply to the Q's asked.
My budget to get a prebuilt system, honestly, as little as possible but maybe up to $1500. I have found locally a nice fellow with an ED80 and a few accessories for ~$650 USD. He also has an HEQ5-PRO for another $800USD. Even though I am in Canada it seems the world revolves around the USD which is why I quoted that way. I know I have the ability to fabricate a motor system to work with an old equatorial mount I have, or build a new one, it may take all winter and I can't wait to get into it right away which is why I'm thinking prebuilt to get going. I also found a Redcat 71 for $1500 but that is really outside my budget right now. I just started looking locally last night, there are lots out there, just need to find the right balance of cost, performance and resale when I upgrade.
I have an Allied Vision Oscar 510T machine vision camera which I used for my telecine project, I think it would work well but I'm not sure the critical specs for astro work. Just for fun, here is a link to what I built in 2019 to digitize all my parents 8mm film home movies, it was a lot of fun, there are 2 parts to it.
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats.
One final thought for the evening...reading your various signatures, I see there is a TON of items I have never heard of and probably processes that go way beyond pushing an 800 ASA film for that perfect image (yes, I'm old).
Are there any 30,000 ft tutorials you could recommend that would cover all aspects of "modern" astronomy, I need to get a handle on the process from required basic equipment thru to getting a nice clear colorful image. I'm thinking DSO will be my primary interest to start, although seeing Neil Armstrong's foot prints on the moon would be cool too.
Thanks
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats.
As #5 says, "input, need more input". I'll keep searching for more articles.
Cheers
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats.
And just an FYI, I'm out in the country on 20 acres, from what I can determine, Bortle 2, a good location. I'm bringing home a couple of 5'x9' concrete slabs from work to place in the field for the tripod mount, about 3,000lbs, should be a good platform.
cheers
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats.
One thing that has changed a lot is plate solving. There are multiple freeware packages as well as bought packages that take your camera image, and identify the part of the sky the camera is pointing at in real time. You can do this with an astrocam, or DSLR, you don't need a dedicated machine vision setup. So if your machine vision cam is not optimised for low light, you can use plate solve.
Welcome to the forum.
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978...................Web site :http://joe-cali.com/ Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80. Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's. Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12 Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec. Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
Explore Scientific ED80 refractor, Sky-Watcher 200P 8" Dobsonian, Meade 856 w/853 mount and lots of eyepieces, Meade 4550 Newtonian, Sky-Watcher NEQ-3 PRO Hot Rodded with bearings and a whole mess of cameras, lenses, accessories, adapters and 2 cats. 
