Astrography Equipments

[Anurag Wasnik]

Hello Everyone,
I am new to the group, please help me choosing a decent telescope for astrography.

[Karthik Subramanian]

On Tuesday, 24 July 2018 08:40:53 UTC+5:30, Anurag Wasnik wrote:

Hello Everyone,
I am new to the group, please help me choosing a decent telescope for astrography.

Welcome, Anurag!

There are plenty of astrophotographers on the list. They should definitely be able to help you out.

Sathya is the most active at the moment, I'd think.

May I ask you a couple of questions?

1. Are you just starting out with AP?

2. What is your budget?

Best,

Karthik.

[Anurag Wasnik]

Hello, Karthik

Thank you so much for quick camera. 

So, I will be doing Astrography with D-Slr. Thus I am looking for a good telescope to buy. Budget 50k(Can strech 10-12k more)

Awaiting for positive response.. 

Thanks

Anurag

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[Karthik Subramanian]

On Tuesday, 24 July 2018 12:34:20 UTC+5:30, Anurag Wasnik wrote:

So, I will be doing Astrography with D-Slr. Thus I am looking for a good telescope to buy.

Budget 50k(Can strech 10-12k more)

Awaiting for positive response.. 

{disclaimer: I am *not* an astrophotographer, so take this with a big pinch of salt}

*Before* you invest money in AP equipment, you might want to try and experiment with the DSLR that you already have. It is possible to do a little astrophotography without tracking. It would *probably* be a good idea to begin with this, and then progress to more complex (and more  expensive) AP.

Rather than equipment, you might want to make your first AP investments in a few books. Not being an AP guy, I don't really know what books to recommend, except for these two:

[1] Astrophotography for the Amateur, Michael Covington.

[2] Capturing the Cosmic Light - A Handbook of Astrophotography. Sathyakumar P M Sharma, Manipal University Press.

     http://mup.manipal.edu/review/product/list/id/130/category/5/

The AP pros on this list should be able to help you more. Keerthi, Sathya, Dr. Suresh, Johann, and a bunch of other AP folks hang out here. Someone is bound to reply sooner or later :)

Best,

K.

[Deepak choudhary]

Hi All,

I also need suggestions on the same budget. I own a 4.5 inch telescope currently and i am planning to sell it. Let me know if anyone is interested. I stay near thanisandra main road

Thanks

Deepak

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[Anurag Shevade]

Hi Anurag & Deepak

My 1st name is also Anurag 😀

The question you've asked can't be solved by any one of us or yourself too in a quick way. Thus take your time to explore things until you have seen or know more about various options available and then choose the gear you feel comfortable and capable to do tasks you envisioned.

Read telescopes for astrophotography and mounts for astrophotography chapter in the following link. The resource is so well organized that you won't need to leave the website much to find any kind of technical information as a beginner and dslr owner. If you have any doubt, feel free to contact over forum as well as personally.

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/toc_ap.html

You will eventually learn that many other preferences apart from most imp that is budget, govern the telescope purchase. While reading about various designs available evaluate them on following basis.

1. The mount, its accuracy and its payload- Thus mount is even more important than telescope for AP. Thus scope's weight matters in its decision. Regarding mount itself, currently ioptron mounts are most innovative inlow/medium end and provide good own weight to payload ratio due to their z balance design. At higher end, many options. SCT/RC is the easiest scope to ride over load limited mount due to their limited length.

2. Portability- You need to go to dark sky places for imaging deep sky.

3. Frequent Upgrade vs lifelong instrument strategy- Something like apochromat refractors can keep you happy for many years for that focal length range which would be otherwise covered mostly by telephoto lenses from camera manufacturer brands. Whereas SCT or an intermediate fast newtonian (considering e.g. budget will be split in mount+scope) will serve as jack of all trades but eventually you will upgrade to proper astrophotography rig whose motorized focuser itself might cost more than budget you mentioned.

4. Focuser- Make sure the scope you choose has dual speed focuser.

5. focal reduction capabilty -at what focal ratio (or f numer as its said in general camera crowd jargon ), would you like to work at. That forces you to choose and plan field of view with your camera sensor as an input. If its crop dslr, fov is smaller. If its full frame, you need bigger field correction capability(at a higher cost)

6.Your existing setup and focal lengths already covered since you mention you have dslr.

7. Field correction- Coma correctors/flatteners with newtonians/refractors are common solutions to tame star shapes whereas RC/corrected SCT like Celestron Edge HD need specific reducers to tame focal ratios.

The list can go on but the basic rule that more is the diameter of objective more is the light gathering is true for everything.Design also dictates the usefulness of that aperture.

In my opinion, for beginners and budget considering other endless things that are more than telescope purchase itself like e.g. mount, field flattener/reducer, light pollution/narrowband filters, garden variety of adapters etc.

following options seem good enough to get started and be ready to try many things if you are starting from scratch.

i)  8 inch F/4 GSO Newtonain astrograph OTA with GSO coma corrector- good if you have APS-C dslr

ii) https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p8866_TS-Optics-Photoline-72mm-f-6-FPL53-und-Lanthanum-Apo---2-5--R-P-focuser.html - Good if you like portability and events e.g. upcoming lunar Eclipse shooting.

iii) 8" RC telescope - Dedicated high focal length setup which requires reducer to speed up things.

For those who already own modest telescope, substitute 8 inch by 10 inch aperture and something like 5" to 6" refractor insted of 72mm to get some upgrade in visual astronomy too.

-Anurag Shevade

[ABHIJIHT GUDI.S]

Hi sir good evening 

I am intrested to buy bincolour or telescop for star watching 

Which one is good for starting in low price 

Sent from my iPhone

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[Ajay Talwar]

Hello Anurag,

After reading your question a multitude of answers come to my mind, and all answers have many caveats and conditions attached.

To answer your question in short would be thus:

Go for a 80mm-100 Refractor Telescope with a focal length of about 400mm to 500mm making it a focal ratio of about f/5. If you use a crop DSLR camera such as Canon 1200D or Canon 80D, this telescope would give you a field of view of approximately 2.5 - 3 degrees. Andromeda Galaxy would just about fit-in, in this field of view, Orion Nebula would be nicely framed in this field of view. This telescope would be suitable for large deep sky objects like North America Nebula. Smaller objects like Ring Nebula, most galaxies would be too small for this field of view. You would need a longer focal length for smaller sky objects.

Here I must stress the importance of the mount. A sturdy mounting is as much important as the telescope. With a small focal length telescope you may use a low end equatorial mount for deep sky astrophotography. As the focal length of the telescope increases the quality of the mounting needs to keep up. A quality equatorial mount is rigid, smooth tracking movement, accurate in pointing to sky objects. A good starting point equatorial mount would be EQ5 or EQ6 from Orion or Sky Watcher.

The above two paragraphs are just a beginning to deep sky photography.

I must also mention that a lot of astrophotography gets accomplished by using camera and tripod only. These type of astrophotography is also called night landscape photography or in short nightscapes. I personally like to do more of nightscapes than deep sky photography. A dark location is important in making nightscapes, a dark location makes capturing the Milky Way an easy affair. An example of Milky Way captured at Hanle is attached. Me and my wife Neelam also like to make star trail images in the middle of cities, takes a lot of images and processing to complete city nightscapes. An example of star trails over Manhattan is attached.

More questions are very welcome.

Ajay Talwar

Nightscape Gallery: www.ajaytalwar.com/gallery
TWAN Gallery: www.twanight.org/talwar

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[Karthik Subramanian]

Lovely pictures, Ajay!

Thank you for the well-written, clear explanation :)

Best,

K.

[sathya kumar Prasanna]

Ok, I read this thread, well almost. Beginners tend to think that astrophotography is as easy as clicking away. Anurag Shevade explained there's a lot more to it. Just a telescope won't suffice, you need the mount which can cost anywhere from twice to five times the cost of the scope. A decent astrophotography setup will cut your pocket short by 1.5L at the very least whichever way I see it. If you are in bangalore, you can visit me and I can explain. 

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[Anurag Wasnik]

Thanks a lot.. So I was thinking to get Achromatic Reflector Telescope. I have heard that is good for astrography.  
https://amzn.to/2AgsgJZ

This one I thought of buying.. I am not sure though.. Plus I will be needing mount as well. as you have recommended EQ5 and EQ6. Those are very expensive here. USD to INR import prices are just insanely high, more than double. Anyways I will buy good mount. How about this : http://www.tejraj.com/eq5-da-ps.html ?

On Wednesday, 25 July 2018 13:29:55 UTC+5:30, Ajay Talwar wrote:

[Anurag Wasnik]

Hello, I have reached you on Instagram regarding the same. And that budget was just for my scope. I also thought it is gonna cost me More than 1.5L and I am willing to spend. And I would really like to learn more about it from you. I am from bangalore, how to meet? 

[sathya kumar Prasanna]

For the telescope, you have chosen correctly. I have the same telescope too. The mount you've chosen is fine, but a better one is http://www.tejraj.com/ioptron-cem25p-goto.html

The CEM25P is a really good mount for astrophotography

Thanks and Regards

Mr. Sathyakumar Sharma,

Scientific Officer,

Karnataka Science and Technology Promotion Society,

DST, Govt of Karnataka,

Banashankari 2nd Stage,

Bangalore.

 
Phone: +91 8095626184

https://www.facebook.com/SathyakumarSharma/

[Suresh Randadath]

Hi Ajay,

Those pictures are awesome. Could you please share the exposure setting for the milkyway shot?  

[Ajay Talwar]

Hello Suresh,

I gave an exposure of 10 seconds on ISO 3200 using a Canon 6D camera. The lens was a Sigma 24mm and the aperture was set at f/1.4

In the month of May I had conducted a astrophotography post processing workshop at the Bengaluru Planetarium. There was a lengthy discussion with the participants of the workshop about 'when people ask the exif of the image'. Here I gently suggest to you that it is more important to understand and study the histogram of the raw image, just after clicking in a digital camera, and then making amends on the spot. Ambient conditions like light pollution, moonlight, twilight are the major factors which affect the histogram.

More questions are welcome :)

Best Wishes

Ajay Talwar

Nightscape Gallery: www.ajaytalwar.com/gallery
TWAN Gallery: www.twanight.org/talwar

[Suresh Randadath]

Thanks Ajay! Missed your session. I had played around with histograms before but it was more of a trial and error. But if you could share any good material that I could read through on understanding this better and making the right changes to RAW, that will be very helpful

[Ajay Talwar]

Hi Suresh,

Understanding the histogram is an important topic covered in depth in my astrophotography workshops. Histogram is important while you are in the field shooting and it is important while you are processing your images. The image could be a nightscape, deep sky or any other astrophoto, the importance of histogram remains the same.

I have attached a tutorial from my workshop, with this email. Please go through it. Additionally please take a look at this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU-DXAf_PgY

which explains the use of histogram in the field.

Further questions are welcome.

Ajay Talwar

Nightscape Gallery: www.ajaytalwar.com/gallery
TWAN Gallery: www.twanight.org/talwar

[Ajay Talwar]

sorry, now with the attachment

[Suresh Randadath]

Thank you so much Ajay! Will go through the materials.