Calling all Astrophotographers, all skill levels. Post your work.

Im looking to buy a beginners telescope...how do you take pictures of the sky though? Does the camera hook up to the telescope?

reply to post by qd22vcc


There are SO Many scopes out there. Be careful of "Beginners" packages. Lots of promises, but the results, and the heartache, can turn you off of the hobby altogether.

Do you already have a camera with manual settings?

**Others please feel free to chime in as well to help a budding astrophotographer out**

reply to post by intergalactic fire


Ha!
And usually power lines ruin a photo.
That's a great shot. and a good title.

Originally posted by qd22vcc
Im looking to buy a beginners telescope...how do you take pictures of the sky though? Does the camera hook up to the telescope?

The camera hooks up to the telescope. Astrophotography with a telescope can be quite tricky though, I would strongly recommend starting with a pair of binoculars and learning your way around the sky before attempting telescopic astrophotography. That's what I did. I also had a small refractor which piqued my interest in the hobby as a boy, but most of my star hopping skill came from binoculars and later from using a newtonian telescope on an equatorial mount. Star trail photos are quite easy to do though, all you need is an SLR and a tripod. Once you've learned the basics and can read a star chart and navigate to some of the brighter deep space objects like the Andromeda galaxy, I would recommend a dobsonian. You can't really do much photography with a dob though, just the moon and maybe the brighter planets. The exception to that are some of these new computerized go-to dobsonians.

www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/GoTo-Dobsonians/Orion-SkyQuest-XT8g-Computerized-GoTo-Dobsonian-Telescope/pc/1/c/12/sc/30/p/102019.u ts

With that you can pretty easily capture the moon and planets, but you're still going to be limited to fairly short exposures on deep space objects. It'd be a good way to get your feet wet once you're ready for a serious telescope and want to try out astrophotography though.

Thanks for the info.....the telescope i was looking into was Celestron AstroMaster 114 EQ Reflector...won awards for beginner telescopes? Good idea about learning the sky with binoculars first. The astrophotography sounds complicated lol...so ill start from the bottom up and learn

reply to post by qd22vcc


I haven't had the chance to use that specific model of telescope, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it that I can see per se, but in the same price range I would recommend this scope over that one:

www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes-with-Free-Shipping/Orion-SkyQuest-XT6-Classic-Dobsonian-Telescope/pc/1/c/12/sc/ 398/p/102004.uts?refineByCategoryId=398

I promise I'm not trying to promote Orion here, any 6" dobsonian would do just as nicely. A dobsonian mount is likely to be easier for a beginner to use and since the celestron's equatorial mount does not seem to have a clock drive as far as I can tell, there is really very little advantage to that mounting for casual eyepiece observing anyway. When you're a beginner, go for the biggest aperture you can afford; that will maximize your light gathering area and the number of objects you'll be able to see. I would also recommend spending just as much time with binoculars as with the telescope (whichever you choose) in order to learn how to star-hop.
washedoutastronomy.com...

reply to post by spacedoubt


Thanks,
Glad you liked it.
And indeed they normaly do.

That was one of the darkest places i've been ( black area on the light polution map) even with the few streetlights from the town, i've never seen that much stars before.

This is another image from 2 years back. The total exposure time was almost 100minutes.
Well it's actualy 133 shots of each 45sec stacked together which makes around 100min.
The seperate shots were taken with a timelapse remote


Here is another one from a couple weeks ago.

That was a pretty wild moment, standing on one of the stones you see, while waves crashing around me.
These are only around 20 images of each 40 seconds, I had to stop for the risk of the upcoming tide.
Must say I returned home soaking wet. The most important was that i enjoyed myself and had a nice experience.
reply to post by wmd_2008

Thank you
They were shot with a basic dslr nikon d90

Heres some from my iphone and 8 inch skywatcher









I will post some more at lunch

reply to post by abeverage


Thanks for sharing, love those images.
Thats some great detail on the sunspot, quite amazing to say at least.

reply to post by iksose7


Amazing.
I've read a lot on tracking devices and also came up on the astrotrac, for it's reasonably low price.
The reason i didn't go for it was because of the diferrent reviews( negative).
Now after seeing your images they look quite amazing with some good tracking.
Could you give me your impressions on the device? Tracking, aligning, build quality (stability),power requirements,... It would be a lot of help. Thanks

Thanks ngchunter! It appears you have to build it...hmm ill have to read on some more before I jump on a purchase lol


I cant tell the aperture on this one

www.telescopes.com...

reply to post by intergalactic fire


Cool pics...and trippy lol, made me dizzy kind of. So does the camera take tons of pictures over a set amount of time?

Originally posted by qd22vcc
reply to post by intergalactic fire

 

Cool pics...and trippy lol, made me dizzy kind of. So does the camera take tons of pictures over a set amount of time?

Yes, it's a interval remote you connect to the camera ( wireless or cable). On the remote you have different time settings depending on the model you buy i think. With the one i have you can set time delays, the exposure time, intervals and the amount of shots you want to take. You also have a manual shutter release ( like the one on your camera) you can hold it or it just locks into place.
You can also just use it to make a timelapse movie.
The nice thing is, ones you adjust the camera and remote you can sit back and relax the scenery and don't worry about the camera.

Wow! Keep them coming!!

I probably starred more posts already here than in any other thread lol.

And I LOVE the "Electric Universe" shot. Simply beautiful, doubly so if one understands what you are getting at there.

Originally posted by iksose7

A couple of months ago i finally bit the bullet and bought an Astrotrac! So now i have tracking

Nice pictures hope you don't mind your M42 above I gave it a little tweak hope you like.

Wow! Some amazing shots everyone!

Here's one of mine taken from my backyard. Practically no wind during the exposure ekpt the gumtree leaves steady. (Yeah, it's a lousy pic content wise, but I'm really limited in location choice due to disability)



(edit, very old canon 350d)

Halley's comet, a bit of tracking using the home built "barn door" tracker I described earlier...





And now another bit of history, the famous supernova SN1987A.
I'd been out one night taking photos of various things, including the Large Magellanic Cloud, then went to bed. The next morning I read about the supernova in the paper. So must have captured it reasonably early.



In case anyone is wondering, here's a pointer to it. The "Tarantula Nebula" is the blobby thing to the lower left of it.

Here is some video taken with my iphone only problem was when editing the shaking in a iphone app it didnt save as HD :-(


If you go to my youtube channel you will see some more vids

Originally posted by alfa1

Halley's comet, a bit of tracking using the home built "barn door" tracker I described earlier...

edit on 1-5-2013 by alfa1 because: (no reason given)

Hey alfa.... When I was 9 I went up to five-ways on top of Mt. Dandenong (Vic Au) I vividly remember meeting this really friendly guy who let me look at Halley through his telescope. That man, whoever he was got me to love the universe and beauty of the night sky.

Obviously, the chances are stupidily ridiculous... But were you there back then??? If so, THANKYOU!

Originally posted by Qumulys
Obviously, the chances are stupidily ridiculous... But were you there back then???

If so, THANKYOU!

Sorry, not me.
I have been to Mt Dandenong, but the first time would have been in the early 90's.
(and I didnt take a telescope)