What extra gear do I need for observing?

Urban Astronomy Visual Observation
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Paul Sanfilippo avatar
Paul Sanfilippo avatar

Hi Guys,

Forgive me if this question has been asked many times before on these forums (I did a search but couldn’t find much).

I’ve been doing astrophotography for about 12 months and continue to enjoy it. But my wife has mentioned a couple of times how nice it would also be to be able to observe in real-time, and I’d be keen for that too. Unfortunately we are in Bortle 7ish suburbia so I don’t know if this is just a futile exercise - am keen to hear opinions.

In any case what is the minimal gear I would need to observe?

The relevant gear that I currently use for AP are (sorry, I have gone down the ZWO rabbit-hole):

  • FF65/FF130 refractors

  • AM5N mount

  • ASIAIR Plus

Thanks very much,

Paul

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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
If you are on ZWO's gear you could try ASILive, though not sure it exists on ASIAir+
Dave Rust avatar
Dave Rust avatar

ZWO is a terrific platform. You can do an awful lot with it. Moving to a more complex platform like NINA doesn’t guarantee greater happiness. I use ASI on my remote scope because reliability trumps complexity.

the ASIair app on your phone and pad has a live mode. You can even select calibration frames and then watch a finished stack emerge before your eyes. For family and friends a perfect image isn’t always needed in order to impress…so you can shoot shorter subs than usual. For a recent star party I picked a brighter nebula (Orion) and ran 30sec subs. After six of them, the image started to look pretty nice and bright. Twenty minutes later it was downright impressive. Of course, it benefitted from being scaled down on our big TV, which reduces apparent noise.

Some folks will use a wide reflector at F3.5 which makes nice subs at 10 seconds on brighter nebula and galaxies. A really decent image forms in just a minute or two and continues to improve as long as you run on the target.

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Craig Towell avatar
Craig Towell avatar

If you mean visual observation with the good old mk1 eyeball, they you’d just need a diagonal and eyepieces. Use the 130 on the AM5n in alt az mode (generally easier for visual). You can still use the ASI air connected to guide scope to do plate solving to find targets, but you would probably want to disconnect the EAF to focus by hand or use the optional hand controller if you have one. Focusing on a tablet or phone is a pain.

Also you would likely want to remove filter wheel and reducer, if they are fitted for AP.

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