Your advice about planetary camera for 130mm Newton's telescope - Forums

Topic starter

Oct 10, 2017

Hello everybody,
I have a small telescope Celestron Astromaster 130 EQ Motordrive and I using this telescope for observation and sometimes for astrophotography. Yes, it's not very good equipment for astrophotography, but I'm still novice in this way. I have one question for members, whose own similar telescope or have any experiences with this telescope.
For astrophotography I use Nikon D5100 with CMOS sensor 23,6 x 15,6 mm with 2x barlow lens. The video recorded by this camera have low quality I think. Video format is .MOV and I think it is very compressed format. Nikon D5100 doesn't record video to other formats. Details are not visible and post-processing doesn't bring better result. Another reason is that camera ist bit heavy for mount and motor. I think about buying planetary camera ZWO 120MC. Does anybody have any experiences with this combination ? (130mm newton's telescope and planetary camera) Is there posibility to get images of Moon or Saturn and Jupiter with higher details or is it badly invested money ?
Many thanks for every advice
Patrik

Vittorio

Oct 11, 2017

Hi Patrik,
on my opinion ASI 120 is a good planetary camera (I have and use a 120 mc-s and I'm very satisfied). Probably you need a longer focal length expecially for Jupiter and Saturn. I think that with astromaster 130 you need minimum a 3x barlow lens.
If you think to use planetary camera as guiding camera too, consider to buy a monochromatic camera. Sometimes I have used asi 120 mc as guiding camera, but it hasn't a good sensibility, expecially if you want to use an OAG.
Vittorio

Helpful Concise

Patrik Daňa

Topic starter

Oct 11, 2017

Hi Vittorio,

many thanks to your advice. Also I have GSO's 1.25" 3x achromatic Barlow too. I can use only 2x barlow lens or 3x barlow lens or combination 2x and 3x barlow lens I think.
Can you explain me, why is monochromatic camera better than color camera ? Technical parameters are similar.

Thank you very much.

Vittorio

Oct 11, 2017

Color camera has Bayer pattern and every pixel acquires only on one colour, so if bayer pattern (for example) is RGGB one pixel acquires red color, two green color and one blue color. In monochromatic camera every pixel acquires luminance and color are acquired with single filter, but EVERY pixel acquires signal. For this reason monochromatic camera are more sensible.
I have decided to change my qhy10 and buy a monochromatic cmos. I live in Venice and light pollution is a problem. I've tried to use an ha filter on qhy10 and the result is not encorauging, I've tried ha filter on a mono camera of a friend and the result is totally different (but on deep sky imaging!!!!!)
But a color camera is good for planets, in fact I wrote to consider mono camera just if you want use it as guiding camera to.
Sorry for my english :-)

Patrik Daňa

Topic starter

Oct 11, 2017

Thank you very much for your explanation. I think, that I understand that right.

Adel Kildeev

Oct 14, 2017

hi, ASI produces excellent cameras, you would not regret

I use Celestron Neximage 5 with 150/750 Skywatcher Newtonian and x2.5 Barlow. With the point of interest option you could use a small part of tge camera matrix for your planetary shooting.