Hello from Victoria, Australia! - Forums

Topic starter

Apr 20, 2020

Hi All,

I've been shooting landscape astophotography for a few years, however recently have started to develop a keen interest in close up moon photography. I shoot with M43 and Sony Full Frame cameras and after finding there was nothing even close to what I was wanting in focal range or optic quality as a standard camera lens I started looking to telescopes.

Currently looking at something like a Skywatcher 102/1300 or 127/1500 Mak as I want compact, reasonably light and a long focal range suitable for high quality moon photography (and perhaps Jupiter / Saturn observation with the kids) for large prints with a very, very modest budget. Still very much getting my head around the different types of telescopes, best use cases and general terminology and hoping to learn a lot from people around here.

Cheers

Engaging

Andy 01

IOTD Staff

Perfect post

Apr 21, 2020

Hi Dominic,
You could consider joining the ASV - we have a strong AP group and it's full of nice helpful people. http://asv.org.au/
Cheers

Andy

Dominic Ryan

Topic starter

Apr 21, 2020

Thanks Andy,

Actually joined up last night

Will definitely be looking to touch base there.

Dave Erickson

Apr 21, 2020

Hi Dominic,
Welcome…
regards,
Dave

Kevin Morefield

IOTD Staff

Perfect post

Apr 21, 2020

Welcome Dominic!

You'll find that most of the top Lunar and planetary images here are shot with relatively inexpensive CMOS cameras like the ZWO 294 or 174. These are used at a really high gain with millisecond exposures to "cheat" the seeing. It's often call Lucky Imaging. The cameras produce a video file with thousands of frames. Most then use AutoStakkart! (free!) to break down each frame into sections and stack the best parts of the best frames into the final image. Very long focal lengths are typical. Though the field of view is very small, the resulting images can be stitched into very high resolution, larger FOV images.

The key to the amazing resolution you see is the extremely short exposures and stacking the best sections of each frame. Niall McNeill is one of the resident experts at this. Here's an amazing Mars shot of his. https://www.astrobin.com/berjta/?page=2&nc=iotdExperienced landscape photographers often made awesome astrophotographers!

Kevin

Well written Helpful Insightful Engaging Supportive

astropical

Perfect post

Apr 22, 2020

Hi Dominic,

If you are happy with monochrome lunar imaging, you may like the ASI290MM (or the equivalent QHY5III290M with the same sensor). It sports high response to infrared permitting shorter exposure times and higher frame rates with IR-pass filters which help minimize the defects of poor seeing. Since the camera has no built-in filter you will need either an IR-cut or IR-pass filter.

Since visible light and infrared light focus on different planes, washing out details, you would image either visible light (use IR-cut filter when seeing is good), or infrared (use IR-pass filter, when seeing is poor). Also important, a PC with USB3 which is fast enough to cope with high frame rates in order to keep video recording time shortest possible – important when mount tracking is poor.

Way more headache is the choice of a telescope and a mount which can carry the optical tube's weight while tracking accurately. AstroBin hosts stunning pictures of the moon taken with apertures >=8 inches. These are worlds beyond modest budgets. Sorry, I do not have any experience with Maks, but read they are optimal for planetary observation and imaging.

If you are pretty sure you will not drop this hobby, then you may be happier on long term with a larger quality rig in the first place.

In order to get an idea about how camera chip size and focal length relate to:
https://www.astropical.space/fovslider.php
or for CMOS cameras only:
https://www.astropical.space/astrocamsim.php

Cheers
Robert

Helpful

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