Stargazer95050's most read articles

Collimating a reflector telescope may not be a "want to" but more of a "have to do" task to get better results. This article is a summary of my experiences and not an all-out instruction on how to handle each & every scope. If you find any mistakes or have corrections & suggestions feel free to comment or email me

The biggest investment needed for astrophotography is _TIME_. It takes time to learn how to use the tools, time to get to places, time to photograph and time to learn from the mistakes and repeat that cycle. An astrophotography setup with lots of quality equipment isn't cheap but you may want to put it into perspective to other hobbies or to SLR camera equipment you already have bought.

[UPDATE 2013/12/20] Predicting the position of the Sun & Moon isn't all that difficult with a bevy of apps & websites to help you. Predicting satellite positions, incl ISS, is more specialized. Several tools of the SOFTWARE TOOLCHEST come in handy and I will have to add some new ones for this task. Once you know WHEN & WHERE it will happen, the next task is to figure out HOW. Especially when you aim to shoot a transit in front of the Sun, extra precaution is needed.

The power requirements will change as you progress from using a tripod + camera to a (small) tracking telescope with a SLR and up to a more complex setup using auto-guiding (with a laptop), a larger mount, CCD-imager & dew- heater(s). In this article, I describe the more successful implementations & outline the way, technological improvements have kept up with the increasing demand for DC power for a mobile telescope setup.

Observing stars becomes easier if you don't have to constantly make adjustments. This is even more important, if you want to make long-exposure photos of the sky. The solution is simple & elegant -- the Earth rotates around it's axis and if you counteract that rotation, you keep looking at the same position in the sky. There are different names for solutions to do that, most notably an "equatorial mount". Barndoor- and other star-tracking accessories all use the same principle and require the same preparation steps -- THE POLAR ALIGNMENT

I'm going to update this to reflect changes as this project progresses. Naturally there always are multiple options and I will suggest alternatives

The tools like Vixen POLARIE, iOptron SKYTRACKER and the ASTROTRAC all have their use and fans. And they are capable to move a small camera setup and effectively eliminate startrails. They are small and comparatively easy to use but are quite expensive for what they can do. They also have limitations and here I want to point to the benefits of a real EQ mount. Some of these mounts cost about as much as any of these devices once you add up all the costs for the additional accessories.

If you are planning to capture images of deep sky objects, it is likely, you have a laptop and camera(s) at your disposal. So why not use them to help & accelerate the polar alignment.

I am only recommending items I think they are useful -- it doesn't mean I have purchased & tested each & every item. I will explain, why I think this is a good (or a bad/expensive) choice. Please don't take this "shopping list" too literal -- it is a list I've compiled from my own experience with the CGEM & iEQ45 and I want to point out important accessories you may miss during your 1st or 2nd round of shopping. Disclaimer : These are my personal opinions -- I have received no compensation for this blog entry

From the ground up : Important / distinguishing features of the Atlas EQ-6 Pro Tripod 12V power Mechanics attaching & adjusting the mount during polar alignment about the mount ALT & AZ adjustments Polar Scope & alignment Balancing & Counter-weights Clutches Saddle Cables & connections Handcontroller Orion's Software & Drivers 3rd party SW -- EQMOD & EQASCOM MECHANICAL HAZARDS IMPORTANT / DISTINGUISHING…

"Build your own" in this case doesn't mean soldering and writing thousands of line of code. Instead I take advantage of available HW & SW and combine them and hopefully end up with a better (and lower-cost) solution than the off-the-shelf items. This is an ongoing adventure -- come back to see the progress ...

To begin with, you can use any tethering software -- only later will you use the advantages of solutions tailored to astrophotography. Here I'll discuss both options.

NASA's images of the sun show so much more detail & texture -- and they can see those not only because they have million dollar equipment and put it into space. These details also are visible to mere mortals -- once you focus onto very narrow bands of light with appropriate filters & technique.

Plate-solving is useful -- especially when you use it to correct a telescope's position in real-time . You also can feed the solver an existing photo and manually read the results but using the output can be cumbersome. Manual copy & paste coordinates of input fields of tools like Stellarium helps, but that approach isn't very user friendly. Here's a different take on this -- solve the image and instantly get the sky map of that region. Again, this is using mostly freeeware tools.

For this article, I use the eclipse on April 15th 2014 as an example and as a location I have picked San Francisco. The path of the moon & the timing is dependent on your own location and you will have to make adjustments for that. Here are some examples and a bit of background of the various attempts : www.ipernity.com/doc/stargazer95050/album/389379

The Moon not only is a stepping stone for humankind's exploration of the universe. The Moon also is a good stepping stone for your astrophotography and often the first distant target people shoot.

Here is the "dream" solution" a high-capacity Li-Ion battery with regulated & protected 9V output capable of delivering 5A and a connector to match the Nikon body (that package would need to include a small AC-adapter to recharge the battery) Compare that to the most practical, cheapest yet easiest & most reliable solution : /stargazer95050/31956033 any 12V battery -- preferably _NOT_ Li-Ion because most of these batteries have limited output current and require very special charge…

A standardized image format is something most users take for granted -- JPG, GIF, PNG and even TIFF are household names when it comes to (web)-images & editing. If you use a dSLR, you have gotten used to adding a tool or two, to process the Nikon or Canon RAW formats. With the astronomy cameras, the formats & necessary conversions become a real mess -- especially if you use a one-shot color "OSC" camera.

Today's GOTO telescopes are a great help to novice stargazers and a timesaver to more seasoned astronomers. Pushing a couple of buttons and you can command the telescope to move from one star to the next nebula. Yet that hand-controller interface isn't very intuitive to use to beginners and it would be a lot nicer if you could simply use star maps and point & click

In the previous blog entry, I talked about the GOTO capabilities and the usefulness of computers to provide sky maps and provide easier accessible telescope controls. All those solutions are "blind" and here I will explain how to setup a combination of tools that will utilize your existing mount+camera setup and provide you with feedback on the telescope's actual position. And also automatically correct the position..