Astronomy and DSLR Astrophotography Blog

Yesterday I have received e-mail from Mathew, asking me about usefulness of SCT telescopes for deep-sky astrophotography. He agreed to reply to his question in this post, since this is pretty general question and others may find it useful too. Here’s his message:

“Hi,

My name is Mathew Oehler, and over the past several months I have become more interested in astrophotography, after having general photography as a hobby for about 6 years.

Last year a family friend was gracious enough to give me a 100mm Orion refractor telescope, and I have gotten excellent use out of it in viewing Saturn, Jupiter, and the Orion nebula among other things.  More recently I purchased a T-ring that enabled me to connect my Canon Rebel to the telescope, and was disappointed in its capability.  I would ideally like something designed to reach deeper, so I can get some clearer shots of nebulas and galaxies. I have heard that Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes are designed for this purpose, but I’m having trouble finding good information amongst the sea of astrophotography information on the internet.  Are SC telescopes good for this, and will a standard one have an equatorial mount that I can put a motor onto?

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide me!”

The answer is not very simple (as always). The main reason why SCTs are so popular telescopes is their portability and compact size. They have a short optical tube because the light goes three times through it before it reaches the focus. The consequence is that they have long focal length comparing to diameter of the primary mirror which means slow optics (high f-ratio) – typically between f/8 and f/12. And here’s the catch! F-ratio is a king at photography because it tells you how many light the optics gathers per pixel. The lower f-ratio means more light, which means lower ISO setting (less noise) and shorter exposition to go deeper. This is the main reason why SCTs are not so good and popular among astrophotographers. In spite the fact they are compact, they have long focal length, small field of view (a lot of nebulas on the sky are larger than the diameter of the Moon) and require long exposition. Usually they come with mounts which are not capable to guide accurate enough to achieve pin-point stars at longer expositions (5min and more). All their characteristics suits for planetary and moon imaging, where longer focal lengths are needed and guiding is not so critical. On good mounts and with company of high detective CCD cameras they are good optical instruments for small planetary nebulas and galaxies, but I would highly dissuade this type of imaging the deep sky from beginners.

Mathew, I suppose that you have an achromatic telescope, because I have heard just good things about 100mm APO Orion refractor and it is good imaging instrument. I suggest you to start imaging at wide angle, since this is the easiest and the cheapest option. DSLR in combination with kit lens is good start point and your first object are star trails (if you don’t have a mount with tracking) or Milky Way (if you have the mount). It’s good to have in mind that you need to “build” your equipment from the ground, that means that first you need a good tripod, then mount and at the end the optics and camera. Note that good mount is astrophotographer’s best friend and it’s worth to buy a good one in the beginning, because you can put on whatever you want (just camera with kit lens or 16 inch RC). Later on you can buy a telephoto lens or APO middle-sized refractor which has many many objects in range (practically all the M catalogue and long list of NGC objects). If you are interested in little smaller objects you may find 8-10 inch f/4-f/6 high-quality Newton good instrument as well. At the end there are more exotic telescopes like SCTs, RCs which cost a fortune and need very expensive and good mounts (in range of 6000+ USD).

I hope I have answered to your question. You are welcome to leave a comment if I haven’t.

And if anyone have a question related to astrophotography just contact me. I’ll try my best to solve your problem …

equipment astrophotography, deep-sky, equipment, guide, milky way, sct, telescope

Yesterday evening it was clear outside and the Moon was rising at about 1.30 so I had 2 hours of total dark and this is enough for testing the new autoguiding camera QHY5. The target was M51, the second time. While I was deciding what to capture I realized that I will have to move to better location since from my backyard the southern sky is totally useless because of road lamps.

I managed to make a new cable for QHY5 so now it works with SkySensor autoguiding port. With that I decreased the number of cables from laptop to my mount from 5 to 3. Now I need only USB connection between PC and Camera, Bulb shutter release cable and USB connection with QHY5, which is great. I am planning to buy a new CCD for astrophotography so after that I will need only 2 cables. No more mess around the scope, finally!

So, I have just processed the image, the result is shown below:

Spiral Galaxy M51 @ 26 x 5min, ISO 800, RAW

I have also taken a shot of my equipment, at the “working” state

My Astrophotography Equipment

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Finally I have more time. The exams are almost finished so I have three months of holidays now and I hope that I will take some good astrophotos in this time and post it here. I will also continue with Astrophotography Tutorial but for today I have prepared something more fresh. The last week I have ordered new autoguiding camera for my setup. The previous one, Atik ATK-2HS, was not mine actually so I decided to buy the new one. I have ordered QHY5 from UK, the astronomy store named Modern Astronomy. The shipment to Slovenia costed only 10 pounds and it took only 4 days to arrive.

The first impression was very positive! Even though it is “made in China” it looks very well designed and made. The build quality is on very high level. It is not plastic like Atik, but metallic. The original package comes with camera, T-2 to 1,25″ nosepiece adapter, USB cable and setup instructions. I have also ordered RJ-11 cable for direct autoguiding via camera.

I got impressed when I unscrewed the nosepiece because of the size of the CCD. It seems really huge comparing to tiny CCD detectors in webcams (Atik ATK-2HS also uses ordinary 640×480 one). The resolution is 1280 x 1024, more specification are available at the QHY website.

QHY5 without nosepiece

The best thing is that QHY5 has T-2 thread which perfectly fits to my autoguiding telescope so I can just screw it on.

QHY5 on the autoguiding telescope

As you can notice it has two ports in the back side. One is USB 2.0 port for connection with the computer and another is ST-4 compatible autoguiding port for direct connection with the mount. I am using Vixen SkySensor hand-controller and I though that it is compatible but in fact it isn’t, because Vixen uses it’s own standard for autoguding. The connector is the same but wires are connected differently so today I am going to make a new cable. The camera has also build-in red LED diode which is too bright and could be disturbing in a completely dark so I pasted a black stripe over it.

Back side of QHY5

The camera comes with one A4 paper sheet of instructions how to setup. The drivers are not included, you have to download it from the Modern Astronomy site. The setup is really simple, you just install the generic driver and plug in the camera. Then you have to install additional driver for the autoguiding software you are using, in my case Guidemaster. All the main autoguiding software are supported, including ASCOM platform.

To sum up, I am very satisfied with the purchase. Two days ago I had a first light and everything worked fine. I was planning to capture M102 but ended with just 2 pictures because it clouded. This is 100% crop of one of them as a proof that camera guides OK:

100% crop of M102

I hope you enjoyed the review. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask under the comments

equipment, reviews astrophotography, autoguiding, camera, equipment, guide, mount, review, telescope

I haven’t been writing for a while now because I had so much stuff to do. This year I am finishing my secondary school and I am already preparing for the exams. Nevertheless, I haven’t been so passive at astrophotography. I have to admin that drive for my mount was damaged since summer and I hadn’t been capturing astrophotos for a half of the year. A friend of mine repaired it last month so I ordered some other cool stuff to upgrade it: I changed the holder of secondary mirror (spider) and mounted new rings for guidescope.

Yesterday I calibrated system again and did this shot of NGC2403 galaxy in Camelopardalis:

Galaxy NGC2403, taken with Orion Optics Europe f/4.5 on Vixen GP-DX SS2K @ Photo Credits: Primož Cigler

It’s composition of 26 exposures, each of 5min on ISO800 with Baader modified Canon 350D and IDAS LPS P2 filter. The mount was Vixen GP-DX with SkySensor 2000PC and the telescope Orion Optics Europe 8″ f/4.5. I processed image with Iris, Photoshop and Lightroom. It’s not my the best image of this object, but I am satisfied with a result because it’s a proof that everything is OK with the mount.

My Astrophotography tutorial will be continued as soon as I find more time.

Clear Skies!

astrophotography, personal astrophotography, deep-sky, galaxy, images, mount, telescope

In this part we’ll take a look at some telescope specifications. It’ pretty common question what’s the best telescope for astrophotography. The answer? Such a telescope doesn’t exsist. There are several different telescopes available on the market and every serves its own purpose.

The Newtonians, for example, are very handy and good instruments for astrophotography, though they need to be collimated very precisely and often. On the other hand ED and APO refractors are better, but they are much more expensive. The SCTs are compact and provides longer focal lengths but they are rarely well-made.
So the question is what telescope to choose for deep-sky astrophotography with DSLR camera?

There are several different answers, depending on our object to be captured. Let’s start with the largest: wide-field images of the sky. If you are planning to capture the wide-field images of the night sky you don’t need the telescope but the lens. This is because telescopes are optical instruments with longer focal lengths and that means smaller field of view (FOV) whereas the lenses has a really wide range of focal lengths, from 4mm up to 1200mm and more. The most common target in this range of objects is the Milky Way. This kind of astrophotography is especially appropriate for beginners because the auto-guiding is not necessary and most of the cameras already comes with “kit” lenses which have wide field of view.
One of my images of Milky Way in Cygnus taken with 50mm lens:

Mosaic of Milky Way taken with 50mm lens

Next step are large deep-sky objects. For this objects I recommend the middle-sized APO and ED refractors (80-120mm) or telephoto-lenses. If we have a good mount we still don’t need auto-guiding at this focal length but in most cases it’s better to use it if possible. The most common objects in this range are constellations, detailed locations of Milky Way, large nebula complexes (Orion) and bright comets. The next picture represents Comet Holmes as it was seen 8th January, 2008, taken with Canon EF 70-200 f/4.0 lens:

Comet Holmes with Canon EF 70-200 f/4.0 at 200 mm

Next are middle-sized deep-sky objects. The best focal lengths for them are from 1000 mm to 2000 mm. Newton telescopes and larger refractors has the most appropriate specifications for imaging this type of objects. The auto-guiding is really necessary here because just the best mounts can slew accurate enough to assure the pin-point stars at these magnifications. In this range we find almost all the object from Messier’s catalogue and the brightest NGCs. One of my pictures taken with Orion Optics Europa 8″ f/4.5 are Pleiades.

The last type of object, accessible to amateur astrophotographers, are smaller deep-sky object. They are mostly galaxies and planetary nebulas. Because they are small, we need long focal length to capture the details inside them. The SCTs and other catadioptric telescopes are the most appropriate for these objects.

So, now you know which objects are in the range of your equipment. I hope that you enjoyed reading.

astrophotography APO, astrophotography, camera, deep-sky, images, mount, nebula, telescope, tutorial

The very first thing we have to do when we start an astophotography is to choose the object. We have to know what are benefits of our equipment, what we are planning to capture, what is FOV (field of view) of our telescope and camera, how “deep” our system goes and so on. Let’s take a look at some of this questions.

When we are deciding which object we will be capturing we can help ourselves with different astronomy software. They display imaginary sky and we can take a walk into nigh sky, choosing the objects, checking the rising, setting, magnitude, distance, … All this parameters are important when we are selecting the target for astrophotography.

There is a lot of different programs available on the web for astronomy. Some are free and others are paid. There are some of them:

• Starry Night
• Hallo Northern Sky
• Cartes du Ciel
• SkyMap
• Stellarium

In this tutorial I will be using Starry Night. It is paid but it offers endless of useful options like FOV and has  really a huge database of objects.

First of all we have to know what type of object is appropriate for our astrophotography setup. The predispositions for deep-sky astrophotography are:

• Telescope of telephoto lens
• Mount for tracking that tracks very accurate (under 2″ of error) or has option of auto-guiding
• DSLR or CCS camera with remote control of exposition

In Starry Night we put the parameters in the the section Equipment:

Then we select FOV of our telescope and camera. The program displays us the rectangle that out astrophotography setup “sees”.

So, what’s next? We have to choose the target that we are going to capture. Here are some basic directives:

• Make sure that object is in the field of view at least 3 hours in the total darkness. It has to be at least 15-20° above the horizon all the time of the capturing. Make sure that you have specified your date/time and location accurately!
• Make sure that object roughly fits to the field of your telescope’s view. The rectangle that we have specified before helps us at this step. Make sure that it is not too small – it doesn’t make any sense if you are photographing a very small planetary nebula at 600mm of focal length.
• Make sure that it is not too dim. Almost all the objects from Messier catalogue are OK, and all the bright objects from NGC makes good target as well. If the object is dimmer than 10th magnitude then bigger telescope then 8″ is recommended.
• If you don’t have GoTo or it’s unreliable then make sure that you are able to find the object in the night sky. Help yourself with bright stars, print the carts out.
• If you are using german equatorial mount then make sure that object doesn’t pass the meridian during the planned time of capturing.

Some good objects to start with: M45 (Pleiades), M42 (Orion Nebula), M44 (Beehive Cluster), M27 (Dumbbell Nebula), NGC7000 (North American Nebula), M31 (Andromeda). They are all bright and easy to find even with binoculars.

And here we are. We have the object.

Next time we will take a look at the conditions in the athmosphere that affects to the astrophotography – the weather, seeing, transparency and more.

astrophotography astronomy, astrophotography, camera, deep-sky, equipment, guide, mount, telescope, tutorial

In the last few years there is a mass production of small and medium size APO and ED telescopes. Every single manufacture has its own 80mm-range APO and the prices are decreasing from month to month. But even though that every of these telescopes is advertised as “the premium telescope for astrophotography”, they all does not really satisfies the requirements of astrophotography.

There are some important factors when we are deciding for the telescope which will be used for astrophotography:

• good control of chromatic aberration
• 2″ cryford focuser (micro focuser is even better)
• flat-field or additional flattener available
• good and quality mechanics
• good optics
• low f-ration (focal length / aperture)

Now let’s take a look at three of the telescopes up to 1.000$ (800€) which are good choice for astrophotography:

1. William Optics Megrez 88 Doublet FD
   William Optics is well-known of quality of their instruments. Their latest Megrez seems to be one of the best choices this year. With the 88mm of aperture and 500mm of focal length (f/5.6) it covers large field with DSLR cameras.
2. Sky-Watcher Equinox 80
   Sky-Watcher’s the best series of ED telescopes works very good for astrophotography. They looks and performs like more expensive William Optics telescopes. The color is also different – some prefers black . With smaller aperture (80mm) and the same focal length as Megrez 88 has a little worse f-ratio (f/6.25) but it’s still very good choice!
3. Orion EON 80mm ED
   Orion EON 80mm ED seems like another version of equinox. Nevertheless, maybe some finds it more useful and cheaper in USA since Orion is more popular in America. The lens characteristics are just the same as Equinox’s.
   

Do you have your own preference? Express your doubt, agree or disagree under comments!

Thank you for reading!

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As we all know the optical system needs to be clean to provide very sharp and contrast image. All the small ‘dirties’ and dust affects to the image quality and reduces it.

If we use our telescope for night observations or astrophotography then the dust is collected on the optics in time. To get the best of our telescope we have to clean it sometimes. It is very important that we do that very carefully because we won’t be able to repair any of the scratches we may do during the cleaning.

Today I’ll give you some important information how to clean the primary and secondary mirror of the Newton type of the telescope.

Before we do anything we have to prepare some things we will need during the cleaning:

• Clean kitchenware that is larger at least 50% then diameter of our primary mirror fulfilled with warm water and a bit of detergent
• A clean towel
• Distilled water (approx. 1L)

Disassembly:

First of all we remove the primary mirror. We unscrew the screws which holds the cell of the primary mirror in the tube (Picture 1):

Picture 1

When we do that we carefully (!) remove the cell of primary mirror. There are different types of primary mirror holders so we have to figure out how to remove the mirror from the cell (Picture 2):

Picture 2

The disassembly of the secondary mirror is easier. We just unscrew the screws in the spider and that’s it. Just make sure that you are holding the secondary mirror all the time with one hand while with the other you are unscrewing. Otherwise it may happen that the secondary mirror falls to the floor and broke up.

Cleaning:

When we are sure that we removed all the parts which holds the glass we pick the mirror (Picture 3) and put it into the kitchenware with warm water. We just let it in it for some minutes. After that we grab it with both hands and starts moving it left and right in the water and all the dust will just flew away. We are doing that for some minutes. If we can still notice a dust on a mirror we can remove it by soft circle movements on the glass, but be careful here! Everything you should do in the water (Picture 4):

Picture 3

Picture 4

When we are sure that there is no longer dust and dirt we take the mirror out of the kitchenware and wash it with a distilled water over the bath. After that we don’t touch the mirror surface anymore. We just put it on a towel and let it to dry.

The same procedure we repeat with the secondary mirror (Picture 5). Anyway, it is not necessary that we remove the mirror from the holder because often it is glued to it.

Picture 5

After both the mirrors are dry we assemble the telescope back. We just need to be careful to make everything just in the back order we disassemble it. If we have done everything OK then our optics is prepared again to provide the best image quality!

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