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So hey, quick question: Would either of these options be suited for Astrophotography, specifically Deep Sky stuff such as galaxies / nebulae? https://www.highpointscientific.com/telescopes/celestron-nexstar-102-slt-computerized-telescope-22096 https://www.highpointscientific.com/telescopes/celestron-nexstar-127-slt-computerized-telescope-22097 I have a Meade Infinity 102 that I've been using for lunar photography, as well as a Star Adventurer Pro package and a Canon T2i with an 18-55mm and Sigma 70-300mm that I've been messing around with whenever I get the chance, but I'm looking at computerized setups now more than ever. I'm absolute poo poo at finding Messier objects myself and frankly, my 6'5" self is tired of hunching over to fiddle with my polar alignment or adjust the focus on my T2i's lens I've already got a T-Ring and 1.25" T-adapter that I use with my Meade, just hoping to find something relatively affordable in the GoTo mount department that I can toss my camera on. I'm really trying to keep my budget under $600 if possible because as-is, either of those options would take a bit to save for and I'm not trying to spend $1k or more T1g4h fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jun 17, 2021 |
# ¿ Jun 17, 2021 01:18 |
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# ¿ May 14, 2024 11:11 |
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Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I genuinely appreciate all of that, you have given me a ton of stuff to bookmark and study tonight. These are my best 2 shots that I have managed to get as photo tax for all the help and advice! The moon is a composite of probably 6 - 8 shots taken with my Meade Infinity 102, and the Andromeda shot was a pure luck one I managed with my 300mm telephoto. I have a right angle viewfinder on the way that will hopefully make it easier to get my focus sorted out since I won't have to bend at such odd angles to see what i'm doing
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# ¿ Jun 17, 2021 21:05 |
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It's incredible how much difference an eyepiece makes. My right angle viewfinder for my T2i arrived today so I decided to go out and do a few quick test shots to see if it actually helped. It 100% did, no more contorting myself at awkward angles to try and see how i'm looking or guessing at focus! This isn't amazing, but the important part is it's actually in focus. Vega in the top, Epsilon Lyrae down and left, and Zeta down and right. Considering I did a fairly quick and dirty polar alignment and was shooting with my 300mm telephoto, I'm not at all upset!
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# ¿ Jun 19, 2021 06:56 |
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Yooper posted:I was basically where you are a bit over a year ago. Hooking up the laptop to the camera opened up ease of focusing and plate solving so I didn't spend a whole night imaging nothing. After solving one glaring issue I'd suddenly discover another one. Ditching the telephoto lens for a prime lens was next, then mount etc. etc. This is beautiful! simble posted:
As is this! This thread is seriously getting me excited to try and advance my own astrophotography, y'all are posting some amazing shots! I managed to get this tonight. Used my Meade Infinity 102 with a 2x Barlow and my T2i. It's not awful, but I can definitely tell i'm going to need a better telescope at some point. The chromatic ab on the Meade is super noticeable unfortunately.
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# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 03:40 |
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simble posted:
This is absolutely beautiful! It's also making me consider an H Alpha filter even more than before.
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# ¿ Aug 4, 2021 01:10 |
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I'm still waiting on the IEXOS-100 to come back in stock. Explore Scientific's website still has a restock estimate of July 2021 which has kinda come and gone
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# ¿ Aug 10, 2021 02:50 |
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I'm pretty much convinced M31 is my white whale at this point. Every time I get a night off and the astronomy forecast predicts clear skies and great transparency, clouds end up rolling in out of nowhere by the time I get my gear set up
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# ¿ Sep 3, 2021 05:24 |
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I'm lucky enough to live in rural Arkansas, with a lot of wide open fields in Bortle 2/3 areas maybe 20 minutes from my house. I don't have as much viewing area as someone in, say, the desert because 90% of my surroundings are dense forest, but the ones I do have are awesome Rip Testes posted:First bit of imaging for me in quite some time. Would love to do some of this awesome deep sky work in this thread if I ever obtain the gear. Speaking of awesome, these are both incredible!
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# ¿ Sep 7, 2021 17:08 |
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I know that this is absolute garbage compared to what everyone else has been posting, and I do apologize for that, but this is legitimately kind of a big deal for me because this is the closest I have gotten to actually capturing M31. It's only 45 minutes or so worth of 30 second exposures, because I ended up having to scrap a TON of shots due to my lens fogging and condensation causing me all sorts of grief, but I actually finally got more than a single 30 second shot of Andromeda and I'm somewhat proud of that! And now I want to go out and try again and try to get even longer exposures, and get multiple hours worth, and... Yeah. I'm kinda stoked
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 18:19 |
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simble posted:This rules! I don't want to share some of my earliest attempts at anything so good for you. I am curious what your setup is. My setup is nothing special right now, just the basics: Star Adventurer Pro mount, Canon T2i and either a Sigma 70-300mm telephoto for deep sky stuff like Andromeda or the 18-55mm kit lens for more wide stuff like the Milky Way. I'm trying to get an iEXOS-100 but every place I've checked is backordered so i'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting on those to come back in stock That nebula shot is fantastic btw! Definitely inspiring me to invest more in my gear so I can hopefully one day start attempting that sort of thing!
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 21:40 |
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Yooper posted:Canon has a 50mm lens that's F1.8, it's known as the "nifty fifty" and does really good widefield stuff. The aperture is much faster than the 18-55 kit lens and it's like $125. Oooh, noted! I actually have a 50mm f/1.4 Yashica and a 50mm f/2 Pentax that I could try, now that you mention it. They're both fully manual lenses, the Yashica from the 60s or 70s and the Pentax from the 80s. They might make for some interesting shots!
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# ¿ Sep 10, 2021 22:59 |
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SOON. Should hopefully arrive by Monday, I'm excited to take this thing for a spin and see what kind of photos I can get!
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# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 22:28 |
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Scored what seems like a super good deal at work tonight! $78 for what is, according to Celestron's website, a 900mm focal length at f/13 doesn't seem too bad at all. I'm excited to try it out in place of my current Meade Infinity 102 for lunar images, and since I already have a 2x Barlow I might even have an excuse to try and view Jupiter finally!
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# ¿ Dec 2, 2021 10:07 |
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That is absolutely breathtaking. Your photos are always incredible!
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# ¿ Dec 3, 2021 21:29 |
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pumped up for school posted:Speaking of flame nebula: This is awesome! Especially with no tracker or guiding, really well done!
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# ¿ Jan 31, 2022 19:35 |
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Out of curiosity, do any of y'all have any experience with the PoleMaster? I'm thinking about picking one up around tax return time since the polar scope + adapter combo for my iEXOS-100 is out of stock / backordered everywhere I look. There's no official adapter for my mount, but from the poking around i've done it looks like I can either have one 3D printed or I can buy an adapter to mount it to my dovetail that my DSLR is mounted to. I figure this is a cheaper and easier way of polar aligning than going with a full on dedicated guide camera / guide scope for the time being and it's way better than my current method of "Use my phone along with StarWalk / Stellarium to get everything pointed in vaguely the right area" because the factory boresight on this mount is absolute rear end
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# ¿ Mar 17, 2022 23:44 |
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simble posted:I'm going to assume that you're talking astrophotography here. What are you using for acquisition? Both NINA ($Free) and Sharpcap ($10 or $15/year, I think) have pretty good polar alignment features. They'll use whatever camera you have. It doesn't have to be a guide camera, and in fact, you could definitely make the argument that using your main imaging camera is more accurate. Both will work with a manual mount and a go to mount. Astrophotography, yeah. I'm using a Canon T2i with a 70-300mm Sigma for most of my shots. I haven't actually tried NINA / Sharpcap to be totally honest, I've been playing with the stock Explore Scientific app and doing 2 / 3 star alignments that way without ever hooking my camera to my laptop. I genuinely never thought about trying to hook it up if I'm being honest, Explore Scientific's app communicates over WiFi by default so I've been using that. I know it has drivers for ASCOM but I know nothing about that and have never delved into learning it.
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# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 00:24 |
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simble posted:Can the polemaster be used without a computer? I genuinely don't know and glancing at the docs it looks like no. If it can, then that would be good enough. If you need a computer anyway, then try one of the apps first. I think you'll find them needs suiting. Sorry, I should have specified! I'm currently using an iEXOS-100 GoTo mount, controlled over its own WiFi hotspot via laptop and the Explore Scientific ExploreStars app. That's what I mean when I say I have never tried the ASCOM drivers and things like NINA. I know the mount supports them at least, ES has their own set of ASCOM drivers for the iEXOS-100 and I believe a client? Up until now the mount has been collecting dust while I waited on warmer weather, hence me not getting a chance to fully dive into everything I've been using just a normal cable shutter release for the actual camera, and doing all my slewing / GoTo stuff via the laptop and ExploreStars, but if NINA can handle both the actual alignment process and telling the mount where to go, I might have to look into trying that instead. The ExploreStars app is nice since it has all the movement controls and a database of Messier objects, but I'm not opposed to switching if NINA has the same functionality and more, I just don't know anything about it
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# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 00:55 |
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Internet Explorer posted:Finally had some clear skies and some time to do some astrophotography and I ended up calling it quits in frustration. I feel like it's always something different that I'm having trouble with and I'm just not good enough at it yet. And it feels like it's impossible to actually practice. Man, I feel this to the depths of my soul. Between work and constant rain, I have had maybe 2 days where I could set up everything and practice, and both of those times were spent teaching myself how to use NINA and ASTAP. I think I finally worked out everything but I don't have any actual photos to show for it because, go figure, more rain is moving in and I've been busy working These are awesome. Raikyn posted:I don't really know what I'm doing yet, but I took a couple of nebula shots tonight, just single shots These are also awesome! You guys are seriously good at this.
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# ¿ May 2, 2022 06:01 |
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Raikyn posted:I added a couple more hours to the vela supernova remnant that I had taken earlier. I think the sky was slightly darker this time round as well which helped. This is absolutely stunning!
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# ¿ Feb 20, 2023 23:10 |
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Phanatic posted:Looking into replacing my mount. Hi friend. I have an Explore Scientific iEXOS-100, the older version of this, the iEXOS-100-2, and it's surprisingly simple. It's been months since i've done the setup, but you can run it via WiFi or USB using the PMC8 configuration manager and ASCOM drivers. My setup last time I messed with it was just my laptop, iEXOS, Canon T2i, and then two USB cables to connect to the camera and mount with NINA driving everything. You still have to have the drivers but otherwise it's relatively painless! I think you can also control it using an Android tablet but I don't have access to one of those to tell you how well that works. Downside: polar alignment sucks pretty hard out of the box because you just get a goofy boresight and it's a real pain to use if you're like me and have awful eyesight. You can remedy this with NINA after you get roughly aligned but it's worth noting. Also, the default base doesn't have any fine azimuth adjustment, that's a $100 extra adapter. No, I am not joking. I still need to pick one up.
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# ¿ Nov 16, 2023 03:26 |
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Man, if I hadn't already sunk a bunch of money into this iEXOS setup i'd be all over one of those, the results are incredible considering just how compact that thing seems!
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# ¿ Mar 23, 2024 06:21 |
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I'm directly in the path of totality so i'm hoping the clouds hold out! Lot of Cirrus clouds but nothing else so far, so here's hoping i'm able to get some decent photos! Good news is I'll be able to just walk out in my driveway and see it so I don't have to lug my stuff very far
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# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 18:16 |
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I know this isn't super amazing so please forgive me. My 70mm refractor was just slightly out of focus because of how utterly nervous I was about missing it
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# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 20:30 |
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# ¿ May 14, 2024 11:11 |
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It was visible as far South as Little Rock apparently, because I have friends all over the state who were posting some pretty incredible pictures! I'm sad I was stuck at work all night but i'm living vicariously through them.
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# ¿ May 11, 2024 05:53 |