On 25/08/2011 05:04, jwarner1 wrote:


Rich wrote:

A top-flight consumer digital camera, that will allow you to produce
noticeably better pictures in some circumstances will cost $2000-
$10,000. Before, only the lens determined the output for the most
part because 100 ASA/ISO film was 100 ASA/ISO film. So, a $400 SLR
body produced images pretty much the same as a $1500 body. But today,
the top sensors are full frame and low noise and cost considerably
more than the APS sensors in low-cost cameras.

More "Rich" trolling from the brain dead Canute.

And yet the humble webcam for around $20 and registax (freeware) allows
a patient planetary observer with a relatively modest 8 or 10" scope to
take images that professional ground based observatories could not even
dream of in the days of film. It has opened up a new vista and resulted
in Jupiter impacts being captured more or less in realtime since there
is now a very good chance that someone somewhere on the planet is
imaging Jupiter for lucky imaging with almost continuous coverage.

http://www.space.com/8997-fireball-j...ywatchers.html

Suitable webcams were remaindered recently in the UK for £6.95!

Cutting-edge astrophotography is dominated by mega-thousand dollar CCD
cameras, $1000 filter wheels, and RC telescopes or other large
telescopes. 30 years ago, a big Newtonian, relatively affordable was
all that was needed because film was film, it worked the same way in
most cameras and was cheap. But today, expect to pay at least $10k to
get into the astrophoto big leagues. A class system has always
existed when it came to telescopes. Before AP was Questar and there
has always been Criterion and big dob scope classes. But the
photographic devices are stratified.

Depends what you want to image. There are not that all many targets for
deep sky imaging that require a huge field of view to record them. And
mosaicing is not beyond the wit of man with modern software. Peltier
cooled CCDs are now commonplace in amateur observatories and benefit
from the low cost per image and easy digital manipulation of images.

Film was film in the old days, but you had to pay a lot extra for astro
hypered 103aE and the like. It didn't keep well. Cold cameras were very
tetchy to work with and pretty much beyond the reach of all but the most
dedicated amateurs. Autoguiders were hopeless so to get round stars
required continuous manual guiding. You have selective memory.

So, years ago, a guy with a 10" Newtonian and a basic camera could
theoretically produce near the same results as someone with a much
more expensive rig, but you have no chance today of doing that because
the receiving mechanism and its support componets are variables and
highly different from each other.

Lucky imaging with a cheap webcam and registax will get amateur results
for planetary imaging that are almost as good as professional ground
based observatories. The equipment cost need not be a barrier to entry.

And modern gear has autoguiding that actually works!

A few lucky amateurs now even have realtime tip tilt correction of first
order seeing problems for deep sky imaging.

It's particularly funny when a magazine runs an astro-photo contest
offering rinky-dink prizes like an entry-level 5" Newtonian worth $400
when the winner of the contest will likely have $10,000+ worth of gear
at his/her disposal. What will they do with the cheap Newt, use it as
a doorstop?

But thats the trend, all for one. Only one survives.

Another worthless astro troll adds his two penneth.

Regards,
Martin Brown