Question about this setup

http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in diving
right into imaging, but want something that has the potential in the future.
Thanks,
-Tom

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:48:09 -0700, "Tom E."
wrote:

http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in diving
right into imaging, but want something that has the potential in the future.

You have to guide for long exposures because no telescope mount is
100% accurate, so plan on guiding. With this 80 mm telescope a good
way to get started in astrophotography is to use a camera on a
piggyback mount. You can guide through the main telescope with a
guiding eyepiece and make pictures through the camera. When you
decide that sitting in the dark for hours while trying to keep a star
on the crosshairs of your guiding eyepiece is fun you can get into
other forms of astrophotography.

Tom E. wrote:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in
diving right into imaging, but want something that has the potential
in the future. Thanks,
-Tom

The Vixen GP is a good choice with a lot of flexibility without implicit
financial ruin. But astrophotography can mean many different things
depending on who you are talking to. So explaining what kind of imaging you
might want to attempt could be helpful.

I own two Vixen mounts: a Super Polaris (the predecessor to the GP) , and a
GPDX. What I like about these mounts is among other things the ability to
replace motors and controllers with 3rd party solutions that are very good
quality and cheaper than the original. The SP mount was bought many years
ago when I had zero experience, but I still use it today.

Whether you need guiding or not depends on the focal length and exposure
time of the camera you are imaging with. And guiding is not the only option,
periodic error correction can be an alternative. But these things are not
what people start using without some experience. For wide field imaging, all
you need is a good motor like the MT-1/SD-1 shown, but you will not be able
to use any guidecamera with it.

clear skies
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457

"William Hamblen" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:48:09 -0700, "Tom E."
wrote:

http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in diving
right into imaging, but want something that has the potential in the
future.

You have to guide for long exposures because no telescope mount is
100% accurate, so plan on guiding. With this 80 mm telescope a good
way to get started in astrophotography is to use a camera on a
piggyback mount. You can guide through the main telescope with a
guiding eyepiece and make pictures through the camera. When you
decide that sitting in the dark for hours while trying to keep a star
on the crosshairs of your guiding eyepiece is fun you can get into
other forms of astrophotography.

Can I just photograph through the scope, and get a mini-borg or somthing
as a guidescope and look through that for an hour or two? Is there an
eyepiece
that contains crosshairs? I could put a ccd camera on the mini-borg and
look at it on a laptop comp, which would cut down on eyestrain:-)
Another poster was recommending an Meade LXD75. It seems to have
autocorrecting capabilities.
-Tom

I am not interested in diving
right into imaging, but want something that has the potential in the
future.

I think that the various flavors of this idea is the cause of a whole lot of
trouble. My advice is to buy for today, which often (not always!) means a
good visual setup like a small (6"-10") dob.

Dennis

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 12:38:12 -0700, "Tom E." wrote:

Can I just photograph through the scope, and get a mini-borg or somthing
as a guidescope and look through that for an hour or two? Is there an
eyepiece
that contains crosshairs?

Yes. Manual guiding involves putting a piggyback telescope onto your imaging
scope and keeping a star centered on the reticle of a high power eyepiece. The
guidescope does not need good optics, but it should have a long focal length
compared to what you are imaging with.

I could put a ccd camera on the mini-borg and
look at it on a laptop comp, which would cut down on eyestrain:-)

Actually, it is possible to guide using an inexpensive low-light security camera
and a B&W monitor with crosshairs drawn on it.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

guiding eyepiece is fun you can

this should be replaced by "..guiding eyepiece is NO LONGER fun you can..."

Chris L Peterson wrote:

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 12:38:12 -0700, "Tom E." wrote:

Actually, it is possible to guide using an inexpensive low-light security camera
and a B&W monitor with crosshairs drawn on it.

Not only possiblebut advantageous.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 20:16:05 GMT, Chris L Peterson
wrote:

Yes. Manual guiding involves putting a piggyback telescope onto your imaging
scope and keeping a star centered on the reticle of a high power eyepiece...

I should have mentioned the other approach to manual guiding, an off-axis
guider. This is a unit that sits in the optical path of your scope, in front of
the camera, and picks off part of the field outside the camera FOV and directs
it to a reticle eyepiece. This can be more robust than a piggyback scope because
you are guiding on the same optics you are imaging with.

_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

"Carsten A. Arnholm" wrote in message
...
Tom E. wrote:
http://www.buytelescopes.com/product...pid=4681&m=102

With this setup and optional motor drive, what kind of luck would
someone have in imaging stars without smear? Is a guiding scope
absolutely essential for any level of astrophotography? If so, what
is the cheapest way of going about that? I am not interested in
diving right into imaging, but want something that has the potential
in the future. Thanks,
-Tom

The Vixen GP is a good choice with a lot of flexibility without implicit
financial ruin. But astrophotography can mean many different things
depending on who you are talking to. So explaining what kind of imaging
you
might want to attempt could be helpful.

I own two Vixen mounts: a Super Polaris (the predecessor to the GP) , and
a
GPDX. What I like about these mounts is among other things the ability to
replace motors and controllers with 3rd party solutions that are very good
quality and cheaper than the original. The SP mount was bought many years
ago when I had zero experience, but I still use it today.

Whether you need guiding or not depends on the focal length and exposure
time of the camera you are imaging with. And guiding is not the only
option,
periodic error correction can be an alternative. But these things are not
what people start using without some experience. For wide field imaging,
all
you need is a good motor like the MT-1/SD-1 shown, but you will not be
able
to use any guidecamera with it.

clear skies
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457


I second what Carsten says. Although I disagree with PEC being an
alternative to to guiding. It should be though of more as a method to
suppliment the drive of the scope, meaning that guiding corrections won't
need to happen as often. If you can do both together then you've got alot
of potential for perfect shots.

That scope has all the required elements for long exposure astrophotography,
the Equatorial mount. I'd suggest starting with some long exposure wide
field photography to start with, use a 50mm lens on a standard SLR with a B
setting. Put this ontop of your stope (so that you can guide with the
scope) set the focus to infity then open the shutter for 20 mins. This
should give a really good photo that'll wet your apetite for more. Then,
take you time and find the kit that will suit you most.

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com