A Speck in Space
A Speck in Space
Speck in Space
Getting Started
Looking at the universe through a telescope is great but being able to photograph it is even better. The sensor of a camera is so much more sensitive than the human eye and picks up so much more information than we can see. This is what makes Astrophotography more appealing to me.
So what do we need to Image? First off you can get some great pictures of the night sky with Just a DSLR Camera and Tripod. This is known as Widefield Astrophotography. This could be Imaging the Milkyway across the Sky or trying to bring out an image of a constellation such as Orion.
To Image Deep Space Objects (DSO) or Planets in detail you will need a telescope. My choice of Telescope is the Skywatcher 200p, its not my only Telescope but it is my Favorite. I will not go into to much detail about the F ratio or focal length. sometimes to much info can confuse people.
Now I have a few little Gadgets on my Telescope that Help with my Imaging. First there is a DC Focuser that connects to my Laptop so that I can focus with out causing any vibration through the telescope. This helps so much. You want your images to be as clear as possible. There is nothing worse than spending hours imaging to find the Data you have is all just a bit out of focus.
I also have a Guide camera mounted behind the focuser. I will come to explain this bit of kit as we go on. Next though is the mount or Tripod.
I have a Skywatcher EQ6 Goto mount. I was against the idea of a Goto mount, because I enjoyed having to search for my target. It was great to use the setting circles on the mount to locate your target, but now I need the Goto mount so I can Guild accurately. The great thing about this mount is its robust and steady. You don't want any vibration to effect your work. I managed to get this second hand from a friend as a standard model and then upgraded it to a Goto with Skywatchers upgrade kit.
For me to be able to guide I need a guide Camera. This is a ZWO ASI 120 MC. I got this camera for imaging the planets as it is a Planetary camera. I have a camera lens that was given to me by a friend years ago and it screws onto the M42 thread. I use this connected with the Goto mount to my laptop and Guide with a bit of software called PHD.
So what is Guiding? in a nut shell software uses the camera to take images of a star and measures the movement of that star then send correction pulses to the mount so the object that you are imaging stays in the same spot and all the stars in your image are small and round instead of being oval.
This allows for long exposure times when imaging.
My Choice of Camera was the Canon EOS 1300D. Its 18 Meggapixal and gives great images. The reason we Use DSLR is because we can capture an image in RAW allowing us to process with a lot more Data. I will come to all that in another Blog.
Instead of a lens we have an adapter. This is so the camera can slot into the eye peace of the telescope.
There are many option of Astro Camera available, but they work out really expensive. I have found the DSLR is a great compromise between price and quality images.
This is a Bahtinov Mask. A focusing tool for Astrophotography. with this tool you can get pin point stars.
The Star forms crossed lines with a third line across the middle. this line moves up and down as you focus in or out. When central the image is in focus.
Now all you need is a good laptop. Most of the software is free to down load from the internet.
For Guiding PHD2 www.openphdguiding.org>downloads
DSO locating Sellarium www.stellarium.org
Canon DSLR software www.canon.co.uk
Thank you for reading.