This is a tough question to adequately answer in an email chain. You could
write a book on this - actually, people do... There's been some good
advice in this chain. I'm a relative AP novice but I've been doing visual
observing for over 35 years. That said, here are a few things I heard but
didn't listen to as closely as I should have that I will pass along:
- Start with what you have. It's a complicated and expensive hobby.
Starting this way lets you dip your toe in the water without over
committing.
- There's nothing wrong with starting with a cell phone adapter and then
playing with the image(s) with your basic phone/laptop software. You will
learn even when the results aren't great. (and they can be pretty great
btw!)
- Past using your phone, consider starting with whatever camera you have
on hand. There are some amazing pictures out there taken with basic
unmodified DSLRs and mirrorless cameras that are generations old. Nikon
D5100/Canon T3i jump to mind. Mount it on top of your scope or on a
tracking mount and see what you get. Figure out how to find focus
reliably. It's not as easy as it sounds. How long can you expose before
you get start trails? Process single images in iPhoto or whatever desktop
software you have. See if you like it. What could be better?
- If you have the budget, consider adding a light pollution filter so
you can shoot longer exposures from suburban areas. Optolong, Astronomik
and Radian make some good ones at different price points. Some drop
directly into cameras while others have to be placed in the imaging train
of the telescope. I'm on the edge of a white zone. Using a Sony a7iii
mirrorless camera at ISO 1600 through a 130mm refractor at f6.3, the sky
gets pretty washed out at 15 seconds. With a filter, I can shoot 5-10
minute subs and be fine - hence capturing more data.
- When you decide to start shooting through a telescope, start with
short focal lengths. This is more forgiving if your polar alignment and/or
guiding isn't spot on. It also allows you to use a less expensive mount
not just because you're using a lighter payload but because little errors
in the drive system (backlash and varied tension and other sources of
inaccuracies) will have less visible impact to the images - especially if
you follow the next bullet point
- Stick to short exposures and learn how to stack them. There's nothing
wrong with taking 30 30-second exposures of M42 and stacking them.
- For as difficult as setting up, calibrating, and executing taking the
actual pictures can be, it's nothing compared to the myriad ways you can
process them afterwards.
- There is no end to the number of post-processing applications and
software platforms out there. Test a few. There's less available for Mac
users than Windows, but that's improved greatly over the past couple of
years.
At this point, we're way past your initial question mostly due to budget,
but you get the idea. It's a path and just one man's opinion.
Go slow, have fun and expect failure. :)
Ron in Scottsdale
On Sat, Apr 25, 2020 at 11:56 PM Chase Douglas Anderson <
mysporthoops@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hey everyone,
I would like to get into astrophotography. I know very little about this
field and also do not have much money. Any ideas on how to start some basic
telescope photography?
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