Posts Made By: Ralph Encarnacion

I used to have a SolarMax 40 with a BF10 and have put my filter on a PST to double stack the PST. I would go with the Solarmax 40 BF10 combo. It has a bigger sweet spot, a much bigger BF filter, and you can always double stack it in the future and make it even better.
Ralph

I see you upgraded the mount already. Are you still using the Atik ATK-16? Your M27 looks really good. You gotta love H-Alpha and light pollution. They just go together.
Ralph

Nice image Jim. How are you getting that camera to work with the filter wheel and the 3.3 focal reducer? I tried my True Technologies filter wheel with my SXV-H9 and couldn't get the camera close enough to the FR. Are you using a filter wheel or just screwing each filter in front of the camera or what.
Thanks
Ralph

Rob, it looks to me like you can use a field flattener or focal reducer. I have the same camera as you, but I use the shorter FS-60C with a Meade 6.3 FR and it seems to work pretty good for me and it's a whole lot cheaper than the Tak FR. You can see my setup here: http://www.pbase.com/panotaker/fs-60c
Ralph

Nice image David. Congratulations on your new camera. Now all you lack is the autoguider and you won't have to work as hard. Was this taken at COE?
Ralph

Hello Rob. I am no expert and I am learning just like you, but I do have the same identical equipment as you. AP-130F/6, SXV-H9, STV, G11/Gemini. I think both of the pictures you posted are slightly out of focus, or you had really bad seeing. I haven't shot the bubble in color yet, but you can see my H-Alpha version here: http://www.pbase.com/panotaker/image/63417299 if you click on previous, you can see my color M27.

Im shooting from Austin Texas with lots of light pollution and I don't use the IDAS LPS filter.
Ralph
Ralph

I believe you have to make your own cable. The cable that comes with it won't work. I had to make one for my GPDX with SS2K and an ST-237. I then got a ST-4 and got lucky and bought the cable I needed on Astromart. I found a diagram for the STV on the SS2K Yahoo group that might help you http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ss2k/message/2616 You might search on that group or ask there to see if someone has done it before.
Ralph

Looks like you are picking this up pretty quick David. Nice shots.
Ralph

What you are looking for is the Tak 2" compression ring adapter http://buyusedtelescopes.com/product.asp?t=&pid=2415&m=35 It basically screws on to the back of the scope and lets you put on any 2" or 1.25" adapter on your baby Tak without having to buy all the other Tak adapters. Here it is mounted on my scope http://www.pbase.com/panotaker/image/55120757 The only thing is that a 2" diagonal wont come to focus with it with some eyepieces. To make a 2" eyepiece come to focus, you need the other shorter adapter that someone else recommended, and then you will also need a high dollar Tak diagonal to go along with it. I just use a 24 pan on a 1.25" diagonal for wide views.
Ralph

Astrophotography means different things to different people. I am going to assume you want to shoot DSO's and not wide field milky way shots or planet or moon shots.

The minimum you will need is a 80mm ED scope like the Orion ED 80. I would put that on a Celestron CG5 Advanced Series Goto Mount. Then either get a DSLR camera or an Atik 16 CCD camera. I would then get the Stellarvue F50B2 9x50mm Optical Finder, take off the eyepiece and put a webcam in it's place and use that as my guidescope and autoguider.

You still need all the other miscellaneous bits and pieces like software and hardware to make it all work, not counting a laptop. If you buy everything used, it will probably be close to your $1500 budget. Realisticly, you are probably going to end up spending close to $3K to take your first half way decent picture. Some people think that blurry pictures with elongated stars is a halfway decent picture, I don't.

I would just take that $1500 and buy a used GP/DX mount with Skysensor 2000 controller (SS2K). That way you would have a world class astrophotography mount which is the most important thing. Then start saving up for all the other stuff.

My portable setup is a GP/DX-SS2K with a TV-85 on it. I use a converted finder scope as my guide scope with an ST4 autoguider on it. I then either use my DSLR on it or my SXV-H9.

If you want to do astrophotography on a budget, go here: http://www.andysshotglass.com/ and read all his articles.
Ralph