Estimating how large an image will become on a camera-sensor is pretty straight-forward. All you need to know is the arc-size of the celestial object that you are about to target. Just an example: you want to photograph the Moon with a refractor with 600mm focal length. You have to know that the Moon measures about 0.5° at the sky (it's not constant and not an exact figure, but it suffices here). Take the tangent of half this arc, i.e., tan(0.25°). Multiply this with twice the focal length, in this case twice 600mm. The result is 5.24 mm. So, in this example, you can predict that the Moon will be projected onto your camera-sensor at primary focus as a disk of 5.24mm. Depending on the size of your camera-sensor, you now can decide whether you like this or not. Of course, the same works the other way around. Knowing the size of your camera-sensor, you can calculate what arc-size of the nightly sky will be captured, depending on your focal length.
You're right, but that wasn't the purpose of this video. This was for pure beginners who might not know arc-sizes and may not even have any gear yet but would like an example as to what is achievable with an APS-C sensor. Main reason I chose that was because buying that size for a beginner is more common due to price. A visual example is always nice to see. Thank you for watching!
A nice look at the various focal lengths Daylon. Thanks for including some Southern Hemisphere objects, we often get overlooked :-). I use the 135 Samyang a lot, great for the Tarantula nebula and LMC region.
That's fine. I know someone who did the same. Some people pick it up and it just...works. But, to be safe, I always recommend starting lower in focal length and go up from there to make guiding less of a hassle in the early stages of learning.
Very nice explanation! I'm shooting at 728mm with a 16mm diagonal square sensor. It clips the bigger deepsky targets like the andromeda galaxy and even the rosetta nebula (which need mosaics), but it has the depth for most of the Messier catalog objects. I'm guiding on an old EQ6 with a synscan upgrade. EON 130ED APO, 0.8 reducer, ASI533MC, ASIAir pro.
Great advice for the 8se...the mount was very frustrating for me. its in the closet now and i dought that it will be coming out of the closet. lol i have enjoyed the difference of the EQ6-R mount with the asiair plus and guide scope.
The only reason I would use those mounts that come with the Nexstar series is for visual during some outreach. Easier to set up and get going with a crowd nearby. But for photography, no way!
I'm going to do my first Astrophotography session Tuesday and Wednesday in a Bortle 3 location. As a beginner, using what I have and mastering it is a good start. (Using the Samsung S22 Ultra). Next year, I'd like to add on something around the 275-300mm focal range and start doing tracking. Then I'd like to add something around 800 - 1000mm (Sky Watcher 10” Quattro Imaging Newtonian?), then add an EdgeHD8. I'd like to buy only one tracker, so it'd probably be the EQ6-R Pro and after I get all the telescopes I want, then add something like a GTI. Then I can wake up from my dream because it's going to get expensive quickly lol
LMAO at the dream thing, it does get pricy! The EQ-6 is a good choice if you are trying to future proof your setup and allow a wide range of scopes. Definitely start small in focal length and get used to the process before moving to something bigger, as it is less forgiving with the guiding. Start with a DSLR too so you can use wide lenses for Milky Way shots too!
I'm curious why more folks don't consider full frame bodies for wide shots: it's about the same price as a Rokinon lens for a used full-frame body. Different camera to be sure, but it makes a lot of sense. I have a bunch of different camera lenses from 24 to 1200mm, plus a Maksutov at 1000mm. I got a good deal on some older lenses, so I'm going to stay down that route until my skill begins to outpace my gear. FWIW, 1200mm(APS-C) works well on the moon, and 1200mm plus stacked teleconverters gives recognizable Jupiter images. A long telescope plus Barlow would probably be ideal, though, unless I wanted to buy a planetary astrocam. If there were a planetary cam that did double duty on my microscope, I might consider it.
Thanks for your excellent succinct video. A friend and I have SeeStars with 50 mm objectives, fl of 250 mm at f/5. But, framing of the sun and moon is fairly tight due to the tiny camera sensor. I think I read that the SeeStar's affective fl is more like 1,750 mm. The moon's framing is similar to my C6 1,500 mm fl at prime focus, but not as tight as my C8's 2,000 mm fl...both with a DSLR full frame camera.
Those are great, but definitely go with a telescope when you can. The extenders can reduce the amount of light to the sensor and change the focal ratio, and the glass for telescopes with a flattener can produce better stars. Don't worry, what you have now is fine, it's just a thought for the future when you can upgrade :)
I shoot in 400mm with a TravelScope80 and 500mm with a 114mm f/5 reflector. I just bought an ASI585 a couple of days ago, and I´m thinking in a Skymax 127 for Planets and small DSOs and a RedCat51 for all the other DSOs. I´m from Colombia so , the gear here is expensive, i have to be patient, save some money and take it easy.
I've been using an Askar FRA 400 (I do have the 0.7x reducer), focal length of 400/280, with a dslr but just moved to the ZWO ASI224MC. Im worried the small chip size may have been a mistake since Im quite keen on doing nebula. I bought it because it was on the low end for price. Any recommendations on a better dedicated astro cam choice that isnt $400+?
So, for the 224MC, it's for planetary use, not for nebulae. You'll want to look in the DSO section of ZWO's site to see which ones are for nebulae. There really isn't any choices below $800 new though. You could check the used markets and maybe get a deal but you'll still be over $400 =/
I've seen certain Celestron mounts in action even before I bought my first one.... I'm hesitant, even though the scopes and accessories they make are pretty great.
Identical set up for me. I am just getting started and so far so good with Whirlpool Galaxy, Pinhweel and Hercules Cluster. That’s all I’ve gotten so far. Would love to see examples of some of your shots as I learn best targets with this setup.
@@vintzing look me up on facebook and send me a message and i can send you some pics. I am only new to this as well but i am stunned at how good some of the pictures I have taken are. Getting my head around the processing is the hardest part
Nice…. I stay with 50mm F1.2, 200mm F4, 480mm 80mm APO at F7 and 1250mm f10 5 inch SCT… I just don’t have the time to use more reach these days… I’m mostly used my Canon 50 1.2L or 70-200L or the 80 APO at 450… For the moon and planets I’ll get the 5” SCT out at 1250mm or 2500mm with Barlow… it would be nice to have a fancy 11” f2, funds aren’t available though, sadly… I’m mostly using a full frame Canon 5D mkII, 7D mkII or a non cooled mono camera that I use mostly for guiding but can shoot at 1080 as well, have been looking for a cooled Astro CMOS mono camera w color wheel…
I feel you with that Nifty Fifty. I use it for both astro and for taking pics of my dog. It's a beast of a lens! You can't go wrong with it whether it is widefield Milky Way Core shots or something during the day. Your list of scopes is great though, you have a ton of flexibility, I don't think you need that fancy 11" just yet!
They are, but the reason I skipped them was because refractors are easier to use. When you don't deal with collimation for imaging, it helps out the beginner. Of course, once I got into SCT range in the video, that can be more challenging but it's also beyond what you'd want to put a newt on an EQ mount. I hope that clarifies why I didn't add them. I'm not dismissing them, they are great, but refractors are generally easier to use.
I would not get anything else. I said the Ritchey-Chrétien was tough, but not impossible. I have collimated it a few times and it has behaved for me. I have a sigma 150 to 600 mm lens and this covers just about all the fields of view I need. Besides, the lens is great with my ZWO 070 MC Pro so I just place this on my CEM 40, my ASIAIR Plus and I am ready to go. BTW, I tried the Chromecast dongle and found that it could not talk to the ASI AIR Wifi. It did not recognize it. Too bad. Back to something else to get the display from my Android tablet to my flat screen. Bill
Well, Bill, if that scope is working well for you, who am I to argue? lol. Run with it! That Chromecast thing is a bummer. Was a neat idea, but one of these smart devices out there should be able to see what the AIR is seeing. I have an Amazon Fire stick I'll play around with some time.
Hi Daylon, I have an 8 inch Richet-Cretian telescope at 1624 mm FL ant f8. great scope, but a real bear to collimate, not enough detailed instructions on the Net to be really useful.
Estimating how large an image will become on a camera-sensor is pretty straight-forward. All you need to know is the arc-size of the celestial object that you are about to target.
Just an example: you want to photograph the Moon with a refractor with 600mm focal length. You have to know that the Moon measures about 0.5° at the sky (it's not constant and not an exact figure, but it suffices here).
Take the tangent of half this arc, i.e., tan(0.25°). Multiply this with twice the focal length, in this case twice 600mm. The result is 5.24 mm. So, in this example, you can predict that the Moon will be projected onto your camera-sensor at primary focus as a disk of 5.24mm. Depending on the size of your camera-sensor, you now can decide whether you like this or not.
Of course, the same works the other way around. Knowing the size of your camera-sensor, you can calculate what arc-size of the nightly sky will be captured, depending on your focal length.
You're right, but that wasn't the purpose of this video. This was for pure beginners who might not know arc-sizes and may not even have any gear yet but would like an example as to what is achievable with an APS-C sensor. Main reason I chose that was because buying that size for a beginner is more common due to price. A visual example is always nice to see. Thank you for watching!
A nice look at the various focal lengths Daylon. Thanks for including some Southern Hemisphere objects, we often get overlooked :-). I use the 135 Samyang a lot, great for the Tarantula nebula and LMC region.
Haha, yeah Ollie, not all DSO's are in the Northern Hemisphere! 135 is a great lens.
Thank you ! I’ve been looking for this!!
Welcome back to RUclips! Very informative as always. Glad to see content coming out!
Thanks Dan! It was fun getting back into it. On to the next one!
Fantastic video, pure gold for my newbie selection. THANKS !!
Thank YOU for watching. I hope it helped you in your journey!
I am thinking of getting into Astrophotography and this has been very helpful. Thank you
Man, you’re gonna get a kick outta this. I just started and did so with a 9.25” EdgeHD and an eq6r pro with a a 533mc pro on a hyperstar. 😂
That's fine. I know someone who did the same. Some people pick it up and it just...works. But, to be safe, I always recommend starting lower in focal length and go up from there to make guiding less of a hassle in the early stages of learning.
Very nice explanation! I'm shooting at 728mm with a 16mm diagonal square sensor. It clips the bigger deepsky targets like the andromeda galaxy and even the rosetta nebula (which need mosaics), but it has the depth for most of the Messier catalog objects. I'm guiding on an old EQ6 with a synscan upgrade. EON 130ED APO, 0.8 reducer, ASI533MC, ASIAir pro.
Nice setup. A lot of versatility with what you have!
Great advice for the 8se...the mount was very frustrating for me.
its in the closet now and i dought that it will be coming out of the closet. lol
i have enjoyed the difference of the EQ6-R mount with the asiair plus and guide scope.
The only reason I would use those mounts that come with the Nexstar series is for visual during some outreach. Easier to set up and get going with a crowd nearby. But for photography, no way!
I'm going to do my first Astrophotography session Tuesday and Wednesday in a Bortle 3 location. As a beginner, using what I have and mastering it is a good start. (Using the Samsung S22 Ultra).
Next year, I'd like to add on something around the 275-300mm focal range and start doing tracking. Then I'd like to add something around 800 - 1000mm (Sky Watcher 10” Quattro Imaging Newtonian?), then add an EdgeHD8.
I'd like to buy only one tracker, so it'd probably be the EQ6-R Pro and after I get all the telescopes I want, then add something like a GTI. Then I can wake up from my dream because it's going to get expensive quickly lol
LMAO at the dream thing, it does get pricy! The EQ-6 is a good choice if you are trying to future proof your setup and allow a wide range of scopes. Definitely start small in focal length and get used to the process before moving to something bigger, as it is less forgiving with the guiding. Start with a DSLR too so you can use wide lenses for Milky Way shots too!
I am at 800mm @f4 with a coma corrector, and sometimes use a focal reducer.
Great video.. 👍👍
I'm curious why more folks don't consider full frame bodies for wide shots: it's about the same price as a Rokinon lens for a used full-frame body. Different camera to be sure, but it makes a lot of sense. I have a bunch of different camera lenses from 24 to 1200mm, plus a Maksutov at 1000mm. I got a good deal on some older lenses, so I'm going to stay down that route until my skill begins to outpace my gear. FWIW, 1200mm(APS-C) works well on the moon, and 1200mm plus stacked teleconverters gives recognizable Jupiter images. A long telescope plus Barlow would probably be ideal, though, unless I wanted to buy a planetary astrocam. If there were a planetary cam that did double duty on my microscope, I might consider it.
I think a lot of it comes down to price and compatibility with current gear. I could be wrong but that's my guess.
I shoot with AT72EDII w/reducer @ 336mm FL and a AT130EDT W/reducer @ 728mm FL!
Thanks for your excellent succinct video. A friend and I have SeeStars with 50 mm objectives, fl of 250 mm at f/5. But, framing of the sun and moon is fairly tight due to the tiny camera sensor. I think I read that the SeeStar's affective fl is more like 1,750 mm. The moon's framing is similar to my C6 1,500 mm fl at prime focus, but not as tight as my C8's 2,000 mm fl...both with a DSLR full frame camera.
Thank you for watching!
Great info, I will be using a m4/3 camera and 300mm f/4 lens and possible 1.4x and 2.0x extender. What's your thoughts?
Those are great, but definitely go with a telescope when you can. The extenders can reduce the amount of light to the sensor and change the focal ratio, and the glass for telescopes with a flattener can produce better stars. Don't worry, what you have now is fine, it's just a thought for the future when you can upgrade :)
I shoot in 400mm with a TravelScope80 and 500mm with a 114mm f/5 reflector. I just bought an ASI585 a couple of days ago, and I´m thinking in a Skymax 127 for Planets and small DSOs and a RedCat51 for all the other DSOs. I´m from Colombia so , the gear here is expensive, i have to be patient, save some money and take it easy.
In the few months since this comment, did you get any of that? Don't get aperture fever and get it all now! lol
I've been using an Askar FRA 400 (I do have the 0.7x reducer), focal length of 400/280, with a dslr but just moved to the ZWO ASI224MC. Im worried the small chip size may have been a mistake since Im quite keen on doing nebula. I bought it because it was on the low end for price. Any recommendations on a better dedicated astro cam choice that isnt $400+?
So, for the 224MC, it's for planetary use, not for nebulae. You'll want to look in the DSO section of ZWO's site to see which ones are for nebulae. There really isn't any choices below $800 new though. You could check the used markets and maybe get a deal but you'll still be over $400 =/
Thanks. Yes, the stock celestron mount is less than ideal. :) I know, because I have one. LOL.
I've seen certain Celestron mounts in action even before I bought my first one.... I'm hesitant, even though the scopes and accessories they make are pretty great.
WO GT-71 with WO focal reducer ASI533MC Pro camera. takes great pics
Identical set up for me. I am just getting started and so far so good with Whirlpool Galaxy, Pinhweel and Hercules Cluster. That’s all I’ve gotten so far. Would love to see examples of some of your shots as I learn best targets with this setup.
@@vintzing look me up on facebook and send me a message and i can send you some pics. I am only new to this as well but i am stunned at how good some of the pictures I have taken are. Getting my head around the processing is the hardest part
Nice! Good combo of gear you have :)
Nice…. I stay with 50mm F1.2, 200mm F4, 480mm 80mm APO at F7 and 1250mm f10 5 inch SCT… I just don’t have the time to use more reach these days… I’m mostly used my Canon 50 1.2L or 70-200L or the 80 APO at 450… For the moon and planets I’ll get the 5” SCT out at 1250mm or 2500mm with Barlow… it would be nice to have a fancy 11” f2, funds aren’t available though, sadly… I’m mostly using a full frame Canon 5D mkII, 7D mkII or a non cooled mono camera that I use mostly for guiding but can shoot at 1080 as well, have been looking for a cooled Astro CMOS mono camera w color wheel…
I feel you with that Nifty Fifty. I use it for both astro and for taking pics of my dog. It's a beast of a lens! You can't go wrong with it whether it is widefield Milky Way Core shots or something during the day. Your list of scopes is great though, you have a ton of flexibility, I don't think you need that fancy 11" just yet!
Why did you exclude Newton telescopes? The are very common for deep sky astro, cheap and relative easy to use! Range is app. 650 to 1200 mm
They are, but the reason I skipped them was because refractors are easier to use. When you don't deal with collimation for imaging, it helps out the beginner. Of course, once I got into SCT range in the video, that can be more challenging but it's also beyond what you'd want to put a newt on an EQ mount. I hope that clarifies why I didn't add them. I'm not dismissing them, they are great, but refractors are generally easier to use.
I would not get anything else. I said the Ritchey-Chrétien was tough, but not impossible. I have collimated it a few times and it has behaved for me. I have a sigma 150 to 600 mm lens and this covers just about all the fields of view I need. Besides, the lens is great with my ZWO 070 MC Pro so I just place this on my CEM 40, my ASIAIR Plus and I am ready to go. BTW, I tried the Chromecast dongle and found that it could not talk to the ASI AIR Wifi. It did not recognize it. Too bad. Back to something else to get the display from my Android tablet to my flat screen.
Bill
Well, Bill, if that scope is working well for you, who am I to argue? lol. Run with it!
That Chromecast thing is a bummer. Was a neat idea, but one of these smart devices out there should be able to see what the AIR is seeing. I have an Amazon Fire stick I'll play around with some time.
Really helpful thx
I'm glad it could help. What was it in the video that helped you out?
It just helped me pick a focal length
Hi Daylon, I have an 8 inch Richet-Cretian telescope at 1624 mm FL ant f8. great scope, but a real bear to collimate, not enough detailed instructions on the Net to be really useful.
Ah that's a bummer. If you were to switch to something else, what would you switch to?
130-140mm Tak or Tec; 2000-2500mm AG Optic or Paramount; and 300-400mm Tak Epsilon. You need 3 scopes with reducers.
Nice setups!
@@AstroEscape Typo. 130mm Epsilon (fl=400mm). Yes,,quality scopes. I wish you to get those ones as well.
Thank you
You're welcome, Ray!
I am using a Bresser 102mm refractor, focal length 450mm, f4.5 and a Canon EOS t2i DSRL. I can photograph all of M31. The planets all look like stars.
That sounds about right!
im shooting at 3810 for my edgeHD 14
Lemme guess, you're primarily a planetary imager?
@@AstroEscape ehhh kinda but mostly with stars and far out DSO
Samsung S22 ultra 230 mm periscope telephoto is what I'm using!
Very nice, Ashish!
I’m shooting with 400mm Rasa8
Very nice!
416mm
It is APS-C
Oh, I know. I've been called out about it multiple times >_
400mm and 750mm
aspc sensor lmaoooooooooo bro did you check before posting?
Haha, I probably glossed over it during editing but I definitely noticed rewatching a week later.
I'm shooting at 1500mm...
Enjoy those views of the planets and the "smaller" DSO's!
Just say NO! to the Radian Raptor!
O_O what? Why? What did it do?