About Astrophotography
Astrophotography is a rewarding hobby and can be started with a standard film or digital camera and a tripod by taking star trails of the night sky.
Beyond star trails requires a digital camera or a webcam and a computerised telescope to take images of the planets.
Deep space astrophotography requires a financial and time commitment to achieve good results. There are a few things needed in this area in order of priority:
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Solid telescope mount that is designed for astrophotography work.
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A cooled 16-bit astronomical CCD camera. Most domestic digital cameras are 8-bit are not sensitive enough for this work.
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A refractor or reflecting telescope.
To achieve outstanding astrophotography results the following 4 points should be considered:
- Telescope Mount
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A mount that has been designed to minimise tracking errors known as periodic error and random error. On a good mount the manufacture will state these errors to be under 5 arc-seconds peak to peak without PEC. With PEC turned on the mount’s errors can be reduced to less than 1 arc-second.
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Mounts with higher tracking errors can be corrected with the use of an Adaptive Optics device which will make the mount track to less than 1 arc-second.
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- CCD Camera
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An inbuilt autoguider or an external autoguider to make corrections for residual mount tracking errors.
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A CCD camera with a pixel size suited for your telescope.
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- Telescope Optics
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Apochromatic refractor will produce stunning wide field images.
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Ritchey-Chretien and corrected Dall-Kirkham telescopes will produce outstanding narrow field images and are corrected for optical aberrations like coma.
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- Additional Accessories
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A digital focuser with absolute positioning.
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