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Hi all! Let me introduce myself first: My name is Andreas Dietz and I live in the geographical middle of Bavaria. I often wondered why technical equipment for stunning astrophotos always has to be in the range of several thousand dollars/euros. Especially for astrophotographers with a limited budget like me it seems to be impossible to achieve a satisfying quality at a first glance. All you need is a deep-cooled 50MP-CCD camera, a 100kg sturdy mount, a 40-inch scope and a observatory in your own garden in Namibia. Okay, I'd like to show you here my way of using low-cost equipment for amazing shots of (deep) sky objects with much less effort. It's also a bit against some kind of establishment... 8) My way so far: The most important thing is to understand the background why many astronomical devices are so sophisticated. From there you can optimize your budget by selecting devices with 50-80% of the performance of common high-end amateur equipment. You'll be surprised about the price drop when switching to mid-range equipment! The camera I use at the moment is an uncooled mirrorless Sony NEX-5 and a Sony NEX-5T which I modified for H-alpha sensitivity by removing the bad IR cut filter. It has a sufficient pixel size of 5 microns, a good resolution and low readout noise. As an imaging lens I use different manual lenses, especially Canon FD lenses (decreasing) and an increasing set of Samyang lenses. Some years ago I bought one of the last Newton telescopes from TAL Siberia. Also from TAL was a modified mount for 10kg loads. Two years ago I replaced it by a used OTE 150 I mount on a DIY concrete pier which should be able to carry at least 20kg. The most important thing for me was to have a fast reaction time when the clouds disappear suddenly. This saves invaluable time for integration. Despite of heavy light pollution at my home observatory, this is still a good compromise. To attuenate the effects of artififial light I decided to buy an Astronomik CLS-CCD filter. My budget: Sony NEX-5: 150€ TAL 6" f/5 Newtonian: 200€ Samyang 135mm lens (quite expensive, but worth every cent): 450€ Baader narrowband filter set (absolutely necessary at my location): 400€ OTE 150 mount: 350€ AstroEQ controller (Arduino based): 50€ concrete pier: 30€ My background: 20 years ago, in 1996, I had my first contact to astrophotography when comet Hyakutake visited our solar system. Since then I developed a passion for the imaging requirements. Starting with analog films, I switched to CCDs in 2000 when I built my first DIY camera, the famous Cookbook CB245 by Berry/Kanto/Munger. Being a student, I always had a lack of money to afford a more sophisticated camera system. Anyway, I started a career as an engineer of optoelectronics in the design of scientific and surveillance cameras. So I never drifted too far away from the matter. When the first mirrorless cameras appeared I realized a new era for astrophotography. The main advantage was and still is the really short back focal length of only 18mm in the case of the Sony E mount. As a father of two children and having built a home with an open garden observatory, I'm still in the low-budget domain of astrophotography. But this only spurs me on to optimize my low-cost equipment. Andreas |
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I have been working on a similar project for several years myself. I have spent well over US$10,000 trying to find a low cost practical deep sky imaging system. I have the money for a much more expensive setup, but I want to know where the bottom limit is. There are a number of things that I feel contribute to expense because I think in terms of life cycle costs. Therefore, I include things like shipping, equipment failures, ease of use, and other operational issues. It does not matter that something is not a piece of equipment, the question is does it take time and money? Time is an issue because time is money. The other question is what is good enough? I don't know how to quantify this so I can measure it. So you can see I feel the most challenging part of this project is trying to determine what criteria to use. I'm an engineer too, but I only spent one 1/3 of my career on the technical side. I spend 1/3 in sales and marketing, and the other 1/3 in finance. So I don't have a strictly technical perspective. I believe that portability is a very important cost criteria. A person trying to minimize cost most likely can't buy a house in the suburbs, needs something small and light to store in a small closet or draw, and transports to a place where they can see the sky. In astro imaging I have found that the most important component in the production of image quality is the mount. For this reason I think a tracker is a good alternative for the hub of such a system. The configuration that I think meets an acceptable level of quality at the lowest cost that I have been able to cobble up and test is: $279.00 iOptron SkyTracker Camera Mount $248.00 MeFOTO Aluminum Globetrotter Travel Tripod/Monopod Kit $399.99 Canon EOS Rebel T3 Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II (discontinued by manufacturer) $20.50 Neewer LCD Timer Shutter Release Remote Control for Canon $0.00 Deep Sky Stacker $0.00 Canon Digital Photo Professional (included with all Canon DSLRs) $39.99 Adobe Photoshop Elements (PC/Mac) $600 Moderate performance Windows Laptop PC $200 Mics items such as SD storage card, etc. $1,800 Total is still a hefty chunk of change. The Canon 18-55mm kit lens is wonderfully sharp with almost no chromatic aberration, however, magnification is disappointing. For more magnification (but much lower quality) I've used with the above hardware and software: $749.00 Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM Telephoto But if I were to do it today I would have purchased a: $499.00 Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC Telephoto Lens for Canon EF Bringing a kit I would recommend to a total of $2,300. This is not a cheap hobby.  |
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| if you have a small scope with tracking capability this is a good set up http://www.mallincam.net/skyraider-netbook-kit.html |
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You can do AP at a variety of budget levels. For quality results with not much money I like a camera tracker, a camera and a lens. Assuming you have a camera and a lens a good tracker can be had for $300 (if you have a tripod and a ballhead) to $500 (if you don't). Search this site for Skytracker or Staradventurer for the results. Very reasonable quality. I have a big setup, still use my tracker sometimes. It's easy and it's easy to take it to dark skies. |
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mark cooke: Sounds great! Do you know anything about the technical quality (and usability, reliability) of this kit? |
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This is a very interesting forum. I have been attempting to find a low cost platform for astrophotography for the past two years. Thus far I have been using the equipment detailed below with results I am very happy with. I made a bracket out of hardwood which has a small dovetail I scavenged from another telescope. The optical tube is attached via two 10/32"-8 machine screws. I drilled two mounting holes into the ota in order to through-bolt the bracket to the telescope. The after end of the bracket has a slot for a 1/4"-20 screw which attaches the DSLR and allows me to adjust camera focus. I am able to get steady 25 second exposures thus far. I am somewhat of a neophyte so I can't accurately say where I stand in terms of quality. Scope: Orion 80mm Short Tube Refractor Cost: $112.00 Mount: Ioptron Smartstar-A Cost: $279.00 Camera: Canon Rebel T3i (bought used) Cost: $216.00 Canon EF T-ring Adapter Cost:$15.00 Remote Shutter Release Cost:$10.00 Various Hardware Cost:$20.00 Skyview Pro For IPhone: $6.00 Grand Total: $655.00 |
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Hello everyone, Does anyone here have any experience with any of the Astrophotography DSLR camera mounts like the SkyTracker Pro or the SkyWatcher mounts? Are these things any good? How is the tracking? These all appear to be Alt/Az type mounts and not GEM so I don't get the purpose of a polar scope to do a polar alignment with these.Yeah I'm new at this & thought I would get started here before spending large sums of money on a telescope & mount that I can never seem to decide on. But that's another question entirely. |
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Hi Gary, welcome to AB! You may ask Marcus, he uses a Skywatcher SA for spectacular shots: http://www.astrobin.com/users/Marcus1968/ Don't hesitate to contact him, he's a very kind fellow! CS, Andreas |
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Whilst I already have a remote scope in Spain, I have recently been hankering for a low cost mobile solution. I bought a used Williams Optics Star 71 to use as a lens, used an old DSLR of my wife's as a camera, and my old HEQ5, driven by INDI on a raspberry Pi. Total cost to me was about £600, and allows me to get wide field images anywhere. Since I'd imagine most people have a DSLR, and you can pick up a used HEQ5 for about £300 ,you could get a pretty good mobile imaging solution for less than £1000, perhaps less since the total payload is only about 3kg, so a lower spec mount might also do well. Of course, I've since gone and made this more complicated by adding a ZWO OAG and guider  .Colin |
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| I think a good example of a superb astrophotography portfolio with a low budget setup is the work of Carlos Farbain (https://www.astrobin.com/users/kiko.fairbairn/), from Brazil. Carlos has been doing incredible astrophotography and won the 2016 Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer. Carlos did most of his work so far with a Skywatcher star adventurer tracking platform, DSLR and camera lenses. He is a good testimony of what can be achieved with great acquisition and most of all, post-processing skills. |
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Gary Chaney: Gary, they are indeed equatorial mounts, that's their whole reason for existence. The plate on the tracker that the ball head attaches to rotates at the sidereal rate, and is aligned with the celestial pole. I have an iOptron Skytracker Pro, and I like it quite a bit. If I'm careful with my polar alignment, I can shoot 60s subs all night with a 180mm Nikon lens. There are other mounts out there that will do better than that (AstroTrac for one) but not at the same price point. I also have an AVX and a couple of tubes to put on it, but I almost always get the tracker out while I'm shooting with the bigger mount, because it's fast and easy, and why the heck not? |
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Eduardo Oliveira: Carlos' excellent work is more a good testimony that today the limiting factor is not the equipment but the quality of the sky! If it's of low effort for you to drive to a dark location then this is an important part to do successful AP. CS, Andreas |
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Andreas Dietz: No doubt a dark sky is important. But I've seen countless astrophotographers with darker sites and more expensive equipment doing comparatively less impressive work. As I said - and I know Carlos well enough to say this - its his post-processing skills that have made the difference. |
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| Hello everybody! As Andreas said, I also think dark skies really does the job well done ... its #1 priority...nobody does miracles at an light polluted environment... Wish I would have take a chance imaging from a really dark skies with my Canon 450D @ 30ºC... I really want some night taking some pictures from a nice pitch black sky ... :-) |
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| I tried a new technique, stacking with no tracking, a few weeks ago, and it looks promising. I'm planning to see exactly what the limitations are to this technique. |
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| Wow, that came out really well! sounds like a fun experiment. |
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Hi All, just introducing myself: this is Gianlorenzo (@GLM). I have used Astrobin for a while, but found this group only now. Had a passion for astronomy since I was a kid, bought my first telescope (a TAL 1) during a trip to Minsk ~1996 (bringing it back through airport security was fun...), started taking pictures ~2016 profiting of the clear winter skies of southern California. My 2 setups: - Panasonic FZ200 + iOptron Skytracker PRO - Celestron 130EQ ($150 including the equatorial mount from Costco) + SVBONY SV305 + SVBONY 3X Barlow typically processing images with DSS, followed by GIMP, sometime using StarTools. Lynkeos (with some personal code modifications) for the planets. Recently started using Siril. All on an iMac. I mostly shoot from my backyard, but my location is close enough to Mt. Palomar so I went a few times to steal photons to the big eye up there. Ciao! GLM |
