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So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

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Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#41

Post by geff82 »

lake99 wrote: post #28

The advice here seems dated, even for 2015. Here's my advice: 1. Install an astronomy app on your mobile phone. Start with free ones, and see where it leads you. I recommend Skeye. This is good for going out by yourself and looking up things you see in the sky. For a PC, Stellarium is the best I have seen. 2. Get a camera capable of taking long exposure RAW photos, and get a tripod. There is so much hidden within the…

The advice not to do astrophotography is meant for the beginner. He wants you to concentrate "on the thing itself" first, on watching the stars, navigating to an object, controlling the telescope, getting a feeling for what eyepiece is good for what situation, getting a feeling on how wind affects your viewing experience, getting a feeling on where to put up your telescope, getting a feeling on how the environment affects the number of stars you see. He wants you to learn all those basic things first and not skip it. He essentially advises you not to take part in a tech arms race as a beginner. When you got a good feeling for the sky and your telescope and an appreciation for nature, he will surely not tell you not to take beautiful photographs of the sky.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#42

Post by dingaling »

skybrian wrote: post #11

Why is astrophotography hard?

Astrophotography as a concept isn't hard, just like photography isn't hard; compose, expose, focus, fire.

But just like, say, wedding photography the actual execution to create good results requires a lot of experience and expensive kit. You can catch some passable images of the night sky with a basic SLR and lens just like at Aunt Maud's wedding, but beginning star-watchers see those magnificent photos of galaxies in magazines and to avoid huge disappointment it's kinder to set expectations at the outset.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#43

Post by ackfoo »

I used to love to go out at night with my 10" reflector and see a point of light magnified to... a point of light. For variety, I would look at binary stars to see... two points of light. Sometimes, I would search for nebulae and galaxies to see... a fuzzy patch of light. Optical astronomy is such fun.

Now, alas, the light pollution is so severe that all my points of light and fuzzy patches are severely washed out.

So I sold my telescope and took up scuba diving. It was all fish and coral, fish and coral, until a few years ago. Now it's no fish and fuzzy white patches that used to be coral.

The former coral looks like nebulae and galaxies through light pollution in my 10" reflector.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#44

Post by rimantas »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

With a naked eye you can also see star clusters and nebulas. Of course, everything will look more impressive in the photo, bu still.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#45

Post by aortega »

rimantas wrote: post #44
aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

With a naked eye you can also see star clusters and nebulas. Of course, everything will look more impressive in the photo, bu still.

Star clusters are just a lot of point-like stars, and nebulas are really faint, if visible at all in the city. Though globular clusters are cool.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#46

Post by LoSboccacc »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

sure a robot mount and photo stacking changes everything, but makes the entry price jump from 500$ top to 2k$, which would just turn down any beginner

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#47

Post by lake99 »

geff82 wrote: post #41
lake99 wrote: post #28

The advice here seems dated, even for 2015. Here's my advice: 1. Install an astronomy app on your mobile phone. Start with free ones, and see where it leads you. I recommend Skeye. This is good for going out by yourself and looking up things you see in the sky. For a PC, Stellarium is the best I have seen. 2. Get a camera capable of taking long exposure RAW photos, and get a tripod. There is so much hidden within the…

The advice not to do astrophotography is meant for the beginner. He wants you to concentrate "on the thing itself" first, on watching the stars, navigating to an object, controlling the telescope, getting a feeling for what eyepiece is good for what situation, getting a feeling on how wind affects your viewing experience, getting a feeling on where to put up your telescope, getting a feeling on how the environment af…

> The advice not to do astrophotography is meant for the beginner.

My advice is meant for the beginner as well. All the other things you pointed out, well, you need to learn those things for astrophotography, even if you don't have a telescope. Given how many of us have DSLRs, this is something we can start today.

> He essentially advises you not to take part in a tech arms race as a beginner.

I did not advice getting into the arms race either. My advice was on getting started for free. But here's the thing. I did not ignore recent advances in hardware and software (i.e. cameras, smartphones, apps).

Compare the simulated picture of M31 in the article and the one shot with a 50mm kit lens: http://petapixel.com/2014/07/30/sony-a7s-astrophotography-re.... One can do much better with lenses that go to 200mm, which the stock zoom lens on some cameras already do.

If you make huge investments on viewing equipment and try to get into astrophotography later on, it might turn out that your equipment is completely unsuitable. Ignore it at your own peril.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#48

Post by acqq »

_ph_ wrote: post #34
lake99 wrote: post #28

The advice here seems dated, even for 2015. Here's my advice: 1. Install an astronomy app on your mobile phone. Start with free ones, and see where it leads you. I recommend Skeye. This is good for going out by yourself and looking up things you see in the sky. For a PC, Stellarium is the best I have seen. 2. Get a camera capable of taking long exposure RAW photos, and get a tripod. There is so much hidden within the…

Astrophotography without a telescope is indeed a good starting point. Get a bright 50mm lens and just with a simple barndoor tracker you can do amazing things. But as this article is about buying a telescope - and astrophotography through a telescope requires more skill than a complete beginner might imagine.

For those who don't know, this is what's possible without the telescope and the camera you can use for the other photos too:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/119551085@N06/15418169222/in/a...

Just Sony NEX-6, a tripod and 30 seconds on the (carefully selected) convenient place.

Using image stacking software is also a fantastic tip, big thanks to the sibling comments.

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#49

Post by zerr »

Tomte wrote: post #15
zerr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's quite an elitist response... Just don't... listen to this advice. You only live once. Try what you want to try, enjoy with what you want to enjoy. You can always "don't" (i.e. stop) if you won't be happy, and do some other things which makes you happy...

That's quite an "I haven't read the article" response. The author doesn't absolutely forbid dabbling with astrophotography, he simply says that it is very hard, not suitable for beginners, and backs it up with good arguments.

I was referring exactly to that part/paragraph of the article. In fact, the author even says that it is harder for professional photographers (compared to beginners).

Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)

#50

Post by lmm »

aortega wrote: post #29

I disagree with the astrophotography thing. Even with a telescope your human eyes are limited to planets and the moon, that's it. Forget about seeing galaxies with the naked eye, unless you have a 1-meter diameter telescope. All other objects are basically points of light. Artificial satellites are really fun to see, but also points of light. But a 2006 DSLR (EOS400) that I found in the garbage, connected to a cheap…

Depends what it is that appeals about a telescope. If you want to see the most detailed possible realtime pictures of the ISS/Jupiter/Mars/etc. from your apartment, an Internet stream is going to be much better quality than anything you can produce with your own gear. So if you're using a telescope at all it's because you care about in some sense "seeing it with my own eyes". For some people using a camera "breaks" that feeling.
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