Why is astrophotography hard?
So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
11–20 of 103 posts
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#12Binoculars are handy, but I wouldn't get anything cheaper than the Nikon Aculon series (usually $80-$120; they used to be the Action series). Sharp optics, wide apparent field of view...
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#13"What about Astrophotography?" Don't. Just don't.
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...
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#14One thing he didn't talk about is clock drives. They're essential for photography, but they're also good for keeping the scope on target if you want to let other people look through the scope. Especially at higher magnifications, the thing you're looking at will move out of the field of view in a few seconds without a clock drive. The one disadvantage of Dobsonians is you can't put a clock drive on them (well you can, but it requires two motors instead of one. And high magnification is not really the point of a dobbie anyway).
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#15"What about Astrophotography?" Don't. Just don't.
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.
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#16After attending and then volunteering at my local observatory for a few months, I pulled the trigger on a Nexstar Evolution 8. Tons of fun to let people choose what to look at on the iPad and the tracking keeps me from having to make adjustments every minute when we zoom in on Saturn to see Titan.
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#17I get this question all the time - "I am want to get started with Astronomy - which telescope should I buy ?" Its so important to make people realize , one does not need to have telescope right way. A decent pair of binocular (and probably a book with sky charts) is enough to spot the 1st few objects in the sky. If the hunger for celestial objects then one can go for the telescope else there is high chance the telesc…
Another thing I commonly get is (after explaining that decent telescopes have the ability to swap eyepieces (If you're lucky it'll take 2" ones without vignetting)) is which eyepieces will "get the most zoom." People seem to be under the impression that because most objects in the sky are far away, they are also really "small." So if misguided they'll go buy 4mm Kellners with huge coma, have a painful time trying to…
In english?
You seem to be giving good advice to newbees, but the language is incomprehensible to that audience.
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#18Why is astrophotography hard?
If you don't know how to use a telescope, you probably don't know how to get a telescope to track along with the Earth's orbit according to elevation and get an accurate long exposure photograph.
Plus, we're all spoiled by photos made by people with multimillion dollar telescopes... so the end product will be shit probably. There's some cool things that can be done wide angle but those have been done to death.
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#19Why is astrophotography hard?
Astrophotography requires more experience with the telescope handling, a more stable platform and usually the best beginners telescope for observing isn't ideal for photography.
For photography you should plan at least $500 for a tracking mount, you might start even with the cameras lenses or a small refractor telescope. "Barndoor" mounts are a good alternative for not too long focal lengths.
Photographic mounts for the recommended 8 inch newtonian would run at $ 1500+ and require precise setup.
The good news is, that modern digital cameras with interchangeable lenses are pretty capable for astrophotography, so if you own one of those, there is no reason not to try it. So the strong warning in the article was to set the proper expectations.
Re: So You Wanna Buy a Telescope: Advice for Beginners (2015)
#20[deleted]