photography filters guide
Questions on astrophotography?
I have owned a C-11 on a german equatorial mount for several years now. It tracks beautifully, and I am considering expanding into photography. Pretty sure I want to go with a CCD approach, but my concerns are:
1. Color or monochrome with multiple exposures and filters? I’ve heard color is getting better in terms of fine detail – any experiences worth relating?
2. Do I need to take a laptop to the site? I have one, but it might get messy. What are the advantages / disadvantages?
3. What do I need for guiding?
I don’t know much about it. I will also be working with my club and my telescope dealer friend, but every opinion helps. My long-term interests are in the area of deep-sky objects, although some lunar / planetary shots would be great and would obviously be easier in terms of exposure time, tracking fatigue, etc..
Thanks for your help!
A one shot color camera will get you color images much faster than using a monochromatic camera with red, green and blue filters, then combining the images plus a luminance frame into a color image. But you will find the monochromatic cameras to be more sensitive than the color camera. And you can use a hydrogen alpha filter with it to image emission nebulae even from the middle of cities. You can also use the camera for other things such as spectroscopy and exo-planet hunting if you so desire. Amateurs have already confirmed planets spotted by professionals with small telescopes and CCD cameras. The monochromatic cameras can also see into the UV and infrared bands. Overall, these cameras can do things with amatuer telescopes professionals with large telescopes could only dream of 30 years ago.
You will need a laptop computer at the site, and moreover a hefty portable power source for it and your telescope. Don’t even think of using your vehicle’s battery, it will be drained and you will be stuck in the hinterlands. Unless you plan to use one of the super sensitive video cameras to make videotape, the laptop computer is a must because CCD cameras create digital images. They can also be analyzed by astronomers for all sorts of useful information as well. The downside is of course, the need for a hefty power source and you will have to spend time later to get the images into a usable form. Astrophotography, whether film or CCD based is far too complex to describe in detail here.
As for guiding, you can use a separate guide scope mounted on the main scope, an off axis guider or you can use a CCD autoguider. Many of the more expensive and capable camera combine both imaging and guiding into one unit. It’s much better to align the mount carefully on the celestial pole and let the camera and auto guider do the work for you. CCD imaging ruthlessly shows every flaw in your optics, focusing and guiding that film astrophographers never have to worry about. Take the easy way out and use a camera that can control the mount and do the guiding for you. Also, you will want a focal reducer to speed up the exposure time and get a reasonable field of view. Unless you want extreme closeups of small objects such as planetary nebulae or lunar craters, you need either a F/6.3 or F/3.3 focal reducer for your C-11.
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