William Optics ZS71ED telescope with 2x teleextender for effective focal length of 836mm.
Mature Bald Eagle.

[Robin]

I'm glad you like the bokeh. That's one thing with the telescope that I actually don't like; I find it quite distracting. I'd really like the 150-450. Telescopes just aren't designed with bokeh in mind.

I've had my 150-450 less than a month, and yes, I love it! But I doubt it's magnification is nearly as good as your telescope?

[Vaskebjorn]

Great shot.
I am always on the lookout for them here, but unfortunately they are very rare over here.

[aitrus3]

I've had my 150-450 less than a month, and yes, I love it! But I doubt it's magnification is nearly as good as your telescope?

You'd be surprised. Refractor Telescopes only offer crazy magnification when you pair them with an eyepiece. My telescope without the 2x teleconverter is only 418mm. So it's less than your 150-450. Where they shine is taking wider-field images of nebulae and bright galaxies: easier to focus and lock focus than a normal lens. That and it's easier to attach a dedicated astrophotography camera, filter wheel, power focuser, field flattener etc.

---------- Post added 11-14-2019 at 08:02 AM ----------

Great shot.
I am always on the lookout for them here, but unfortunately they are very rare over here.

Thanks! Where abouts is "here"? And do you have a salmon run? While we do have more than most other areas normally, we are overrun in the spring and fall when the salmon are moving.

[Vaskebjorn]

Well, here is in the Netherlands. We only have a couple of breeding couples.
And a salmonrun only happens here if the supermarket has a discount

Thanks! Where abouts is "here"? And do you have a salmon run? While we do have more than most other areas normally, we are overrun in the spring and fall when the salmon are moving.

[aitrus3]

Well, here is in the Netherlands. We only have a couple of breeding couples.
And a salmonrun only happens here if the supermarket has a discount

Heh! I didn't know the Netherlands had any, so that's a step forward! Sad to hear only a couple breeding couples, not far away from extinction in your area.

[Vaskebjorn]

Actually they are increasing in numbers. In my “backyard” there is a couple and a juvenile and some 30km down the road there are about 5. It might be another subspecies though. I am not really a bird expert.

Heh! I didn't know the Netherlands had any, so that's a step forward! Sad to hear only a couple breeding couples, not far away from extinction in your area.

[Robin]

You'd be surprised. Refractor Telescopes only offer crazy magnification when you pair them with an eyepiece. My telescope without the 2x teleconverter is only 418mm. So it's less than your 150-450. Where they shine is taking wider-field images of nebulae and bright galaxies: easier to focus and lock focus than a normal lens. That and it's easier to attach a dedicated astrophotography camera, filter wheel, power focuser, field flattener etc.

I have a T ring, which I picked up with some other old equipment somewhere, lying on the desk next to my computer. It's waiting patiently for it's telescope to come

[aitrus3]

I have a T ring, which I picked up with some other old equipment somewhere, lying on the desk next to my computer. It's waiting patiently for it's telescope to come

Nice! What brand/model do you have coming?

[Robin]

Nice! What brand/model do you have coming?

Nothing coming yet, unless Santa has seen my wishlist, but I've been thinking on a Celestron Newtonian. The computerized star finder would be handy, but I was thinking of starting off with a manual model?

[aitrus3]

Nothing coming yet, unless Santa has seen my wishlist, but I've been thinking on a Celestron Newtonian. The computerized star finder would be handy, but I was thinking of starting off with a manual model?

That really depends. You have a T-adapter so you're planning on trying to take photographs? I remember somewhere that newtonians focal point is inside the focusing tube, so that means your camera won't actually be able to come to infinity focus without significant modification to the main mirror of the telescope or using a barlow lens with t-thread so your t-adapter fits. The barlow lens may or may not work though, it depends on your camera and the telescope itself, you'd have to google the specific model you're thinking of to see if others are using their DSLR and how. This is why I decided to buy a refractor, and why it's very popular with DSLR astrophotographers. Some you just need the t-ring, but on mine I need to add a couple extension tubes to get the camera back far enough for infinity focus. Much easier and it's a guarantee that you get infinity focus.

If you don't have much to spend, I'd honestly buy a Dobsonian and if you find you like being up late at night, then start looking at getting something else. Dob's are easier to manoeuvre and find objects manually but they're big and not very portable.
If you really want to start taking pictures though, you need a few things: 1. the mount is the most important piece you can buy, and good mounts are expensive. However, if you really wanted to get into this, you could forgo the telescope and use your 150-450 lens on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer mount, the Astro package. I'm not sure how much you lens and camera weigh, but pretty sure the Star Adventurer can handle it. Conversely, you could buy a small refractor, like a William Optics Z61ED and use it on the Star Adventurer with your camera setup. the 61ED is a focal length of 360mm and that's without a field flattener, so you'd still have more reach with your 150-450. Any bigger than a 61ED (other than maybe a 63-64) then weight becomes an issue for the Star Adventurer. With any mount, you don't want to exceed more than 50% of the advertised weight limit when imaging; any more than that and tracking starts to have problems. This is why the mount is the most important piece, and it HAS to be a good quality Equatorial. And for more serious imaging than what the Sky Adventurer would offer, I'd not go any less than a mount that costs $1100-$1500. EQ 2-4 range mounts really don't offer much more than the Star Adventurer offers.
I would not even consider buying a traditional(computerized or not) Alt-Az mount for photography. You need to modify it too much to make it work for astrophotography with a Equatorial wedge and camera de-rotator to compensate for field rotation.
Short of it: do your research. A LOT of research, if you want to start into astrophotography. If not, a Dob is a good bet, but you'd get a lot of visual use from some of the prepackaged Alt-AZ computerized mount/telescope combinations: they're by far the easiest computerized rigs to setup and operate. EQ mounts, even the Star Adventurer, can be frustrating to learn how to use right out of the box. I know, because I struggled for 2 years to learn how to set my HEQ5 Pro mount up, and I still have issues every now and then.

[Robin]

Short of it: do your research. A LOT of research, if you want to start into astrophotography.

Wow, Thank you Aitrus. My head is still spinning after all that! I can see a lot of reading in my future, before I reach outer space ! And maybe I must do some fiddling with the 150-450, with the 1.4x converter.

[aitrus3]

Wow, Thank you Aitrus. My head is still spinning after all that! I can see a lot of reading in my future, before I reach outer space ! And maybe I must do some fiddling with the 150-450, with the 1.4x converter.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to astrophotography setups. I can't stress enough though: the mount is the MOST important. SO if you really wanted to go that route, nix your telescope idea and put all the money into a mount first. You'll get some great shots with that 150-450. And don't use the 1.4x teleconverter at first. 450mm will fill the frame with M42, Andromeda will spill out of the frame, you'll have awesome views of the Whirlpool and Triangulum galaxies, and the Pleadies will be real nice too, and at 450mm, with a mount like the HEQ5Pro, you'll be able to get 2-3 minute exposures (maybe more) without an autoguider. If you use the 1.4x teleconverter you darken the image and your max unguided tracking time reduces, so you're limited in what you can actually accomplish. Length of exposure vs. stacking 100s of shorter shots is what matters the most. I don't care what others say, you can ALWAYS get more detail out of much longer exposures that are stacked than a whole bunch of stacked short exposures.
Also remember, Planetary and deep space photography are two different nuts to crack. Planetary requires a huge amount of magnification, video frame capture from a proper astrocamera to get as many frames as possible, and special techniques to strip the frames out the video and stack them for clarity.
So, pick what you want and go from there.

[Vaskebjorn]

Hi Aitrus,
I am following this discussion with interest. It looks you are really “invested” in Astro. Could you post 1-2 photos. I am terribly curious. I do not think i would go into that direction, but always love the photos. I tried a couple of time with my K3 and both of my lenses but never got anything satisfactory.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to astrophotography setups. I can't stress enough though: the mount is the MOST important. SO if you really wanted to go that route, nix your telescope idea and put all the money into a mount first. You'll get some great shots with that 150-450. And don't use the 1.4x teleconverter at first. 450mm will fill the frame with M42, Andromeda will spill out of the frame, you'll have awesome views of the Whirlpool and Triangulum galaxies, and the Pleadies will be real nice too, and at 450mm, with a mount like the HEQ5Pro, you'll be able to get 2-3 minute exposures (maybe more) without an autoguider. If you use the 1.4x teleconverter you darken the image and your max unguided tracking time reduces, so you're limited in what you can actually accomplish. Length of exposure vs. stacking 100s of shorter shots is what matters the most. I don't care what others say, you can ALWAYS get more detail out of much longer exposures that are stacked than a whole bunch of stacked short exposures.
Also remember, Planetary and deep space photography are two different nuts to crack. Planetary requires a huge amount of magnification, video frame capture from a proper astrocamera to get as many frames as possible, and special techniques to strip the frames out the video and stack them for clarity.
So, pick what you want and go from there.

[aitrus3]

Hi Aitrus,
I am following this discussion with interest. It looks you are really “invested” in Astro. Could you post 1-2 photos. I am terribly curious. I do not think i would go into that direction, but always love the photos. I tried a couple of time with my K3 and both of my lenses but never got anything satisfactory.

Sure, here are some of my own, experience decreases as you go further down.










And then I also like to play with Hubble data, colourizing narrow band images in Affinity Photo. These are my edits taken from B&W open source Hubble data from the MAST archives. The B&W data is taken using different filters that only let a narrow band of light through. This tells us what kinds of gasses are present in any given object. ALL hubble imges start as 3 or more B&W images from different filters, and they get colourized with post-processing techniques where each of the RGB channels are assigned a particular type of gas.

[Vaskebjorn]

I found your Flickr account . You got an extra follower now.
I am also intrigued by your moonshots. You seem to get two colored ones and I read on your account why, but how do you tweak these colors or is that entirely manual.

Sure, here are some of my own, experience decreases as you go further down.